Patterns

• Divorce - changes in the law

  • Equalising legal rights
  • Widening the grounds
  • Making it cheaper
  • 1971 widening the grounds made divorce rates double over night
  • Counter - doesn't explain why more people have chosen to take this freedom
• Divorce - alternatives to law

  • Desertion
  • Legal separation (purely financial)
  • Empty shell marriage (married in name only)
  • Counter - as divorce becomes easier to obtain these have decreased
• Divorce - declining stigma and changing attitudes (Mitchell and Goody)


  • Churches used to condemn it and refused to marry divorcees
  • Increased normality has stopped negative label
  • Today it is no longer shameful, just misfortunate
• Divorce - secularisation

  • Traditional opposition of the churches to divorce carries less weight in society
  • People less likely to be influenced by religion
  • Churches changing their views in fear they will loose attendees
• Divorce - rising expectations of marriage (Fletcher)


  • People less likely to tolerate an unhappy marriage
  • Increased media depiction of romantic love rises standards
  • In the past, people didn't have much choice in who they married, now they do
  • Counter - feminists say this view fails to explain why women are more likely to file for divorce
• Divorce - women's increased financial independence

  • More likely to be in paid work
  • Equal pay laws have narrowed the pay gap
  • Girls' greater success in education gets them in higher paid jobs
  • Welfare means poorer women don't need to be dependant on their husbands
  • Allen and Crow - family is not embedded within the economic system now
• Divorce - feminists explanation

  • Duel burden of paid work and house work
  • Hochschild - women feel more valued at work
  • Counter - Cooke and Gash found no evidence that working women are more likely to divorce
• Divorce - modernity and individualisation (Beck and Giddens)


  • Traditional norms such as duty to remain with the same partner for life, has lost its influence over people
  • Individuals have free choice and decide when to leave a relationship
  • Rising rate emphasises that the purpose of divorce is personal fulfilment
• High divorce reactions - the new right

  • Undesirable as it undermines marriage and traditional nuclear family
  • Thinks high divorce creates growing underclass of welfare dependent single mothers
  • Thinks this impacts health and education of kids
• High divorce reactions - feminists

  • Desirable as it shows women are breaking free from the oppression of the patriarchal nuclear family
• High divorce reactions - postmodernists and individualisation thesis

  • Sees it as proof of individuals realising their freedom
  • Sees it as a major cause of family diversity
• High divorce reactions - functionalists

  • Doesn't threaten marriage as a social institution
  • Simply the result of people's higher expectations
  • Rates of re-marriage shows commitment to the idea of marriage
• High divorce reactions - interactionalists

  • Morgan - we cannot generalise the meaning of divorce as everyone has their own story
  • Mitchell and Goody - one interviewee was happy her father left her life, one was forever upset
• High divorce reactions - personal life perspective

  • Accepts divorce causes problems (financially and mentally)
  • Smart - sees the good in it, we should see it as just one transition amongst others in the life course
• Partnerships - marriage

  • Fewer people are marrying, rate is at its lowest since 1920
  • Increase in re-marriages
  • People are marrying later in life
  • Couples are less likely to be married in a church
• Partnerships - reasons for marriage patterns

  • Secularisation - all religious orgs are in favour of marriage but are loosing influence
  • Changing stigma - more diverse options more accepted
  • Women's positions - higher education and career prospects pushes family life back
  • Fear of divorce - don't want to invest time and money
• Partnerships - increased cohabitation

  • Decline in stigma against sex outside of marriage
  • Young people more likely to accept new ideas
  • Increased career opportunities for women lessens need for financial dependence
  • Secularisation
• Partnerships - cohabitation as a trial marriage

  • Most cases it's a temporary phase before marriage because one or both partners are awaiting a divorce
  • Bejin - young people see it as a more equal relationship dynamic
  • Shelton and John - women who cohabit do less housework than married counterparts
• Partnerships - same sex relationships

  • Stonewall - makes up 5-7% of today's population, impossible to say if this is an increase as in the past they were hidden
  • 1967 - Male homosexual acts were criminalised for consenting males over 21
  • 2000 - age of consent was equalised with heterosexuals at 16
  • 2004 - Civil Partnership Act gave similar legal rights
  • 2014 - been able to marry
• Partnerships - same sex relationships and chosen families

  • Weeks - increased social acceptance explains higher rates
  • Weston - SSC now decide to cohabit as stable partners, rather than the 1970s homosexual lifestyle that rejected traditional monogamy and family life
  • Counter - Allen and Crow think that because of the legal marriage only been recent, they have had to be more flexible in their relationships, making SSC less stable
• Partnerships - one person households

  • 2019 - 3/10 households
  • Increased divorce, kids more likely to live with mother, leaving father
  • Trend of marrying later means more people are single for longer
  • Few partners available in age group, like widows
• Partnerships - one person households and 'living apart together' (Duncan and Phillips)

  • 1/10 are LATs - in a significant relationship, but not married or cohabiting
  • Makes up for 1/2 of all the people classified as single
  • Move towards less formalised relationships
  • Or because they don't have the finances, meaning it isn't desired
  • Cannot therefore be a counter to a rejection of tradition
• Parents and children - childbearing rates

  • Nearly half of births happen outside of marriage now (48.5%)
  • Women having children later (Average age now 30.7)
  • Women are having fewer children (2.93 in 1964 - 1.58 in 2020)
  • More women are remaining childless
• Parents and children - reasons for childbearing rates

  • Increase in births outside of marriage due to decreased stigma
  • Later age due to women having more options other than motherhood
• Parents and children - lone parent families rates

  • Makes up 24% of families with children
  • 1/5 kids have one parent
  • 90% are lone mothers, 10% lone fathers
  • Before 1990s they were often divorcees, since then they are often never married
  • The children are 2x as likely to live in poverty
• Parents and children - reasons for lone parent rates

  • Increase in divorce and changing perception of marriage
  • Increase in never married women having children
  • Reasons for 90% being women:
  • Expressive role stereotype
  • Divorce courts favour women
  • Men less willing to give up work for kids
  • Renvoize - professional women can support kids without man
  • Cashmore - wc women on welfare because of abuse
• Parents and children - lone parenthood and welfare (Murray)


  • Sees the growth as resulting from an overgenerous welfare state
  • Creates a 'perverse incentive' to have kids without being able to provide for them
• Parents and children - counters to lone parent's welfare dependency

  • lack of affordable childcare actually deters WC from having kids
  • Welfare benefits are inadequate anyway
  • Most LP are women, who make less then men
  • Failure of fathers to pay maintenance
• Parents and children - stepfamilies rates

  • Account for 10% in Britain
  • 85% have a kid from woman's side
  • 11% have a kid from father's side
  • 4% have a kid from both sides
  • Ferri and Smith - act like first families but are at greater risk of poverty
  • Allan and Crow - struggle with divided loyalties and contact with non-resident parent
• Parents and children - stepfamilies rates reasons

  • Increase in divorce
  • Divorce courts favour women, explains why 85% of kids are on her side
  • Greater risk of poverty because there are more children and stepfather may have to support kids from other family
  • Lack of clear social norms about how stepfamilies should behave explains tension
• Ethnic differences - British South Asian families (Berthoud)


  • More traditional
  • Higher rates of marriage and lower rates of cohabitation or divorce
  • Couples married younger
  • Fertility rates higher
  • Arranged marriage common among Sikhs and Muslims
  • Little intermarriage with other ethnic groups
  • Higher rate of three generation households
  • Young have strong sense of duty to elders
• Ethnic differences - White British families (Berthoud)

  • Lower marriage and fertility rates
  • Later marriage
  • Smaller family sizes
  • Higher rates of cohabitation and divorce
  • Arranged marriages almost unknown
  • Intermarriage with other groups common
  • Once married, setting up a separate household was the norm
• Ethnic differences - Black British Caribbean families (Berthoud)

  • Lower marriage rates
  • Similar fertility rates to Whites
  • Higher rates of lone parenthood
  • Higher rates of intermarriage with other groups, especially with Whites
• Ethnic differences - old fashioned vs modern individualism (Berthoud)

  • Despite differences, all 3 moving towards modernity and away from tradition
  • Individual choice is more important than binding obligations
  • Caribbean families ahead on this trend, Southern Asian behind
• Ethnic differences - changes in British Asian families

  • Bhatti - changing attitudes of young were conflicting with beliefs of elders, like when sons had chosen to marry outside the ethnic group
  • Increase in lone parenthoods - went from 10% in 1991 to 17% in 2011 for Pakistanis
  • Growing acceptance of divorce due to changing views of arranged marriage
• Ethnic differences - changes in Black British families

  • Reynolds - statistics are misleading on lone parents, they are mostly stable LATs in reality
  • Mirza - higher rates of black lone parent families is due to high value that black women place on their independence
• The extended family - today

  • Charles - found almost no three generation families living under the same roof in Swansea, only in the cities' Bangladeshi community
  • Counter - Willmott says they're still around but dispersed, living separately but maintain frequent contact
• The extended family - class (Bell)

  • MC provide more financial support from father to son
  • WC provide more frequent contact as they lived closer
  • WC provides more domestic help from mothers to daughter
• The extended family - beanpole families (Brannen)


  • Extended vertically, not horizontally
  • Increased due to closer connections between parents and kids, and a decline in support from sibling to sibling
  • Increased life expectancy makes families vertical
  • Smaller family sizes means less siblings
• The extended family - obligations to relatives

  • Mason - over 90% of people have given or received financial help and 50% had cared for a sick relative
  • Cheal - caring most common with daughters due to expressive role, financial help most common with sons