Change Within The Family

Question 1

Changing Patterns of Family Life: Divorce

Answer 1

-2018- 90,000 divorces in the UK of opposite-sex couples and 428 same-sex divorces
-In 1971-74,000 divorces in the year the Divoce Reform Act came into place
-In 1993 the number of divorces peaked at 165,000 following a rapid rise from 1971 onwards- continued to fall throughout 1990s and early part of this century.

Question 2

Reasons for increase in divorce:

Answer 2

1. Changing attitudes to relationships
2. Reduced stigma and secularisation
3. Increased life expectancy
4. Changing gender roles
5. Growing individualism in society

Question 3

1. Changing attitudes to relationships

Answer 3

-Giddens: confident love (based upon the needs of the individuals) has replaced romantic love and people are more willing to leave partners in search of greater fulfilment.
-Beck- family is negotiated in late modern society and if conditions paced upon relationships are brown, divorce ensures.
-(functionalists) have higher expectations of marriage: while divorces have declined in recent years, so have marriages. People demand more satisfaction from relationships.

Question 4

2. Reduced stigma and secularisation

Answer 4

-The process of secularisation has led to people no longer being guided by morality of church and therefore making their own judgements on relationships.
-Less social disapproval of divorces (particularly of female divorcees) with the rise of feminism, 2/3 divorces being petitioned by women, ending a relationship can now be seen as a form of empowerment.

Question 5

3. Increased life expectancy

Answer 5

-People are living longer due to advances in medicine and better knowledge of health and nutrition etc.. this is impacting both on the age when people Mary and their likelihood to divorce.
-ONS reported increased divorce rates for over 65s in 2018, with increase in males by males 23% and females by 38% on previous years.
-With longer to live people are more likely to leave unhappy marriages and seek out new partners- as seen by the increase in remarriages.

Question 6

4. Changing gender roles

Answer 6

-Rise of feminism and the greater career aspirations have been cited as reasons for the increase in divorce.
-Two thirds of divorces are requested by females which reflects a growing dissatisfaction with married life for women.
-Male’s lagged adaption to changing gender roles,combined with growing individualism and the crisis of masculinity can be seen as contributing to divorce rates as well.

Question 7

5. Growing individualism in society

Answer 7

-Individualisation thesis suggests that people are increasingly looking to satisfy their own needs rather than sacrifice their needs for the good of the family.
-Concepts such as confluent love (Giddens) and liquid love (Bauman) are based upon individuals having choice and looking to satisfy their own needs.
-Relationships have become a transaction, one that ends when the relationship has fulfilled it purpose.

Question 8

Consequences of divorce for family members

Answer 8

-conflict within the family: impact on children of parental conflict over access, finance and new relationships
-Formation of new families: reconstituted families could bring conflict over parenting of children
-Greater number of remarriages, more lone-parent families and more lone-person households within society
-Financial issues for partners-loss of second income, adsdictoal costs of living apart.

Question 9

Changing patterns of family life: child-bearing

Answer 9

-According to ONS there were 657,000 live births in the uk in 2018, a 9.9% decrease since 2012 and the lowest since 2005.
-51.6% of those were to married couples, the biggest decrease since 1973.
- Fertility rates decreased in all age groups, except for woman aged 40 years and over, in 2018.

Question 10

Why has their been a decrease in child-bearing?

Answer 10

1. Changing roles of woman in society
2. Improved contraception
3. Delaying hold-bearing
4. Costs of child-bearing

Question 11

1. Changing roles of women

Answer 11

-Women are becoming more involved in higher education and delaying marriage and children until later in life.
-Career aspirations of women have led to decrease in fertility rates of all women under the age of 40: suggests that women are waiting to have children.
-Increased career aspirations means women are less likely to have larger families as they want to progress within their careers.

Question 12

2. Improved contraception

Answer 12

-Availability and effectiveness of contraception and family planning methods allow women to have greater control over when they have children.
-Availability of contraception on prescription and new technologies associated with contraception have increased efficiency of protecting unwanted pregnancies.
-Male contraception has increased as a result of awareness campaigns into sexually transmitted diseases, thus leaving them to take shared responsibility for contraception.

Question 13

3. Delaying child-bearing

Answer 13

-Greater individualism in lifestyles have meant that couples are more likely to wait until late in life to have children.
-Career progression, insecurity of relationships and uncertain employment all impact on the decision to have children.
-Group with the highest fertility rat is 30-34 in 2018- in 1964 it was 25-29, marginally followed by 20-24.

Question 14

4. Costs of child-bearing

Answer 14

• Herschel suggested that economic costs of raising a child up to the age of 18 is in excess of 150,000-with precarious employment and higher costs of living, people may opt to have fewer children.
  -social costs to parents of having children are also a factor, impacting on the choices parents can make and their leisure and career aspirations.
  -Rise of child-centred society can impact on the costs of raising children and this is something people consider deciding whether or not to have children and how many.

Question 15

5. Reduced sigma of births outside of marriage

Answer 15

-Births outside of marriage account for over 48% of live births in 2018-not all lone parents.
-Cohabitating couples and changing attitudes to marriage impact on this figure.
-Reduction in social stigma attached to being bor outside of marriage

Question 16

Why has their been an increase in same sex relationships?

Answer 16

1. Greater social acceptance
2. Changes in legislation
3. Changes in attitudes to relationships
4. Changing representations in the media

Question 17

1. Greater social acceptance

Answer 17

-Changing attitudes to sexual behaviours have led to an increased acceptance of same-sex relationships.
- process of secularisation has led to greater independence in moral judgements and acceptance in that LGBTQ relationships share common ground of love.
-work of activists- e.g stonewall to promote LGBTQ community have led to greater acceptance in society of same sex couples.

Question 18

2. Changes in legislation

Answer 18

-Decriminalisation of male homosexuality 1969
-Adoption allowed for same-sex couples in 2002
-Repeal of section 28 in 2003
-Civil-partnership Act 2005
-Same sex marriage allowed in 2013

Question 19

3. Change in attitudes to relationships

Answer 19

-Gidden’s concept of confluent love (which means that individuals are now looking to create meaningful relationships that are based on love and respect) and pure relationships- greater reflectivity of individuals leads to greater sexual fluidity.
-Bauman-liquid love-peoples relationships and connections are based upon what satisfies their needs,rather than being contained by social ties.
-Evolution of views from one generation to the next- generation z and millennials are more open about sexuality.

Question 20

4.Changing representations in the media

Answer 20

-up to the 1980w there was heightened hostility towards LGBTQ community in the media-typified my moral panics surrounding AIDS
-Greater representation of same-sex relationships led to it being normalised on TV
- High profile figures/celebrities openly declaring their sexuality and belong part of mainstream media

Question 21

Evaluations of increase in same sex relationships

Answer 21

-Although there has been an improvement in status of same sex relationships, figures in census may not be reliable due to social stigmas within some communities
-Similarly, it is difficult to tell if here has been an increase in same-sex relationships or there has been a greater openness about relationships
-Broader range of sexualities and gender identities in the UK leads to difficulties in defining some forms of relationship as one form of sexuality e.g asexual, pansexual, intersex etc…

Question 22

Marriage and cohabitation

Answer 22

-In 2017 there were 242,842 marriage in the uk-with 88% of those having lived together before getting married according to the ONS.
-The average age of marriage of opposite-sex couples was 38.0 years for men and 35.7 years for women in 2017.
-In 2017, there were just under 7,000 marriages of same-sex couples of which 56% were between female couples; further 1,072 couples converted their existing civil partnership into a marriage.

Question 23

Reasons for a decline in marriage:

Answer 23

1. Changing roles of women
2. Changing social attitudes
3. Rising divorce and insecurity of relationships
4. Changes to social institutions

Question 24

1. Changing role of women

Answer 24

-career aspirations of women have meant that there has been a rise in the average age at which people first marry
- Greater control over reproductive rights and increased medical technology means women can delay having children
-financial and social independence of women mean they are more likely to look for right partners to satisfy their needs rather than a financial arrangement

Question 25

2. Changing social attitudes

Answer 25

-Alternatives to marriage- such as cohabitation or living apart together relationships as a response to changing attitudes to relationships
-Giddens ideas of confluent love and Bauman’s liquid love suggest people will opt for serial monogamy over long-term relationships
-Greater set-improvement has led to more individualism, rather than romantic love

Question 26

3. Rising divorce and insecurity of relationships

Answer 26

-People delay marriage until they are certain that their partner is the right person due to fear of divorce
-Increased instability in relationships (and society) has led people to attempt to control the risks that they face in relationships
-However divorce rate is declining and the number of remarriages increasing which suggests that fear of divorce may be diminished by the greater acceptance of serial monogamy

Question 27

4. Changes to social institutions

Answer 27

-Family provides less functions than in previous generations: individuals can find self-fulfilment through support networks
-Process of secularisation (decline in religion) has led more people to see marriage as an outdated institution and less stigma attached to alternatives to marriage
-Only 23% of weddings in 2017 took place in a place of religious worship which demonstrates the secular nature of relationships

Question 28

5. Increase in cohabitation

Answer 28

-Alongside LATs (living apart together) and lone parent households, many couples choose to live together before they get married
-Sociologists have suggested that this acts as a form of trial marriage- for couples to se if they can live together harmoniously
-Often temporary- 88% of coupes who married in 2017 were previously cohabitating

Question 29

Family diversity

Answer 29

-Bertoud (2000): family life is changing across ethnic groups
- South Asian families more likely to retain traditional views on marriage and gender roles- but intergenerational differences in attitudes
-Back Caribbean: greater individualism and less likely to marry and have conventional families, cohabitation and serial monogamy higher than south Asians.

Question 30

British Asian families

Answer 30

-Bhatti (1999): supports Bertouds view, evidence of changing attitudes in younger generations of family-particularly towards marriage and mixed relationships
-Traditional gender roles in older generations were reinforced through lower female employment, even when they no longer had dependent children
-Motherhood was seen as being more important than employment and fathers would take Ona traditional breadwinner roles within the family of being the provider. This demonstrated a similar division to what parsons suggested in the 1950s about American families.

Question 31

British Asian families

Answer 31

-Qurshi et al (2015)- Higher rates of traditional families than other ethnic groups
-Has been an increasing acceptance of divorce within Asian families and increase in lone parenting across 3 main Asian groups: Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi demonstrated the changing attitudes to family life, whilst the older generation still looked to family honour

Question 32

Black-Caribbean families

Answer 32

-Cultural variations amongst black Caribbean community with some preferring traditional families, common-law families and matrifocal families (lacking a father)
-Berthoud (2001): marriage is a lifestyle option rather than a social institution to some black-Caribbean households
-Form of modern individualism: less likely to to live with partner and more likely than other groups to have mixed-ethnicity partnerships and less likely to commit to living together which can be seen by the high number of lone parent and lone person households

Question 33

Black-Caribbean families

Answer 33

-Reynolds (2002): greater fluidity in family forms in black-Caribbean families
-Female-headed households are often part of visiting relationships- in a similar way to LATs, where a man actively parents children, but does no live with family
-Reynolds suggests there are variations in attitudes based upon different Caribbean islands-traditional ideas in Barbados and Antigua for example.

Question 34

Extended families

Answer 34

Extended families are a form of family that is an expansion of the core family unit. Which includes:
-Vertically extended families: Families with three or more generations living under one roof. E.g Chilean, parents, grandparents
-This includes beanpole families- a multi-generational family with fewer children
-Horizontally- extended families: (more common in willmott and young’s research of early industrial society) this is a family type where there are close relationships with siblings, cousins, aunts and unclues. One generation of the family will spread wider across in contrast to privatised nuclear families

Question 35

Extended families

Answer 35

-Less common in contemporary society, however recently the number of multi-family households has significantly increased according to ONS
-Increase of 75% to 297,000 multi-family households in 2019 (1.1% of all households)
-This number includes multi-generational households- such as couples living with their child and their child’s partner and elderly parents living with their children and their grandchildren

Question 36

Reasons for changes in extended families

Answer 36

-Geographical and social mobility in society
-Ethnic diversity in family structures
-State policies and welfare

Question 37

1. Geographical and social mobility

Answer 37

-Decline in extended families because of the need for geographical mobility in the globalised workforce
-Internal migration and international migration for employment results in the nuclear family often leaving close relatives to gain employment
-This can result in upward social mobility for some families- through higher education, higher status positions and changing lifestyles

Question 38

2. Ethnic diversity in family structures

Answer 38

-Berthoud (2000): found relatively high rates of children and their partners living in parental home after marriage amongst British South Asian families
-According to ONS data from 2011 census, 21% of Asian families fell into other family type which included multi-generational families- highest of any ethnic group
-Reynolds (2002) found Jamaican families more likely to have matrifocal family (single parent households headed by women) it is often headed by a grandmother or having male involvement as part of a visiting relationships

Question 39

3. State policies and welfare

Answer 39

-Decrease in social care funding has led more parents to moving in with grown children and their families for support
-Increase in benefits for lone parents and working families have meant less reliance upon extended family networks for shelter

Question 40

Evaluations

Answer 40

-Extended families may have reduced overtime
-Grandparents are increasing becoming involved in providing childcare for parents ad financial support for their children well into adulthood
-Family has become extended through technology with virtual links to family that have migrated-modified extended family

Question 41

Lone person households

Answer 41

-In 2019, 8.2 million households in the uk were inhabited by just one person- 29% of total households according to ONS
-The number of people living alone has increased by a fifth over the last 20 years, from 6.8 million in1999 to 8.2 million in 2019
-The majority of this increase is driven by the growth in the numbers of men living alone (72.1%), predominately aged 45 to 64 years

Question 42

Reasons for rise in lone person households

Answer 42

-Changing atitudes to relationships
-Individalism in society
-Increased life expectancy
-Greater acceptance of alternatives to family

Question 43

1. Changing attitudes to relationships

Answer 43

-Relationships have changed in late modern era and people are more flexible in their choice of partners
-More lone person households as people wait longer to commit to cohabitation or marriage, need to find a partner that meets their needs
-Insecurity of relationships: likely that people will become part of lone person household through divorce or end of a relationship

Question 44

2. Greater individualism in society

Answer 44

-Career progression is valued more than relationships by many in employment, particularly young professionals
-Greater geographical mobility in employment as people move for their work (easier) as they try to establish a position of security within their field
-Desire for leisure activities, globalised travel and greater focus on the self have led to increase in people living alone rather than be tied down to a family unit
-While a greaterfocus on self-improvement n society has led more people to look inwards for satisfaction, rather than focus on concepts such as romantic love, as outlined by Giddens.

Question 45

3. Increased life expectancy

Answer 45

-Greater life expectancy has led to rise in the number of divorces and remarriages, males 45-64 age bracket has the largest increase in lone person households
-Both men and women delaying marriage and cohabitation as they are living longer and have more time to start a family in their late thirties
-Increase in elderly living alone, through death of partners or divorce in later life

Question 46

4. Greater acceptance of alternatives to family

Answer 46

-Rise of families of choice: friends fulfilling the functions of the family which means families are not needed at certain points in the lifecycle
-Reduction of stigma attached to single life: Career aspirations, travel and self-fulfilment are more important to some people
-However, increase in multi-family households in the uk in recent years- indicating elderly being moved into family home

Question 47

Impacts of increased lone person households on society

Answer 47

-Affordability of housing: London has the lowest percentage of lone-person households (24%) -cost of living,compared to Scotland (35%)
- Social isolation, particularly for older relatives with limited contact to family and friends
-Increased costs of living from divorced couples- estimated divorce costs UK economy £1.7 billion a year or 14,500 on average

Question 48

Lone parent families

Answer 48

-According to ONS: there were 3 million lone parent households in the uk in2015 out a total of 18 million households (16.7%)
-This figure has increased in number since 1996 where there were 2.4 million out 16.5 million households (14.5)
-This is a slight increase in percentage of families headed by one parent over the last 20 years

Question 49

Reasons for rise in lone parent families

Answer 49

-Changing position of women
-Changing attitudes to relationships
-Less stigma attached to lone parenting
-State support for parents

Question 50

1. Changing position of women

Answer 50

-Women petition for two thirds of divorces in the UK, demonstrating a change in attitudes of women towards marriage
-Women have become financially independent and increasingly career focused which has improved the confidence of women to seek out what they want from life
-Women less likely to tolerate a partner that doesn’t fulfil their individual needs than in previous generations

Question 51

2. Changing attitudes to relationships

Answer 51

-For both men and women, the expectations of relationships have changed:
-Giddens concept of confluent love (which means creating meaningful relationships based on love and respect) suggests that people are no longer looking for lifelong relationships, but rather a partner that satisfies their needs at that moment in their lives
-Whilst Bauman concept of liquid love suggests something similar, that individuals are constantly reflected upon their needs for security and freedom. This can explain why relationships become more fragile in contemporary society
> both of these concepts explain why people are more likely to end relationships and pursue other ones, which in terms of the family means there will be periods where that family will be headed by one parent only.
-This greater focus on individualism has meant that staying together for the sake of the children is less important than being happy and content in relationships

Question 52

3. Less stigma attached to lone parenting

Answer 52

-With divorce become more commonplace, attitudes to lone parenting have changed. Rather than being seen as a failure of a marriage or a partnership, lone parenting is now seen as a choice made by individuals.
- Rise of feminism has seen divorce as a form of empowerment for women in leaving partners who were oppressive or did not consider their emotional needs and they are celebrated for being two parents at the same time

Question 53

4. Financial support from the state

Answer 53

• New right critical of welfare dependency have cut support for lone parents
  -However, initiatives such as working tax credit and funding for 30 hours of free childcare have supported lone parents into work and also universal credit
  -Creation of child support agency had mixed impacts - however it was criticised by both resident and non-resident parents

Question 54

Impacts of increase in lone parent families on society

Answer 54

-New right have suggested that lone parents have failed to adequately socialise children, particular males, and this has led to a generation of idle (lazy) young men that lack father figures
>Can be argued that this approach can be a form of victim blaming in society, and does not take into account other factors such as deprivation and blocked opportunities for working class males
-Increase in lone parent households
-Increase in female role models for girls, with the majority of lone parent households being female, girls see their mothers balance work and childcare and therefore would be inspired to have careers of their own has an impact on tier future prospects
-Potential for conflict over access to children, new relationships and even financial arrangements.

Question 55

What is reconstituted/blended families?

Answer 55

Reconstituted or blended families are compromised of two partners and children that are biological children of one of the partners only
-Their has been a increase in the number of reconstituted families in the UK, this is ur in part with the increase in divorce and remarriage sin wider society and this form of family are becoming common
-According to 2011 census, over 1.1 million children in the uk live as part of a reconstituted family- 544,000 families (11% of all families in the UK)

Question 56

Reasons for rise in reconstituted families:

Answer 56

-Increased divorce
-changing attitudes to relationships to relationships
-changing attitudes to social institutions
-Increased life expectancy means we are more likely to form several long lasting relationships over our lives, instead of one

Question 57

1. Increased divorce

Answer 57

-In recent years the number of marriages and divorces have now been falling, however divorce is now more common in society than in previous generations
-Average age of divorce for opposite sex couples in the UK is 45-49 for males, 40-44 for females. This indicates that many marriages dissolve when there is dependant children in the household
-People are getting married and having children later in life. Average age of childbearing is 28 for females and 33 for males

Question 58

2. Changing attitudes to relationships

Answer 58

-Giddens, Beck and Bauman all detailed the increased changes in relationships and how individual needs are more important relationships
-Ending of one relationship will inevitably lead to the formation of new relationships in late modern society as people look to satisfy their individual needs
-Movement from life-long relationships to serial monogamy

Question 59

3. Changing attitudes to social institutions

Answer 59

-Reduced stigma and divorce and remarriage as society becomes non religious in nature
-Dysfunctional family units can cause more harm than remaining together, partners may see family as less important than their own well-being as family loses some of its functions
-Ideas of parenting do not depend upon traditional gender socialisation, reducing conflict is more important in maintaining health and well-being of children

Question 60

Consequences of reconstituted families:

Answer 60

Conflict within the family:
-Access to children
-Financial arrangements
-Conflict between children and non-children and biological parent
-Relationships with step-siblings and extended family
Second marriages have lower rate of divorce - 31% compared to 42% according to ONS

Question 61

The Rapoports

Answer 61

-Rhonda and Robert Rapport argued in the 1980s that the family was becoming a more diverse institution, rather than being a conventional or nuclear family as others suggested
-In the wake of rapid social changes from the 1960s onwards, the different types of family were changing and the Rapports identified changes that were occurring
-They used a range of secondary sources to establish five types of diversity in family life

Question 62

5 types o family diversity the Rappoports identified:

Answer 62

-organisational diversity
-cultural diversity
-social class diversity
-life course diversity
-cohort diversity

Question 63

1.Organisational diversity

Answer 63

-This refers to the organisation of the family structure and its support networks
-some families may divide labour equally, others may have a main provider and a parent that stays at home
-other families may rely upon the assistance of relatives or friends to support them
-employment, martial status and the presence of non-biological guardians and parents all have different impacts of family life

Question 64

2.Cultural diversity

Answer 64

-In the UK, there was mass migration in the post war period creating greater ethnic diversity in society
-Families from minority-ethnic backgrounds may have different structures, different ways of organising family life and different levels of support networks
For example, migrant smilies from Caribbean formed local communities in London to help other families, building extended networks. In the midlands and north, Asian families migrated and maintained close ties with relatives in other areas or moved closer to families

Question 65

3.Social class diversity

Answer 65

-Assumptions of family were based upon middle-class ideas of family life
-Different forms of organisation between working class families, middle-class families and those of the upper classes
-Influence of employment, shared leisure time, childcare responsibilities and poverty can all shape the differences in social class experiences of family life

Question 66

4.Life course diversity

Answer 66

-Refers to the stage of life that that individuals were at and how it impacted upon the type of family or household they found themselves in
-Rappaport suggest that we do not live in the same family structure, family set-up or type of household for the whole of our lives- life events such as divorce, employment, higher education and having children all shape the form of household an individual lives in

Question 67

5. Cohort diversity

Answer 67

-This refers to the intergenerational attitudes of different groups - e.g boomers, generation X, millennials and generation Z
-Each different cohort will have different sets of values that they might place upon family life
-Older generations might see more value in marriage, whereas younger generations might delay marriage or seek alternatives to married life altogether

Question 68

Evaluation of Rapoports

Answer 68

-Important research as diversity has grown in the years following their research
-Can be evidenced through the rise of different family types, rise of cohabitation and delaying marriage and changes of practices of family life have demonstrated the changes that the Rapoports highlighted
-Research was conducted from existing research and other secondary sources, which can portray it as subjective, however, it has been backed up by further research and have supported their ideas

Question 69

Beanpole family

Answer 69

Looking at how a family looks on a family tree can present us with a beanpole family: a vertical extended family with no (or few) “branches”. This is a multi-generational extended family, or vertical extended family, but is characterised by each generation having few siblings. as the fertility rate has reduced, this becomes a more common family form. In earlier generations, grandparents and great grandparents might be expected to have several siblings, as large families was the norm.