There is a conflict at the heart of family law between neoliberal ideas of autonomy, which increasingly influence law and policy, and the lived realities of family law's subjects. Neoliberal norms, which assume individual responsibility, financial independence, and freedom of choice, do not reflect the nature of decision making in intact families or the consequences of those decisions on separation; separation raises multiple intersecting legal issues, including financial and child arrangements, providing an important lens for family law more widely. Drawing on the findings of original empirical research with separated parents, this article explores three key assumptions of individuals in the neoliberal paradigm: that they have equal bargaining power, behave economically rationally, and have freedom of choice. Not only do all three assumptions fail to capture the realities of separating parents’ lives, but they actively cause harm in the family law context by devaluing care.

中文翻译：

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新自由主义、家庭法和护理的贬值

新自由主义的自治思想对法律和政策的影响越来越大，家庭法的核心与家庭法主体的现实之间存在冲突。承担个人责任、经济独立和选择自由的新自由主义规范并不反映完整家庭中决策的性质或这些决定对分离的后果；分居引发了多个相互交叉的法律问题，包括财务和子女安排，为更广泛的家庭法提供了一个重要的视角。本文借鉴了对分居父母的原始实证研究的结果，探讨了新自由主义范式中个人的三个关键假设：他们具有平等的议价能力、在经济上的行为合理以及有选择的自由。