Ethnic Differences

• Black Families - Trends:

  > higher proportion of lone parent households (Black Caribbean and Black African)

  > in 2002, just over half of families with dependent children headed by a black person were lone parent families
• Black Families - Explanations for Trends:

  > family disorganisation

  > high rates of unemployment
• Black Families - Family Disorganisation:

  > high rate of female-headed, lone parent black families may be seen as evidence of family disorganisation created by slavery

  > under slavery, when couples were sold to people separately, children stayed with their mother - this may have established the pattern of families that exists today
• Black Families - High Rates of Unemployment:

  > lone parent families has been attributed to high rates of unemployment among black males

  > male unemployment and poverty means black men are less able to provide for their family, resulting in higher rates of desertion or marital breakdown
• Asian Families - Trends:

  > Bangladeshi, Pakistani and Indian households tend to be larger than those of other ethnic groups

  > Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus are more likely than others to live in extended families
• Asian Families - Explanations for Extended Families:

  > younger age profile of British Asians

  > socialisation
• Asian Families - Younger Age Profile:

  > larger household sizes a partly a result of the younger age profile of British Asians, as this means a higher proportion are in the childbearing age groups
• Asian Families - Socialisation:

  > larger households in Asian families reflect the value placed on the extended family in Asian culture
• Extended Family Debate:

  > is the extended family still important today
• Extended Family is Still Important - Yes:

  > while the extended family may have declined, it has not disappeared

  > Willmott - it continues to exist as a 'dispersed extended family', where relatives are geographically separated but maintain frequent contact through visits and phone calls

  > Chamberlin - Caribbean families, although geographically dispersed, continued to provide support - she described them as multiple nuclear families, who continue to provide valuable support in childrearing
• Extended Family is Still Important - Yes:

  > Bell - both WC and MC families rely on wider kin for support (MC = more financial help from father to son, WC = more frequent contact and domestic help from mothers to daughters)

  > Bell also suggests that the beanpole family (extends vertically through three generations but not horizontally to aunts, uncles or cousins) is now important - Charles found that there was more continued contact between mothers and daughters than between siblings, where there was a sharp decline
• Explanations for Increase in Beanpole Families:

  > longer life expectancy - more vertical ties with grandparents

  > smaller family sizes - fewer siblings and horizontal ties
• Extended Family is Still Important - No:

  > according to functionalists, such as Parsons, the extended family is the dominant family type in pre-industrial society, but it is replaced by the nuclear family in modern industrial society (functional fit theory)

  > Charles - in a study of Swansea, she found that the classic three generation family living under one roof is all but extinct (the only significant exceptions were found in the city's Bangladeshi community)