Changing family patterns

Question 1

Why divorce has increased:

Answer 1

1. Changes in law- it has been made easier , cheaper and both sexes can now do it.
2. Stigma has declined and it is more sociably acceptable
3. secularisation - decline in church power
4. Rising expectations of marriage- Fletcher- higher expectation means people don’t except any unhappiness and just leave.
5. women are now economically dependent.
6. Feminists- Hochschild- women have a dual burden, at work they are respected at home not, men refuse to do house work.
7. Beck and Giddens- post modern society rational norms such as staying with one person have lost their effect.
8. Smart - no effect its the normal and the family can adapt to it

Question 2

Reasons for changing patterns of marriage

Answer 2

1. attitudes have changed, less pressure
2. secularisation
3. less stigma to other methods, cohabitation
4. women have a better position
5. fear of divorce
6. increase in re marriages
7. people marry older
8. less church marriages.

Question 3

Bejin - cohabitation

Answer 3

is a trial marriage, used to figure out roles and creates a more equal division of house work.

Question 4

Weeks - same sex chosen family

Answer 4

family based on friendship as kinship- friends play the same role as family.

Question 5

Renvoize - single by choice

Answer 5

professional women were able to support their children without the fathers involvement.

Question 6

Murray - lone parent families growth due to the welfare state

Answer 6

it rewards bad behaviour such as having children without being able to support them. Welfare had created a dependency culture.

Question 7

Black families

Answer 7

most likely to be lead by a single parent, can be seen to high unemployment rates and due too slavery where mums became more independent and children were kept with them.

Question 8

Asian families

Answer 8

Larger, often extended families, look after elderly and support them when they migrate. Now more nuclear bit live near to each other.

Question 9

Willmott - dispersed extended family

Answer 9

relatives are geographically separated but maintain frequent contact through visits and phone calls.

Question 10

Bell- beanpole family

Answer 10

• it extends vertically, through three generations or more

- but it is not extended horizontally, it doesn’t involve aunts