Chester: Neo-Conventional Family

• Chester 1985
• Does not see rise in family diversity in a negative light
• Only important change is the move from dominance of the conventional nuclear family to the Neo-Conventional family
• Neo-Conventional Family: dual earner family similar to symmetrical family (Young and Willmott)
• most people not choosing to live in alternatives to conventional nuclear family long term rather the nuclear family is still the most desired - Oakley found advertising using nuclear family form of social control
• Chester argues that why people are not most of the time in a nuclear family is due to it's life cycle where elderly widows, divorced men or young people were in a nuclear family or would be
• Statistics are misleading as they are a snapshot of a single moment
• Little has changed:

  1. most people live in a household headed by a married couple
  2. most adults marry, have children and most children are raised by both natural parents
  3. most marriages continue till death even with remarriages
  4. Cohabitation has increased but mostly it's a temporary phase before marriage
  5. even though more children are birthed out of marriage - most births are jointly registered
• Chester sees the nuclear family as dominant