1. Patterns, Trends And Diversity Flashcards
What is a household?
Person living alone or group of people living together and sharing household tasks
What is a family?
- Set of arrangements those involved see as a family
- or a monogamous marriage between a man and woman, plus children sharing residence
What are the different family and household structures?
- Nuclear
- extended
- classic extended
- modified extended
- beanpole
- patriarchal
- matriarchal
-Symmetrical - step/reconstituted
- lone parent
- gay/lesbian
- single person
What is rapoport and rapoport’s view on family diversity?
-We have moved away from the traditional nuclear family as the dominant type, based on a more pluralistic society
- diversity as a positive response to peoples needs
- 5 types of diversity
What are Rapoport’s 5 types of family diversity?
- Cultural diversity
- lifestage diversity
- organisational diversity
- generational diversity
- social class diversity
Eversley and Bonnerjea - diversity and location (6)
- Affluent south
- geriatric wards
- older industrial areas
- recently declined industrial areas
- rural areas
- inner cities
What is cohabitation?
- Unmarried couple in a sexual relationship living together
What is marriage?
- Legally or formally recognised union of two people as partners in a personal relationship
How are marriage and cohabitation similar?
- Share bills/responsibilities
- live in same house
How are marriage and cohabitation different?
- Different laws
- marriage has no inheritance tax, automatically inherit (legal)
- cohabitation may not be recognised as legal kin, pay inheritance tax (ambiguous)
- exclusive bond or jointly occupying space
Patterns and trends with cohabitation?
- Increase as marriage decreases
- 1996: 2.9 million to 5.9 million by 2012 , fastest growing family trend in UK
- mid to late 20s more likely to cohabit: 33% men and 37% women
- 56% no children / 4% non dependent children/ 39% dependent children (2012)
Reasons for cohabitation increase?
- Changes in position of women (less economically dependent on oppressive patriarchal institution)
- secularisation
- changing social attitudes and decline in stigma
- rear of divorce
How is cohabitation a permanent alternative to marriage?
- More of a lifestyle choice than expected part of life
- (Chandler) increasingly accepted as a long term alternative with increasing proportion of children born outside of marriage
- long term cohabitation not a new phenomenon as popular prior to 1850 and after 1965
How is cohabitation a prelude to marriage?
- Most evidence as short term premarital relationship (Chester)
- (coast) 75% of cohabiting couples expect to marry
- since late 1980s become norm to cohabit before marriage (80%)
What are the patterns and trends for marriage?
- Fewer people marrying
- remarriages increasing
- people marrying later
- civil ceremonies have increased
Evidence for fewer people marrying?
- 2012: first marriages for both partners fallen to 175,000, less than half of 1970
- households containing a married couple 74% in 1961 to 42% in 2016
- by 2010 marriage rate 8.7
Why are fewer people marrying?
- Changing attitudes: less pressure and more freedom to choose type of relationship, weakened norm
- secularisation: decreased influence of church, 2001 census 3% of young people with no religion married with 17% religious
- declining stigma with marriage alternatives: no shotgun weddings as more children outside of marriage
- changed position of women: less economically dependent, oppressive patriarchal institution
- fear of divorce.
Evidence for increased remarriages?
- 2012, 34% were remarriages
- pattern of serial monogamy
Why are remarriages increasing?
- Increased divorce so more available to remarry
Evidence for people marrying later?
- 1971: age of first time marriage 25 for men and 23 for women
-2012: 32 for men and 30 for women so 7 year increase
Why are people marrying later?
- Education, career, save money, cohabit
Evidence for increase in civil ceremonies?
- 1981: 61% of marriages religious
- 2019: 18.2% of marriages religious
- less likely to marry within church
Why have civil ceremonies increased?
- Secularisation
- many churches refuse to marry divorcees
What is divorce?
Legal dissolution of a marriage by a court
What is separation?
Financial and legal affairs separated but remain unable to remarry
What is an empty shell marriage?
Couples continue to live under the same roof but as separate individuals, married by name only
Divorce rates?
- 42% of marriages in England and wales end with divorce
- 60s to 90s was largest increase in divorce
- peaked in 1993 then general decline
- by 1996 nearly as many divorces as first marriages
What factors increased the likelihood of divorce?
I. Year of marriage: 1970s to 1990s then less divorce due to more cohabitation and a later age of marriage
2. Age of marriage: older have lower risk of divorce
3. Wether married before: in 2011, 70% of divorces from first marriages and 30% previously divorced
Divorce legislation?
- 1969: divorce reform act “irretrievable breakdown of marriage” → easier
- 1984: matrimonial and family processing act, wait 1 year instead of 3
- 1996: family law act, ‘no fault’
- 2014: same sex marriage act
Why has divorce increased?
- Changes in legislation: easier and cheaper
- changing social attitudes: less pressure and stigma
- secularisation: less influence of religion
- rising expectation of marriage: less likely to tolerate an unfulfilling relationship (feminist link)
- changing role of women
- feminist explanations: dual burden, triple shift, more confident to reject
- modernity and individualisation
Sociological perspectives on divorce?
- New right: undermines traditional nuclear family
- feminist: breaking free from oppression
- postmodernist: freedom to choose, family diversity
- functionalist: marriage not under threat, people just have higher expectations
What are the key trends in childbearing?
- Increased children born outside of marriage: by 2011, 53% of children registered to married couples, less shotgun weddings
- women having children later: in 2012, 49% of babies born to mothers over 30 and 65% of fathers
- women having fewer children: 1964, 2.95 children per woman to 1.91 in 2011
- women remaining childless: in 2013, 1 in 5 women at 45 were childless
Why are more women remaining childless?
- Career focus
- effective birth control
- decrease in child morality
Why have there been changes in childbearing?
- Declining stigma
- more cohabitation
- changes in position of women (career and birth control
- 56% cohabiting with no children
- improve financial stability
What is a lone parent family?
Lone parent with dependent children
Trends with lone parent families?
- 2011: 2 million I one parents with dependent children in the UK
- 1 in 4 children live in a lone parent family
- most likely matrifocal
- 26% of an families in UK
