FAMILIES AND HOUSEHOLDS - Changing Patterns of Family Life

Question 1

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Marriage: What are the main trends in marriage over the last 100 years?

Answer 1

• Number of heterosexual marriages
• Number of first marriages (when neither partner has been married before)
• Remarriage
• Civil Partnerships and same sex marriage
• Age at marriage
• Singlehood

Question 2

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Marriage: (Trend 3) People are marrying later

Answer 2

• The average age of first marriage has increase
  1972: 25 for men and 23 for women
  2012: 32 for men and 30 for women

Question 3

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Marriage: (Trend 4) Differences in trends by class and ethnicity

Answer 3

• Working class are less likely to marry
• Sarah Corse et. al. (2013) found in the USA the decline of full time factory jobs and the rise in unstable casual employment means working class men and women are now less likely to get and stay married and have children within marriage
• Some ethnic groups are more likely to get married earlier
• Research by Berthoud (2000) suggests that 3/4 of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women are married by age 25 compared with half of white women
• British African Caribbeans are the group least likely to get married, only 39% of adults under 60 were married in 2011

Question 4

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Marriage: What are the general trends?

Answer 4

• Fall in the number of marriages
• Later age of first marriage
• Increase in civil partnerships
• Increasing in remarriage following divorce

Question 5

hanging Patterns of Family Life - Marriage: (Explanation 1) Changing attitudes to marriage

Answer 5

• There is now less pressure to get married and more freedom for individuals to choose the type of relationship they want
• The postmodernist David Cheal argues that this greater choice over the type of family has led to an increase In family diversity
• However, some sociologists point out that greater freedom of choice in relationships means a greater risk of instability since these relationships are more likely to break up

Question 6

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Marriage: (Explanation 2) The decline in religious influence (Secularisation)

Answer 6

• Secularisation means that people no longer feel they need to get married for religious reasons
• People are freer to choose what type of relationship they enter into
• However the majority of first marriages still take place within a religious setting/context, which suggests it still has some influence over the decision to get married
• In 2012, only 30% of weddings were held in places of worship

Question 7

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Marriage:(Explanation 3) The declining stigma attached to alternatives to marriage

Answer 7

• Cohabitation, remaining single and having children outside of marriage are now regarded as acceptable and have become quite the norm
• In 1989, 70% of respondents to the BSA (British Social Attitudes) Survey believed that couples who wanted children should get married
• By 2000, this has dropped to 54%
• Despite this a lot of couples cohabit and then get married as sort of a trial marriage, and so the average age of marriage has risen
• BSA survey attitudes towards same-sex couples trends of acceptance: “While the majority of British people now accept the concept of same sex couples as being ‘rarely wrong’ or ‘not wrong at all’, still fewer people approve of adopting children, on average women and younger people have more liberal attitudes towards same-sex marriage and civil partnerships, so there is likely to be increases in acceptances as older birth cohorts die”

Question 8

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Marriage:(Explanation 4) Changes in the position of women

Answer 8

• Many women are now financially independent from men because of better education and better career prospects, giving them greater freedom not to marry
• The growing implant of the feminist view that marriage is an oppressive patriarchal institution may also dissuade women from marrying
• However, feminists also argue that the 1970s saw a cultural and attitudinal shift towards the idea of marriage as personal and intimate relationship that needs to be achieved and sustained, rather than merely a status conferred by a legal ceremony
• Feminists claim that this led to changes in the nature of marriage, in that patriarchal marriage has been replaced by a more companionate (equal) and egalitarian form of marriage, on the other and some feminists argue that marriage still remains patriarchal with men benefitting from their wives ‘triple-shift’ of paid work, house work and childcare
• Also the changes in position of women does not necessarily mean that they don’t get married they merely put off marriage until their careers are established
• Many feminists also argue that the fact that women are now wage earners as well as the homemakers has created a new source of conflict between husbands and wives and this is leading to more divorce

Question 9

FAMILIES AND HOUSEHOLDS - Changing Patterns of Family Life - Cohabitation

Answer 9

Cohabitation is living with a partner without marriage/legal partnership status, the partner could be of the opposite or same sex
- The legal status of cohabiting couples is not the same as marriage

Question 10

Changing patterns of family life - Cohabitation: What do New Right commentators claim about cohabitation?

Answer 10

New Right commentators claim cohabitation is less stable than marriage as a report by the Institute for the Study of Civil Society (Morgan, 2000) saw cohabiting couples to be less happy and fulfilled than married couples and have a higher probability to be abusive, unfaithful, stressed and depressed within the cohabiting couple

Question 11

Changing patterns of family life - Cohabitation: According to analysed ONS data, what effect can cohabitation have on children?

Answer 11

ONS data analysed suggested that child who’s parents live together but aren’t married get worse results at school, may leave education earlier and have a higher risk of developing a serious illness

Question 12

Changing patterns of family life - Cohabitation: What does Kieran (2007) argue about cohabitation?

Answer 12

• Kiernan (2007) argues that the educational and health disadvantages reports suggest many be has a result of the poor or socially disadvantaged situations some cohabiting couples may be in
• Kiernan (2007) also notes its difficult to generalise about cohabiting couples as it might be include people who are awaiting their marriage day, those who oppose marriage completely and those who are using it as a test of strength or compatibility in more socially acceptable situation

Question 13

Changing patterns of family life - Cohabitation: (Explanation 1) Changing Attitudes

Answer 13

It has become more acceptable for a variety of family forms to exist.
Post modern theorists highlight family diversity and the choices open to individuals in society today
Attitudes are changing first amongst the younger generations and so more diverse relationships and family types are far more accepted
Attitudes towards sexuality have changed meaning gay relationship are very wide accepted alongside other forms or relationships such as polyamorous
Access to contraception has also changed
Cohabitation is less likely to be seen as ‘living in sin’
Increasing individualism could result in people wanting the choice to end a relationship if its not working for them and they aren’t fulfilled by it

Question 14

Changing patterns of family life - Cohabitation: (Explanation 2) Cost of Living

Answer 14

Increasing housing costs and the rising costs of living, particularly in urban areas, results in many couples living together to share costs and therefore be more financially stable
Banks and building societies lend to cohabiting couples which offers a way to get on the property ladder, increasing the appeal to live together before marriage

Question 15

Changing patterns of family life - Cohabitation: (Explanation 3) Trial Marriage

Answer 15

Cohabiting couples are more likely to be younger than most married couples
This suggests cohabitation is often used as a trial marriage and a test of compatibility prior to marriage
Research shows cohabitation is a temporary phase which may only last on average about 5 years after which they may split but 60% of couples do go on to marry following cohabitation

Question 16

Changing patterns of family life - Cohabitation: (Explanation 5) Divorce

Answer 16

Some couples could be living together whilst waiting for a divorce to go through
Cohabitation is the only option if they want to live as a couple but cannot yet get married so will do so until they can
Couples in which one or more of the partners are divorced are more likely to choose to cohabit before committing to another marriage

Question 17

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Family Diversity and Contemporary Structure: What does family diversity refer to?

Answer 17

• Family Diversity refers to a broad range of characteristics or dimensions on which families vary, along with a recognition that there are a multitude of different family types that function effectively
• In contemporary society a much broader range of family types are accepted and slowly become norms

Question 18

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Family Diversity and Contemporary Structure: What is a symmetrical family?

Answer 18

It is a family where the roles of husbands and wife or cohabiting partners have become more a like (symmetrical) and equal

Question 19

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Family Diversity and Contemporary Structure: What are the characteristics of a symmetrical family?

Answer 19

• It’s nuclear
• It is less patriarchal and male dominated through joint conjugal roles
• Home-centered and privatised (all family life focused on the home), their leisure is home based and the family is very self-contained
  Husband and wife support each other with little support from wider kin

Question 20

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Family Diversity and Contemporary Structure: Who identified the symmetrical family and how?

Answer 20

It was identified by Young and Willmott (1973) who examined the development of family from the preindustrial period to 1970 through 3 distinct stages. Stage 3 was the Symmetrical Family which was first developed in the middle class but by the 1970s spread to the working class

Question 21

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Family Diversity and Contemporary Structure: What did Ann Oakley argue about Young and Willmott’s (1973) research, that gave them the evidence for the symmetrical family?

Answer 21

example of malestream sociology
Young and Willmott’s (1973) for equality of housework was that 72% of men helped with at least one piece of housework a week - Ann Oakley argues that this could mean anything from tucking children into bed to ironing one pair of trousers, and fewer than 3/4 of the research even did this much - therefore a women’s workload still remains much larger

Question 22

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Family Diversity and Contemporary Structure: What has happened to the number of lone parents over the last 30 years and why might this be?

Answer 22

• Over the last 30 years, the number of loan parent families has increased from 7% in 1972 to 23% in 2007, the majority of which living with just their mother
• It may have become more common down to the acceptance of children before marriage where there is likely to be less stability than in a married relationship

Question 23

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Family Diversity and Contemporary Structure: What did Charles Murray link increasing lone parents with?

Answer 23

• Charles Murray links the increase in single parents to youth crime and underperformance at school
• 37% of lone-parent families live in poverty suggesting the struggle that lone-parent families often have financial issues which may make family life unstable which maybe influence this

Question 24

Changing Patterns of Family Life - Family Diversity and Contemporary Structure: Giddens (1992)
what has amily and marriage have been transformed by

Answer 24

Anthony Giddens argues over the recent decade the f greater choice and equality between men and women. Relationships are free to exist based on sex and intimacy rather than procreation as a result of the accessibility of contraception’s. The impact of feminism has given women greater opportunities in education and work and therefore has provided them with greater independence. As a result, marriage is no longer defined by law or tradition leaving the two parties to define their relationship according to their personal beliefs about what makes a relationship positive and functional - he describes this as a ‘pure relationship’. He also says that with greater choice, personal relationships inevitably become less stable and can be needed by either party at any time