Families and Households

• Functionalists


  Durkheim= family plays an important role in creating value consensus. Family is central to the process of integrating individuals into society. Develops social solidarity.

  Parsons= family has two main roles, primary socialisation and stabilisation of adult personalities.

  -different roles in family are an extension of the biological roles of the man and woman.

  critisms: ignores the problems in the family, no longer applicable to contemporary society
• New Right


  -men and women should take conventional roles in the family

  -man should be a breadwinner

  -if the nuclear family breaks down then the children won't be adequately socialised

  -warn against single-parent families

  Murray= concerns about the underclass

  criticisms: Feminists= conservative values are oppressed to women. state benefits are important and necessary
• Marxism 


  -family reinforces a set of ideas which in turn maintain a capitalist society

  Marx= women in capitalist families are commodities

  Engles= family ensures that the ruling class stayed powerful and wealthy of capitalism passed through the male line (primogeniture)

  -monogamous nuclear family ensured wealth was kept in certain families

  Zaretsky= family reproduces a labour force and is a unit of consumption

  
  

  criticisms: family cushions the pressures of capitalism
• Feminism


  Marxist= women are dually oppressed by patriarchy and capitalism

  Radical= inequalities in the home are the result of the way that relationships in families allow men to control women

  Difference= other feminism fail to consider that women may experience different family life

  Liberal= equality between men and women is slowly occurring due to a shift in attitudes and legal changes
• Poststructuralist


  Foucalt= family is a form of surveillance

  -Interpretivists suggest family life should be explored through meanings

  -family is not always controlled by the state
• Life course analysis


  -argues that the family should be understood by understanding the meanings behind practices and decisions

  -this theory might be criticised for ignoring the influence of structural forces in shaping people's decision-making process
• Postmodernism 


  Beck= individualisation

  Stacey= increased choice in family life has particularly benefitted women

  -family is characterised by individual choice

  -family structure and roles are negotiable and as a result of this, the family may be less stable

  -family is becoming more fluid and people are more focused on confluent love
• Changing patterns- marriage


  -decline in marriage

  -changes in the law, social attitudes and growth of secularisation have led to the decline in marriage

  -cohabitation is now becoming the norm and an alternative to marriage
• Changing family patterns-Cohabitation


  -there has been a rise in cohabitation

  -there is more economic independence for women

  -higher expectations of relationships

  -cohabiting to avoid the risk of divorce

  -marriage is now less of a practical necessity

  -secularisation has reduced the moral stigma of what once was described as 'living in sin'
• Changing family patterns-Divorce


  -42% of marriages now end in divorce

  -changes in the law have made it easier and cheaper to divorce

  -1969= divorce law meant you could divorce due to 'irretrievable differences'

  -women are now less financially dependent on their husbands

  -decline of the influence of religion means that marriage has lost its religious significance

  -less social stigma attached to divorce

  Giddens=personal fulfilment in relationships has grown in signficance

  -as life expectancy has increased, there's more time for a marriage to breakdown
• LAT relationships


  Levin= regards LATs as a new form of the family and it challenges the traditional concept of the nuclear family

  -arises through changes in social norms

  -LATs conform to Gidden's 'pure relationship' based on self-interest and emotional needs

  Levin= reasons that people choose LATs-> there may be existing responsibilities, practical reasons, to avoid the risk of recreating the conditions
• Child-bearing


  -smaller families-> women are having fewer children

  -rising costs of raising a family

  -changing role and independence of women

  -the growing individualisation

  -women place a greater priority on their career

  -more births outside of marriage ( half in UK )

  -secularisation, social stigma, changing position of women
• Lone Parenthood

  -since 1971, number of lone parents has tripled

  -90% are matrifocal

  -greater economic independence, advances in reproductive technology, changing social attitudes

  -New Right= rise of lone parenthood as a sign of the decline of conventional family life and also a sign of social problems

  -the generosity of the welfare state encourages women to have children, creates a culture of dependency
• Couples-domestic division of labour


  Parsons= instrumental and expressive roles

  Bott= two types of conjugal roles ( joint and segregated )

  Young and Wilmott= symmetrical family, family life is becoming more equal and democratic

  Oakley= criticises Y&W stating they are exaggerated, 15% of husbands participate in housework and 25% in childcare

  Boulton= found that fewer than 20% of husbands had a major role in childcare
• Couples- becoming more equal


  Gershuny= women working full-time is leading to a more equal division of labour in the home, he also states that there is lagged adaptation

  Sullivan= increase in the number of couples with an equal division of labour, men were participating in more traditional 'women's' roles

  Feminists- women going into paid work doesn't led greater equality in the home, it leads to the triple shift ( Duncombe and Marsden )

  Due to patriarchy it is likely that the domestic division of labour will stay unequal
• Couples- Decision-making

  Pahl and Vogler= allowance system and pooling, pooling is on the increase and is the most common money management system

  Edgell= men are more likely to take the decisions as they earn more

  Vogler= cohabiting couples were less likely to pool their money

  Smart= gay men and lesbians attached no importance to who controlled the money

  Weeks et al= pooling reflects a value of co-independence
• Domestic violence and Abuse


  -domestic violence is far too widespread

  -domestic violence doesn't occur randomly

  -2 women a week are murdered by their husband

  Dobash and Dobash= violence incidents could be set off by what a husband saw as a challenge to his authority
• Domestic violence and Abuse


  Radical feminist explanation= emphasises the tole of patriarchal ideas, cultural values and institutions.

  • Firestone= all societies have been founded on patriarchy, men are the enemy
  • domestic violence is an inevitable feature of society

  Materialist explanation= emphasises economic factors such as lack of resources

  • domestic violence is a result of stress in family members caused by social inequality
• Childhood- as a social construct


  Pilcher= separateness, childhood is now a distinct life stage

  Wagg= childhood is a social construct, different societies have different ideas on what childhood is

  Punch= children in Bolivia are expected to take work responsbilities when they turn 5

  Aries= in the middle ages, there was no such thing as childhood, he used paintings and saw that children were just 'mini-adults'. There is a 'cult of childhood'

  -changing the position of children= laws preventing child labour, compulsory schooling, children's rights, declining family size
• Childhood- future of childhood


  Postman= disappearance of childhood, lies in rise of tv culture, children also have more access to info (less of an information hierarchy)

  Jenks= childhood is changing, not disappearing, relationships with parents children are more important

  In postmodern society, adults are even more fearful for their children's security and preoccupied with protecting them from percieved dangers like child abuse
• Childhood- has the position of children improved

  Lloyd De Mause= history of childhood is a nightmare that we've just begun to awake from

  March of progress= family has become child-centred

  Palmer= toxic childhood, rapid technological and cultural changes has damaged children's developments

  Hillman= boys are more likely to be allowed to go out by themselves

  Firestone= what march of progress call care and protection, is actually oppression and control

  Gittins= age patriarchy
• Demography- Births

  reasons for decline:

  • changes in women's position
  • decline in infant mortality rate
  • children are now an economic liability
  • child-centredness
  • dependency ratio
• Demography- Deaths

  Decline in death rates:

  • improved nutrition
  • medical improvements
  • smoking and diet
  • public health measures
  • life expectancy
• Demography- ageing population


  effects of an ageing population:

  • strain on public services
  • one-person pensioner households
  • dependency ratio

  Postmodernists= orderly stages of the life-course have broken down.

  Hunt= we can choose a lifestyle and identity regardless of age

  Pilcher= inequalities such as class and gender remain important, middle class have better occupational pensions and women's lower earnings means lower pensions
• Demography- Migration


  Immigration= more ethically diverse society however more people have left the UK and most immigrants were white

  Impact of migration on UK population:

  • population size ( increasing )
  • age structure ( lowers the average age of the population )
  • dependency ratio ( lowers as immigrants are younger, increases as immigrants have children, the longer a group is settled in the country then the overall impact reduces )
• Family diversity - modernity and nuclear family


  Chester= neo-conventional family (dual-earner)

  Rapoports and Rapoports= CLOGS- five types of family diversity

  New right= traditional familt with conventional roles, oppose changes in the family, concerned with the growth of lone-parent families as they are harmful to children
• Family diversity- Postmodernism 


  Cheal= there is no longer one single, dominant family structure, it has become fragmented

  Stacey= greater freedom and choice has benefitted women as it has enabled them to free themselves from patriarchal oppression

  Giddens and Beck= individualisation thesis, disembedded from traditional roles and structures, more freedom within family

  Giddens= pure relationships

  Beck= negiotiated family and zombie family (people want the haven of security but cannot be provided due to family's own instability)

  Personal life perspective= fictive kin
• Social policy

  1942- Beveridge Report= development of welfare state, lower poverty and better health

  1969- Divorce Reform Act= irretrievable breakdown

  1975- Sex Discrimination Act

  1970- Equal Pay Act

  1991- Rape became illegal in marriage

  2004- Civil Partnership

  2014- Gay Marriage