Changing family patterns and family diversity - families and households

• Family diversity


  Changing patterns and types of families
• Questions on the increase in divorce often specify a time period - e.g. the 1960s or to the present day
• Although the law gives people more freedom to divorce, this doesn't necessarily lead to even higher divorce rates
• Social factors may be more important than legal ones in explaining the rise in divorce
• The decline in the influence of religion on society (secularisation) has contributed to less stigma around divorce
• 40% of marriages now end in divorce - six times more than 50 years ago
• Reasons for the increase in divorce

  • Legal changes
  • Less stigma
  • Secularisation
  • Higher expectations of marriage
  • Women's financial independence
  • Feminist explanations
  • Modernity and individualisation
• Legal changes in the 19th and 20th centuries made divorce easier, widening the grounds between the sexes
• Stigma around divorce has declined rapidly since the 1960s, making divorce more acceptable
• Secularisation - the decline in the influence of religion on society - has contributed to the decline in stigma around divorce
• Functionalists


  Argue that higher expectations of marriage today are leading to higher divorce rates
• Functionalists are optimistic, arguing that the high rate of re-marriage shows people haven't rejected marriage as such
• Women's financial independence and availability of lone parent welfare benefits have made women less economically dependent on their husbands and more able to afford divorce
• Feminist explanations argue that divorce is mainly sought by women due to dissatisfaction with patriarchal oppression
• Modernity and individualisation


  Encourage both sexes to pursue their own self-interests, causing conflicts within couples and leading to more divorce
• There are now fewer first marriages, due to several factors including changing attitudes and the availability of alternatives like cohabitation
• Women's economic independence gives them freedom not to marry, and the impact of feminism means some women see marriage as a patriarchal institution
• Rising divorce rates may put some people off marrying
• Other trends in marriages

  • More re-marriages
  • Later marriages
  • Fewer church weddings
  • Increase in cohabitation
• Cohabitation


  An alternative to marriage, seen by some as a more equal relationship
• There is greater acceptance and legal equality for gay marriage and same-sex relationships
• Nearly half of all children are now born outside of marriage, due to the rise in cohabitation and lone parenthood
• Lone-parent families now account for a quarter of all families, partly due to increased divorce and the decline of the traditional nuclear family
• Reconstituted or stepfamilies are increasing due to divorce and remarriage, and account for 10% of all families with children
• Ethnic differences in family patterns

  • British South Asian families had high marriage and fertility rates, low cohabitation and divorce rates, more three-generation households, and strong obligations to extended family
  • White British families had lower marriage and fertility rates, later marriage, and higher cohabitation and divorce rates
  • Black British Caribbean families had lower marriage and higher lone parenthood rates
• Despite the trend towards modern individualism, considerable diversity remains in family structures and practices
• The extended family still exists today as a 'dispersed extended family' where relatives maintain frequent contact
• Many people still feel obligations to their wider extended kin, with reciprocity being an important principle
• Functionalism


  A sociological perspective that sees the nuclear family as the ideal, with a division of labour based on gender
• The New Right


  A political perspective that opposes family diversity and sees the conventional nuclear family as the only normal and desirable family type
• The New Right blames lone-parent families for creating a 'dependency culture' and producing social problems
• Chester's 'neo-conventional family'


  Although there is some increased diversity, the nuclear family remains the dominant and aspired-to family form
• The Rapoports' five types of diversity


  Organisational, cultural, class, life cycle, and generational
• Postmodernism and family diversity


  Greater individualism and choice have led to more instability and variability in family forms
• The individualisation thesis


  Individual self-interest now governs our actions, undermining the traditional patriarchal family
• The negotiated family


  Families are now more equal but less stable, with more emphasis on individual needs rather than those of the family
• The connectedness thesis


  Traditional norms and inequalities still limit people's choices, and we make decisions about relationships within a social context, not as disembedded individuals
• There are now about six times as many divorces as in the 1960s, while the number of marriages has fallen by about 100,000 a year and the number cohabiting has risen
• The average age at first marriage has risen to over 30, and there are more re-marriages
• Only about 20% of weddings now take place in church