Family

• Functionalism

  Murdock - families perform four essential functions: stable satisfaction of the sex drive, reproduction of the next generation, socialisation of the young and meeting its members' economic needs
• Nuclear family

  Men work and provide for the family, women carry out domestic labour at home, children socialised into gender-appropriate roles and learn norms and values
• Evaluation: the Functionalist view is outdated and fails to consider changing gender roles and greater diversity. Marxists argue the family needs the needs of capitalism, not society as a whole.
• Parsons - the nuclear family meets the needs of modern society


  It is both geographically and socially mobile (functional fit theory)
• Structural differentiation


  Families have less functions to perform, reducing it to just primary socialisation and the stabilisation of adult personalities
• Warm bath theory - Parsons


  Families can de-stress their members and reduce conflict in society. The family provides emotional security and a sense of fulfilment.
• Sex role theory

  Instrumental vs expressive role
• Feminists criticise the stereotypical views of female roles and expectations in the nuclear family
• Engels - monogamous nuclear families emerged due to the inheritance of private property


  This reproduced and reinforced social class inequality as the bourgeoisie owned all the wealth and resources.

  Evaluation - deterministic, ignores other family types that exist today.
• Engels argues the nuclear family also caused gender inequality - men take control to produce the next generations
• Zaretsky - the family performs an ideological function: proletariat children are socialised to accept and embody norms and values that uphold capitalism, this prepares them for being docile, obedient workers in adulthood.

  Evaluation - functionalists argue that the family provides stability for society, benefitting it as a whole and not just one group.
• The family also provides an economic function - it is a unit of consumption, encouragement to purchase products from 'pester power' and 'keeping up with the Joneses' creates profits for the bourgeoisie
• Althusser - the family performs ideological functions: it is an imbalanced structure that teaches its members to accept power imbalances, benefitting the capitalist system
• McRobbie's study of magazines - bedroom culture: girls sit and read about how to attract a man and the importance of not being 'left on the shelf'.

  Evaluation - McRobbie's study is outdated.
• Benston - women are a reserve army of cheap labour, taken on when extra workers are needed but forced to be.

  Evaluation - view doesn't consider that oppression still occurs in non-capitalist societies.
• Firestone (Radical feminist) - women are forced to be dependent due to the nature of childbirth.

  Greer - Need for matrilocal (all-female) households to achieve equality - political lesbianism.

  Evaluation - fail to recognise improvements e.g. surrounding work and divorce, solution is unrealistic / impractical
• Stacey (postmodernist) - women can free themselves from patriarchal oppression and can shape family arrangements to meet their needs. Divorce-extended family - members connected by divorce, key members are usually female.

  Conducted case studied in Silicon Valley.

  Evaluation - view over-emphasises choice
• Giddens (postmodernist) - greater choice and equality in society.

  Pure relationship - seen as a 'rolling contract' - can be ended at will.

  Relationships are no longer bound by tradition or a sense of commitment, this produces greater diversity.

  Evaluation - 60% of 18-35 year olds want to marry, 11% of those over 55 - shows that attitudes change with experience, not just by having more choice.
• Beck (postmodernist) - we live in a 'risk society' - more choice means more risks to calculate, leads to the negotiated family - don't conform to traditional norms, vary according to expectations and wishes of members.

  Zombie family - appears alive but in reality is dead and unstable.

  Evaluation - Personal life perspective (Smart, May) - exaggerates choice, ignores importance of social structures (factors), wrongly sees people as disembedded and independent
• Tipper (Personal Life perspective) - chosen families - study of children's views who frequently saw pets as family
• Finch and Mason - studied divorce-extended family, it is embedded with connections/obligations - restricts freedom of choice
• Trend - long-term decline in birth rates:

  Changes in women's positions: greater independence and freedom of choice has led to more diverse family structures, with many women choosing to not have children and instead focus on their career
• Decline in infant mortality: improved healthcare and sanitation reduces risk of disease, improved health of mother and baby due to maternity services
• Effects of lower birth rate - more women living alone, short-term decrease to dependency ratio (less responsibility), ageing population
• Trend - increased life expectancy and lower death rate:

  Better living conditions improved housing and hygiene regulations.
• (Lower death rate) Improved public health and welfare NHS (1948), advances in medicine and immunisations, better accessibility
• (Lower death rate) Better health education - advances in terminology, better informed population as have access to guidance
• (Lower death rate) Improved working conditions - surgery and medical technology has taken over more dangerous tasks, higher standards of health and safety
• Effects of a lower death rate - ageing population, increase in dependency ratio as more retiring, older people consume more public services, ageism.

  Brannen- 'beanpole family'-extended can provide support.
• Evaluation of effects of lower death rate - positive aging - target market for products, consumers
• Trends 1900-2000 - 3 baby booms, high birth and death rates, 2000-positive net migration, peaked 2004-2007.

  Push factors - migrants fleeing disaster (Pakistan in 70s) or conflict (Jews 1930-1945).

  Pull factors - globalisation, better opportunities and connections elsewhere.
• Effects of migration - diverse family structures- over 50% of African Caribbean families are headed by single mothers, multiculturalism and hybrid identities, politicisation of migration - desire for immigrants to assimilate to host culture, France banning of veil 2010
• Divorce increase - 40% of marriages end in divorce, cheaper and wider terms make it more accessible
• Marriage - decrease in 1st marriages, increased remarriages, less pressure to get married, less church weddings (secular)
• Cohabitation - increased - 1 in 8 adults are cohabiting, often the stage before marriage (trial marriage)
• Same-sex relationships - increasing numbers and awareness, reduced stigma, freedom of self-expression
• One-person households - risen due to increase in divorce, 3 in 10 households contained 1 person, women choosing.
• Lone-parent families - 22% of all families, increased due to increase in divorce and never-married.
• Living apart together - 1 in 10 adults, finance, early days
• Stepfamilies - over 10% of all families, increase in divorce