Evaluating family diversity

• Neo-conventional family


  Household with two adults and children, regardless of whether the adults are married, whether both are the "birth parents" of the children, or indeed what gender they are
• Single-person households and lone-parent families remained minorities and most aspired to live in neo-conventional families
• Statistics show married or civil partnerships couples, followed by cohabiting couples being by far the most common households
• Robert Chester (1985): 'A functionalist who argues that most families are essentially nuclear in form: what he calls the neo-conventional family'
• Not all sociologists agree that contemporary society is characterised by family diversity