1) After the first world war there was a 'Baby boom' with births peaking at 1.1 million in 1920
2) This happened again after the second world war ^^^^^^^^
3) There was also an increase in births in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This was the result of the larger cohort of women born in the 1960s entering their childbearing years.
What are three reasons for why fertility rates have decreased?
1) Women are delaying having families and are having children at an older age than they were 30 years ago.
2) Delay is possible due to contraceptive methods and reliable birth control pills
3) Women chose to have fewer children and some chose not to have children at all, because of the change in gender roles, where women now have different attitudes towards family life, having children, education and careers.
Through the changes of birth and fertility rate, how has it impacted family size and organisation?
1) People have fewer aunts, uncles, cousins etc, meaning there has been a decline in family kinship networks, meaning there are less people for family to fall back o in times of need.
2) There are more nuclear families with one child.
3) There has been a decline in the number of full-time mothers and a rise in the number of children looked after by other relatives. E.g. grandparents, childminders and nurseries.
4) Women are choosing not to have children. In 2000, one in five women aged 40 had not had children compared with one in ten in 1980 and this figure is expected to rise to one in four by 2018.
What has happened to the birth and death rates since the population of Britain has increased?
As the population has increased, life expectancy has also increased and death rates have fallen. For example, Between 1971 and 2004, the death rate for all males fell by 21%, while the death rate for all females fell by 9%.
Has there been an increase in the number of one person households over state pension age?
Yes,
1) In 2005, 14% of all households were of this type (one person)
2) Women aged 65 and over were more likely to livealone than men because of their longer life expectancy and because they tend to marry men older than themselves. For example, In 2005, 59% of women aged 75 and over were living alone.
What do these sociologists: Finch and Mason, O'Brien and Jones et al, suggest about the elderly?
That the elderly have regular contact with extended kin. Many elderly relatives use new technology such as e-mail to keep in contact with their extended kin.
What are 3 negative effects of caring for the elderly?
1) it may increase the domesticburden on women who take most responsibility for caring in families.
2) it may result in financial hardship for the family because one partner may have to give up work in order to care full-time for elderly relatives.
3) there may be emotional strain and over-crowding if an elderly and physicallydependent relative moves in, which causes conflict betweencouples and between parents and children.
What does Brannen (2003) suggest with the increase of four generation families/ multigenerational families and beanpole families - long and thin in shape?
They have fewer ties within a generation because of high divorce rates, falling fertility and smaller family size.
They have more ties between the generations because of increased life expectancy.
People in this generation, particularly grandmothers, are increasingly looking after both their grandchildren and their own elderly parents, e.g. 20% of people in their fifties and sixties currently care for their parent(s), while 10% care for both an elderly person and a grandchild.
Studies suggest that there may be more qualitative and enriching contact between grandparents and their grandchildren. This may result in more positive experiences of socialisation as grandparents pass on life lessons.
What happened with migration through the 1900-1940s, 1950s-60s, and the 1980s onwards?
In the period 1900-40 there was a net loss in the British population as people emigrated to Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
The 1950s-60s saw a net gain as thousands of immigrants arrived from India, Pakistan and the Caribbean to meet a shortage of labour caused by the Second World War.
The 1980s onwards saw a net gain in population as White immigrants from Eastern Europe, Australia and USA entered the country.
What are 4 examples on effects of migration on family life?
1) Over 50% of African-Caribbean families are single-parent families.
2) Most Asian families are nuclear, although 33% of Asian families are vertically extended, (i.e. they include grandparents) or horizontally extended (they include brothers and their wives, e.g. Sikhs).
3) Marriage is mainly arranged and negotiated with children in Asian families, although forcedmarriage is largely a thing of the past.
4) Asian families tend to feel a strong senseofduty to help extended kin, especially those still living in their country of origin.