Family sociology

• There has been a decline in marriage rates but an increase in cohabiting unions.
• Families are responsible for transmitting cultural values from one generation to another.
• Family roles are defined by society's expectations and norms.
• Family plays an essential role in shaping individual identity and personality development through socialization processes.
• Murdock


  Identified 4 functions of the family: Reproduction- the nuclear family produces the next generation of society's members. Education- family is responsible for primary socialisation. Economic- society needs ways of providing people with financial support. The family is a unit of production where labour is divided between husband and wife. Sexual- the nuclear family regulates a married couple's sexual behaviour. Helps to regulate their relationship and stabilise society.
• Parsons

  Added 2 more functions of the family: Primary socialisation- individual must learn the shared norms and values of society. The family is vital because it socialises children so that they learn and accept society's shared values and roles. Stabilisation of the adult personality- families stabilise adult personalities in two ways, 1. partners provide each other with emotional support. 2. family life provides adults with relase from strains and stresses of everyday life, warm bath.
• Rapoport and Rapoport


  Noticed an increase in other family types. Organisational diversity- huge variations in family structure, the ways they organise their domestic division of labour and their social networks. Cultural diversity- families differ in their cultural values and beliefs. These different ethnic beliefs can affect people's lifestyles and ideas about gender roles, child rearing.
• Rapoport and Rapoport

  Social class diversity- a family's social class position affects the resources available to its members,, role relationships between partners. Life cycle diversity- families move through different stages and have different priorities at those stages. Cohort diversity- particular period of time which a family passes through different stages of the life-cycle.
• Zaretsky

  ·      Family is a ‘consumer unit’ that is propping up capitalism.

  ·        Family is unable to provide for the psychological and social needs of the individual.

  ·        Family supports capitalism by providing unpaid labour, reproducing the labour force and being a unit of consumption.
• Delphy and Leonard


  Argue the family is patriarchal, men are the prime beneficiants of the exploitation of women's labour. Women's work is not valued and they are financially dependent on their husbands. They say that the family is based on a hierarchy and women have to do the 'dual burden' even when in full, well-paid employment.
• Willmott and Young


  Movement towards the 'symmetrical family'. Conjugal roles are more shared and family member are more home centred. Reasons for move: rise of feminism, legal changes gave women more equality, effective birth control enables women to combine motherhood with paid work, technological developments create opprtunities for sharing home-based leisure activities.
• Pahl 2008


  more couples share decisions on household spending compared to 30 years ago.
• Divorce is decreasingLegal changes make it cheaper and quicker to obtain a divorce.
• Divorce is decreasing


  Legal changes make it cheaper and quicker to obtain a divorce. Changing social attitudes means thare is less stigma. Secularisation has weakened the religious barrier to divorce. Changes in social positions of women less tied to husbands through economic dependence. Media influcence emphasis on ' romantic love' couples have higher expectations of partners and marriage.
• Principal of stratified diffusion

  WHatever the upper classes of the 1970s could afford to do, eventually people at all levels would be able to do.
• Changing patterns of fertility

  Economic factors- during 19th century, child-rearing among poor families was motivated by economid factors. Labour Market uncertainty- during recessions people may delay having children. Later marriage- some women who marry later delay having children. Wome's opportunities- more options means they focus on education and work. Effective birth control- women now have greater control over fertility.
• Changing pattern of marriage

  Decline in annual number of marriages, getting married later due to opportunities, introduction of civil partnership, increase in cohabitation less secularlisation, increase in births outside marriage more socially acceptable.
• Extended family- a large family consisting of uncles,cousins that support each other.
• Reconstitued family- a family that is put back together after a divorce with children from different relationships.
• Lone-parent family- a family in which one parent lives with their child
• Beanpole family- multiple generations of older people and few children
• Empty nest family- a family containg mature couple who live together after their children have left home.
• Cohabiting family- living with a partner outisde marriafe or civil partnership
• Empty shell marriage- where spouses continue to live together but as separate individuals
• Bigamy- marrying when already married to someone else
• Serial monogamy- when a divorce person enters a second marriage the divorces, remarries, dicorces and so on
• Polygamy- being married to more than one person at the same time
• Polygyny- a man having several wives
• Polyandry- a woman having several husbands
• Marxists don't regard the nuclear family as a functionally necessary institution for society to work. They believe that the nuclar family is an ideological apparatus that promote sthe values and ways of thinking essential to the reproduction and maintenance of cpitalism.