10 marker essay prep

Question 1

two ways in which increased life expectancy may have affected the experience of childhood
- Granparents can help grandkids
- Women have to spend more time with elderly and less with thier kids

Answer 1

• An ageing population means that grandparents are now often alive at the same time as thie grandchildren. Meaning stronger relationships can be built between them and that grandparents can offer emotional and financial support when the parents cannot.
  However Gittens would argue that there is an ‘age patriarchy’ that keeps children suboardiate , controlling them and preventing them from paid work resulting in them becoming economically dependent.
• An increased life expectency means that there is a greater population of elderly people in need of care. This responsibility often disproptionatley falls on women which therefore means they have to spend less time supporting thier own children. Sue palmer labels modern childhood experiences as a toxic childhood and points out that there has been an increase in self harm and attempted suicide due to a decline emotional stabitlity as parents are too busy. Therefore an increased workload for women would lead to an even greater disconect between parent and child leaving the child to face negative expriences alone.

Question 2

two ways in which functions of the family may have been affected by changes to its structure
* the functions of the family change alongside the familys structure in order to fit society
- the structure of lone parent families may mean failing to fufil the families economic function

Answer 2

Parsons functional fit theory.
Family structure changed from extended to nuclear conciding to whatever is best for societys needs. For example extended family used to provide work and protection in the pre industrial era but jobs became widely available in the industrial era. Leading to many functions have been reduced or lost.

Increase in lone parent families
Less income coming into the family means that lone parents may not be able to properly perform the economic function. For example lone parents rely on the welfare state to provide benefits and the ecomonic functions
Therefore the function has been lost in many lone parent families.Charles murraywould argue that these family types are the biggest social problem of our time as they c

Question 3

two ways that social chane may affect patterns of marriage

Answer 3

the normalisation of alternative family lifestyles such as same sex or lone parents has given women the confidence to leave or not enter patriachal reltionships. Postmodernist - Stacey

2014 david cameron same sex marriage act

Question 4

two ways in which changing childbearing patterns may have influenced gender roles and relationships within families and households