Family diversity

• Define family diversity

  Refers to all the different forms of families and family life that exist in society, and to the characteristics that differentiate them from one another.
• Stacey: postmodern families

  Judith Stacey (1998) argues that greater freedom and choice has benefitted women. Enabled them to free themselves from patriarchal oppression and to shape their family arrangements to meet their needs.

  She used life history interviews to construct a series of case studies of postmodern families in California. 

   Found that women rather than men have been the agents of changes in the family. 
• Stacey example

  E.g. Many women she interviewed had rejected the traditional housewife mother role. They had worked, returned to education as adults, improved their job prospects, divorced and remarried. They had often created new types of family that better suited their needs. 
• ‘Divorce-extended family’ meaning

  Members are connected by divorce rather than marriage. They help each other financially and domestically.

   
• Beck: the negotiated family


   Beck (1992) puts forward another version of the individualisation thesis.

  •  He argues we now live in a ‘risk society’ where tradition has less influence and people have more choice. 

   Therefore, we are more aware of risks because making choices involves calculating the risks and rewards of the different options open to us and best for the individual.
• How is this different from earlier times?

  People’s roles were more fixed by tradition and rigid social norms dictated how they should behave.

   E.g. In the past, people were expected to marry for life, and once married, men were expected to play the role of the breadwinner and disciplinarian and make the important financial decisions, while women took responsibility for the housework, childcare and care of the sick and elderly. 
• Although this traditional patriarchal family was unequal and oppressive, it did provide a stable and predictable basis for family life by defining each member’s role and responsibilities.

  It has been undermined by 2 trends:

  1. Greater gender equality: challenged male domination in all spheres of life. Women now expect equality both at work and in marriage.
  2. Greater individualism: people’s actions are influenced more by calculations of their own self-interest than by a sense of obligation to others. 
• AO3 Parsons functional fit theory 

  warm bath doesn’t work as men aren’t being relieved of stresses as breadwinner. States women are better at expressive role due to biological difference. 

  AO2 – suggest three reasons why there is now greater gender equality in the family and society.
•  Although the negotiated family is more equal than the patriarchal family, it is less stable. This is because individuals are free to leave if their needs are not met. As a result, this instability leads to greater family diversity by creating more lone parent families, one person households, remarriages etc.
•  Today’s uncertain risk society people turn to the family in the hope of finding security, in reality family relationships are themselves now subject to greater risk and uncertainty than ever before. 


  For this reason, Beck describes the family as a ‘zombie category’: it appears to be alive, but in reality, it is dead. People want it to be a haven of security in an insecure world, but today’s family cannot provide this because of its own instability.
• The connectedness thesis - Smart 

  o   Reflecting these criticisms, sociologists from the personal life perspective propose an alternative to the individualisation thesis.

  o   Instead of seeing us as disembodied, isolated individuals with limitless choice about personal relationships. Smart argues that we are fundamentally social beings whose choices are always made ‘within a web of connectedness’.

  o   We live within networks of existing relationships and interwoven personal histories, and these strongly influence our range of options and choices in relationships.
• Example that evidences Smarts connectedness thesis:

  o   E.g. Finch and Mason’s (1993) study of extended families found that, although individuals can to some extent negotiate the relationships they want, they are also embedded within family connections and obligations that restrict their freedom of choice.

  o   This challenges the notion of the pure relationship. Families usually include more than just the couples that Giddens focuses on, and even couple relationships are not always ‘pure’ relationships that we walk away from at will.
• o   Parents who separate remain linked by their children, often against their wishes. As Smart says, ‘where lives have become interwoven and embedded, it becomes impossible for relationships to simply end’. Smart therefore emphasises the importance of always putting individuals in the context of their past and the web of relationships that shape their choices and family patterns.
• Criticisms of the individualisation thesis

  •   It exaggerates how much choice people have about family relationships today. Budgeon notes, this reflects the neoliberal ideology that individuals today have complete freedom of choice. In reality, however, traditional norms that limit people’s relationship choices have not weakened as much as the thesis claims.
  • Wrongly sees people as disembodied, ‘free floating’ independent individuals. Ignores the fact that out decisions and choices about personal relationships are made within a social context. (we are still influenced by the context we are in)
• AO3 further

  •  It ignores the importance of structural factors such as social class inequalities and patriarchal gender norms in limiting and shaping our relationship choices.
  • May notes, this is because Giddens’ and Becks’ view of the individual is simply ‘an idealised version of a white middle class man’. They ignore the fact that not everyone has the same ability as this privileged group to exercise choice about relationships.