Family Key Concepts & Sociologists

• Family


  a group of people who are related by blood or by law. A household is the people that live together is the house or accommodation
• Cohabitation 


  Where a couple live together but are not married
• The nuclear Family 


  Consists of two parents, a mother, a father and their children. It is also known as the cereal packet family.
• Extended Family


  Families with other family members living with them. There are two types of extended families; horizontal and vertical.
• Vertical Families

  when grandparents live in a household. THis is because different generations live in the home. Grandparents and children.
• Horizontal Families


  when there are two generations such as cousins, uncles and aunts living together or nearby
• Beanpole Family


  A Beanpole family is a multi-generational family that is long and thin with few aunts, uncles and grandparents. This is a result of extended life expectancy and fewer children being born.
• Boomerang


  when children move back in with parents due to financial cost of living, common to move back after uni. It is hard to get back on the property ladder
• Sandwich Family


  When a couple in their 30s/40s are looking after their own children and their elderly parents. They always lived together.
• Empty shell marriage


  where a couple continues to live under the same roof but as separate individuals.
• Rapoport 1982 


  Families are becoming , more diverse in Britain today. THe nuclear family is now one of many types
• Willmott And young


  Conjugal roles became more symmetrical in the 1970s. Women and men shared the responsibilities of their domestic partnership in terms of work, household duties and child care
• Ann Oakley


  Criticizes WIllmott and Young arguing women suffer from dual burden. Children are taught that men and women have different places in the world and that the male role is superior
• Robbert Chester


  Disagrees with Rapoports, arguing that the nuclear family is still the main family type
• George Murdock

  THe family still exists in all societies he studied, either as a nuclear family or based on a nuclear family and it provides 4 important functions which are: Economic, Educational, reproductive and sexual.