Key Sociologists - Family

• Parsons argued that the family has two main functions:

  
  

  "The social structure of the family"

  
  

  • Primary socialisation: Families are vital in passing on norms and values.
  • Stabilisation of the adult personality: The family helps to relieve the stress of modern society. The family is like a ‘warm bath’ in that it provides comfort and warmth.
• Rapoport & Rapoport (1982):

  
  

  Discovered five types of family diversity in the UK:

  
  

  • Organisational diversity - How labours divided between members
  • Cultural diversity - How religion + ethnicity affect lifestyle.
  • Social class diversity - How class affects family, relationships, + socialisation experiences.
  • Life Cycle - members of different historical periods adapt new attitudes
  • Family life course diversity - how structure of family changes over time
• Chester (1985):

  
  

  • Argued the nuclear family remained the main family type in the UK as most people tend to live in a form of the nuclear family at some point in their lives.
  • Most families types start out as nuclear families e.g lone parent family
• Delphy & Leonard (1992):

  
  

  • Believed the family has a central role in maintaining patriarchy, particular when it comes to the domestic division of labour.
  • Suggested that it's women make the largest contribution to family life - men contribute the least but gain the most.
  • Women's work is appropriated within the family - even if they work a job they're expected to still do the housework at home this doesn't become shared with their husband - known as the dual burden.
• Gershuny (2008):

  
  

  • Asked couples to keep a diary of the amount of time they spent on domestic work and paid work.
  • Found that as women entered the workforce they had to reduce the number of hours spent on housework.
  • Men were not adapting quick enough to take up their share of domestic work - she called this lagged adaptation.
• Edgell (1980):

  
  

  • Interviewed middle-class couples and found that men had decision making control over large decisions in the family.
  • For example, moving house.
• Duncombe & Marsden:

  
  

  • Take the idea of 'dual burden' and add emotional work to women's responsibilities - creating the triple shift.
  • They argue that women have paid work responsibility, household responsibilities and responsibiility to care for the emotional needs of their husband and children.
• Murdock's research involved observing 250 different socities to understand the function of the family. He came up with 4 main funtions:

  
  

  • Sexual - Marital sex creates a powerful bond between a couple that commits the individual to family life.
  • Reproductive - family enables the community of society.
  • Economic - family provide for children e.g food, shelter
  • Education - family teach accepted norms and values of society and pass on cultural traditions.
• Bott (1957):

  
  

  • Suggested two types of conjugal roles within the household - joint and segregated

  
  

  • Joint conjugal roles - Where the couple share housework and childcare.
  • Separated conjugal roles: Where the couple have separate roles e.g man as breadwinner women and housewife.
• Wilmott & Young (1973) - Functionalist:

  
  

  • Conducted series of interviewers - nearly 2,000 people from London + surrounding areas
  • Their research suggested that family life was home centred, husbands and wives were sharing jobs around the house
  • They claimed that the principle of stratified diffusion accounted for many changes in family life
  • Believed that the asymmetrical family would eventually stratify to the lower end of the stratification system
• Zaretsky (1976) - Marxist:

  
  

  Suggested that capitalist society has created the illusion that the 'private life' of family is separate from

  the economy. He has 3 major criticisms of the family:

  
  

  • Primary socialisation: parents create workers for bourgeoisie.
  • The family proved emotional support so that workers are encouraged to go back to work.
  • The family is a 'consumer unit': by being a family you spend more money supporting the bourgeoisie.
• Cheal (2002):

  
  

  • Argued that the harmonious relationships between family members that functionalists always point out aren't always that great.
  • Argued that functional relationships can easily slip into dysfunctional relationships.
• Bohannan - lists 6 consequences of divorce:

  
  

  • Emotional e.g. grief, loneliness
  • Legal e.g. dealing with courts, custody of child
  • Economic e.g. less money
  • Co-parental e.g. sharing parental responsibility
  • Community e.g. changes in friendships
  • Psychological e.g stress
• Rodgers & Pryor reviewed 200 studies and found that children of separated parents have a higher probability of:

  
  

  • Being in poverty
  • Behaviour problems
  • Preforming less well in school
  • Becoming sexually active at a younger age
  • Expressing depressive symptons
• Parsons - Criticism:

  
  

  • Parsons' work has been criticised by later authors for presenting an ideal picture of family life that is centered on the middle-class experience.
  • Also criticised by Marxists, such as Zaretsky, who believe that the stabilisation of the adult personality - warm bath theory - keeps members of the proletariat in their docile jobs that support the bourgeoisie.
• Willmott & Young - Criticism:

  
  

  • Wilmott & Young's research has been criticised by feminists who see little evidence of 'symmetry' within the family.