topic 6 - family diversity

• By contrast, postmodernists such as David Cheal (1991) go much further than the Rapoports
• Postmodernists state that we no longer live in modern society with its predictable, orderly structures such as the nuclear family
• In postmodern society there is no longer one single dominant, stable family structure such as the nuclear family
• Instead, family structures have become fragmented into many different types and individuals now have much more choice in their lifestyles, personal relationships and family arrangements
• Greater diversity and choice


  • Brings both advantages and disadvantages
  • Gives individuals greater freedom to plan their own life course and choose the kind of family and personal relationships that meet their needs
  • But greater freedom of choice in relationships means a greater risk of instability since these relationships are more likely to break up
• Stacey argues that greater freedom and choice has benefited women
• It has enabled them to free themselves from patriarchal oppression and to shape their family arrangements to meet their needs
• Stacey found that women rather than men have been the main agents of changes in the family
• Many of the women she interviewed had rejected the traditional housewife-mother role
• They had worked, turned to education as adults, improved their job prospects, divorced and re-married
• These women had created new types of family that better suited their needs
• The idea that postmodern families are failing depends on the active choices people make about how to live their lives
• For example, divorced people can come out angry and bitter, but Stacey argues this is pointing to the difficulties of negotiating new family arrangements
• The individualisation thesis argues that traditional social structures, gender and family have lost much of their influence over people's lives
• According to the thesis, in the past people's lives were defined by fixed roles and norms, but now individuals have fewer such certainties or fixed roles to follow
• The individualisation thesis therefore argues that we have been liberated from traditional roles and constraints, leaving us with more freedom to choose how we live our lives
• The individualisation thesis has huge implications for family and diversity, which we shall analyse
• The personal life perspective focuses on what people actually do in their everyday lives, rather than what sociologists may regard as important
• It looks at family and personal relationships from the viewpoint of the people involved and the meaning they give to the relationships and choices they make
• The personal life perspective is important for analysing changes in today's personal relationships and family arrangements
• The connectedness thesis argues that people are not simply isolated individuals and that wider structures still shape their choices and family lives
• These structures, such as class and gender, continue to influence the roles and relationships people can create for themselves
• For example, gender norms may still dictate that women should have primary responsibility for childcare, limiting their opportunity to form new roles and relationships
• Men are generally better paid than women and this gives them greater power and choice in relationships
• The relative powerlessness of women and children means they may have less choice and be more trapped above
• While women have passed important milestones such as gaining the right to vote, this does not mean that structures of patriarchy and inequality have disappeared
• The personal life perspective does not see individuals as a source of greater freedom of choice
• Giddens and Beck, the proponents of the individualisation thesis, have been criticised for underestimating the continuing importance of structural factors in shaping people's family lives
• Modernism


  Perspectives such as functionalism and the New Right that see modern society as having a fairly fixed, clear-cut and predictable structure
• Nuclear family


  The family type seen as 'slotting into' the structure of modern society and helping to maintain it
• Functionalist view of the nuclear family

  • Uniquely suited to meeting the needs of modern society for a geographically and socially mobile workforce
  • Performs two 'irreducible functions' - primary socialisation of children and stabilisation of adult personalities
  • Contributes to the overall stability and effectiveness of society
• Dysfunctional


  Other family types that are less able to perform the functions required of the family
• New Right view of the family

  • There is only one correct or normal family type - the traditional patriarchal nuclear family
  • This family is 'natural' and based on fundamental biological differences between men and women
  • The cornerstone of society, providing a place of refuge, contentment and harmony
• Decline of the traditional nuclear family and growth of family diversity

  Cause of many social problems
• Lone-parent families


  Harmful to children - cannot discipline children properly, lack adult male role model, likely to be poorer and a burden on the welfare state
• Cohabitation


  Main cause of lone-parent families due to the collapse of relationships between cohabiting couples
• Marriage


  Provides a more stable environment for bringing up children than cohabitation
• The New Right view has been criticised
• The feminist Ann Oakley argues the New Right wrongly assume that husbands and wives' roles are fixed by biology
• Feminists argue the conventional nuclear family is based on the patriarchal oppression of women and is a fundamental cause of gender inequality