Theories

• Murdock


  The N/F is Universal all over the world (250 countries)
• Rapoports


  5 types of family diversity: Generational, Life Stage, Social Class, Cultural and Organisational
• Engels


  Family is a Unit of Consumption
• Zaretsky

  Family is a safe haven from Capitalism
• Althusser


  Family acts an Ideological State Apparatus.
• Young & Wilmott


  In the modern family there is more Symmetry, due to men taking part in more of the domestic tasks/duties.
• Gershunny


  Despite men doing more in the home, women are still contributing the most to the domestic chores
• Postman


  Childhood is disappearing, due to consumption and the use of advertising to take advantage of children.
• Sue Palmer


  Childhood is becoming less significant and the innocence of youth is disappearing. Children are being exposed to ever increasingly adult-driven content; leading to a Toxic Childhood.
• Firth


  Studied childhood differences in on the Pacific Islands, spending time in Tikopia. He found that children were expected to fend for themselves and hunt from the ages of 4/5.
• Murray


  Single Parent Families are creating dysfunctional family units which are leading to boys with no male role model. We should be making divorce harder and giving out less in welfare to encourage families to stay together and work-out their problems. (dependency culture)
• Ansley


  Women are the 'takers of shit' when it comes to the problems and issues within the family.
• Sommerville


  Liberal Fem: Believes that women have made huge strides in society in terms of their economic and personal lives.
• Pahl


  Men control the pooling of resources, even when a women does go out to work.
• Chester(functionalist)


  Neo conventional nuclear family: Even in a postmodern world, being in a N/F is still seen as the desirable family type which most people aspire to.
• Net Migration


  The difference between those emigrating and those immigrating.
• Beanpole Family


  Term used to describe the modern day family where people have fewer children, but are at the same time living longer, family trees are becoming longer and thinner - sometimes extending to four generations.
• Confluent Love


  Active and causal love rather than 'forever' notions of romantic love.
• Dependency Ratio


  The amount within the population of those under 15 and over 65 to those between those years, i.e. of working age.
• False Consciousness


  Used by Marxists to mean ways of thinking which are the product not of real material conditions the thinker inhabits, but of the ideological forces of other groups.
• Functional 'Fit' Thesis


  Another name for evolutionary theory suggesting that the family changed from extended to nuclear to provide a functional fit to the new industrial society that benefited from smaller more mobile families.
• Individualisation


  Phrase coined by Postmodern thinkers which suggests that we place an emphasis on self-fulfilment rather than collective goals.
• Infant Mortality Rate


  The number of deaths in a population of infants under one years of age per thousand births.
• March of Progress Theory


  Collective name for social theorists, usually of the functionalist perspective, who see the family evolving and adapting in a progressive way to fit the changing needs of wider society.
• Patriarchy


  A form of society in which males are the rulers and leaders and exercise power, both at the level of society as a whole and within individual households.
• Serial Monogamy


  Having several marriage partners/long term relationships over the course of one's life, one at a

  time.
• Social Construct


  Created by society and/or by social attitudes.
• Structurally Isolated (N/F)


  The idea that the nuclear family is not obligated to or is independent of the extended family.
• Triple Shift


  This is paid work, housework and the emotional role.
• Urbanisation


  The growth of cities, or the movement of population off the land into towns.
• Leach


  Today's families he argues are inward looking and places of severe and intense emotional strain between wives and husbands and between parents and children.