Family

• Family


  A couple who are married, civil partners or cohabiting with or without dependent children, or a one parent with their child or children
• Household


  Contains either one person living alone or a group of people (for instance, a family or students) who live together
• Alternatives to families


  • Children's homes
  • Residential care homes
  • One person households
• Nuclear family


  • A two-generational family containing a heterosexual married or cohabiting couple and their child or children who live together
• Extended family


  • A group of relatives extending beyond the nuclear family
  • Classic extended family: three generations live together or nearby
  • Modified extended family: members live apart geographically but have regular contact and support
• Reconstituted family


  • A blended or step-family in which one or both partners have a child or children from a previous relationship living with them
• Lone-parent family


  • A family in which one parent lives with their child or children
• Same-sex family


  • A family in which a gay or lesbian couple (married, civil partners or cohabiting) live together with their child or children
• Organisational diversity


  • Families vary in their structures, the ways they organise their domestic division of labour and their social networks such as their links to their extended family
• Cultural diversity


  • Families differ in their cultural values and beliefs. Different ethnic groups have themes of South Asian and Caribbean heritage that create diversity in beliefs and values. These different beliefs and values can affect people's lifestyles and ideas about gender roles, child-rearing, education and paid work
• Social class diversity


  • A family's social class position affects the resources available to its members, role relationships between parents, and child-rearing practices such as how parents discipline their children
• Life course diversity


  • The stage in the family life-cycle that a particular family has reached. Newlyweds without children, families with young children and retired couples in empty nest families are all at different stages in the life-cycle and have different lifestyles
• Cohort diversity


  • The particular period of time in which a family passes through different stages of the family life-cycle. For example, over time divorce has lost its social stigma, so younger couples may find it easier to get divorced today
• Cross-cultural studies show that different family types exist in different cultures
• Commune


  A group of people who share living accommodation, possessions, wealth and property. Communes or communal households may be based on shared political beliefs or environmental principles
• Kibbutz


  A group of people who live together communally in settlements in Israel, and who value equality and cooperation between members
• Criticisms of Families


  • Feminists are critical of the patriarchal nature of families, the status and role of women in families, the family's role as an agency of gender socialisation
  • Marxists are critical of the economic function of the nuclear family under capitalism, the family's role in reproducing social inequality over time, the family's role as a unit of consumption for capitalism
  • The decline in traditional family values
  • The increase in marital breakdown, divorce and lone-parent families
  • The isolation (or separation) of the nuclear family from the wider kinship networks and its loss of contact with the wider family
  • The loss of traditional functions (such as education and economic production) that families once carried out but which have now been transferred to other structures of society
  • The functionalist perspective's unrealistic idealisation of the nuclear family, ignoring dysfunctional families in which domestic violence and abuse are found
• Conjugal Role Relationships


  Joint conjugal roles - No rigid division of household tasks, couple share leisure time and have few separate interests

  Segregated conjugal roles - Clear division of domestic labour by gender, couple spend little leisure time together and have separate interests
• Conjugal Roles


  • During the early 20th century, married women were responsible for domestic labour and men were the main wage earners

  Parsons (1956) argued the man takes the more instrumental role as breadwinner, the woman takes the more expressive role as housewife and mother, explained in terms of biological differences
• Young and Willmott's views on the symmetrical family


  Conjugal roles have shifted, with the man less dominant and the woman more involved in paid work outside the home
• Oakley's views on conventional families


  Women still do the majority of housework, despite their increased participation in paid employment
• Power is distributed in conjugal relationships
• Parenting patterns set the pattern for the next generation of parents
• Power within Conjugal Relationships


  One way of studying the distribution of power in conjugal relationships is by examining financial decision-making
• Young and Willmott (1973)


  • Identified an increase in shared decision-making, including financial decisions, within symmetrical families
• Pahl (1989)


  • Found that more couples share decisions on household spending compared with 30 years ago
  • Husbands are still likely to dominate decision-making
• Domestic violence


  A form of power in which one family member attempts to control others
• Feminists


  Link women's oppression to patriarchy (male power) within families
• Families


  • Explain changes in authority relationships between parents and children
  • Discuss changes in people's relationships with their wider family
  • Explain Young and Willmott's principle of stratified diffusion
  • Outline contemporary family-related issues
• Changing Relationships Between Parents and Children


  1. During the 19th century, children's experiences varied according to their age, gender and social class

  2. After the introduction of the Education Act 1918, all children had to attend school until the age of 14

  3. Young and Willmott argue that childhood was officially recognised as a separate stage in human life at this point
• Contemporary Parent-Child Relationships


  • Relationships are now less authoritarian and there is more emphasis on children's rights
  • Middle-class families are more likely than working-class families to involve their children in decisions
  • Relationships are generally more child-centred and focus on children's needs
  • The average family size is smaller today than 100 years ago, so children get more individual attention from their parents
  • Young people are now financially dependent on their family for a longer period of time, which can potentially lead to conflict within families
  • Some children contribute to childcare and housework, help out in family businesses and provide emotional support
• People's Relationships with their Wider Family


  • The wider family is becoming less important and family ties are weakening
  • Young and Willmott (1957) found that the extended family flourished in Bethnal Green in London during the mid-1950s and family ties were strong, but in later research they discovered that the nuclear family had become more isolated from the extended family
  • Increasing geographical mobility and women's involvement in full-time paid work mean that family members see each other less often
  • Geographical distance affects the type of support between family members but does not eliminate it altogether, as support at a distance takes the form of visits, phone calls and financial help
• The Principle of Stratified Diffusion


  • Young and Willmott (1973) developed the principle of stratified diffusion as a guide to changes in family life
  • Many social changes (for example, values and attitudes) start at the top of the social class system and work downwards
  • Changes in family life filter down from the middle class into the working class
• Contemporary Family-Related Issues


  • The quality of parenting is one of the main factors affecting children's well-being
  • Research suggests that the quality of parent-child relationships is associated with children's educational achievements and social skills
  • Some parents cannot control their teenage children, and delinquent teenagers have been inadequately socialised into society's norms and values by their parents
  • A minority of teenagers are themselves parents
  • Life expectancy has increased and the UK has an ageing population, with some people, particularly women, caring for family members from different generations
  • Older people are often seen as dependent family members, but their independence is affected by their social class, gender and ethnicity
  • Arranged marriages are based on consent and the partners' right to choose, but forced marriages are illegal in Britain
• Young and Willmott (1973) study the family from a feminist perspective. True or false?
• Arranged marriage


  • A marriage may be built on mutual attraction between two partners and it may also be arranged
  • An arranged marriage is based on consent and the partners' right to choose
  • It is important not to confuse arranged and forced marriage, as in a forced marriage one or both partners withhold their consent but the wedding still goes ahead
• Changes in family and household structures


  • Decrease in the proportion of children living in conventional nuclear families headed by a married couple
  • Increase in the proportion of children living in families headed by a cohabiting couple
  • Increase in families headed by a same-sex couple
  • Significant increase in one-person households
• Reconstituted or blended families


  Families where one or both partners have children from previous relationships
• The number of reconstituted or blended families in England and Wales fell from 631,000 to 544,000 between 2001 and 2011
• The average age at which women have their first baby is increasing


  Babies are now more likely to be born to older couples, who are less likely to separate