Families and Households: Family Diversity

Question 1

Statistics about Families and Households

Answer 1

1) In 2016, there were 18.9 million families in the UK, increasing from 16.6 million in 1996.
2) 12.7 million married or civil partner couple families, this was the most common family type.
3) Cohabiting couples fastest growing family type doubling from 1.5 million to 3.3 million.
4) In 2016, around 7.7 million people lived alone in the UK, majority were women.

Question 2

Is cohabitation replacing marriage? Why might this be the case?

Answer 2

Weddings can be expensive.
Secularisation.
Less social stigma.

Question 3

Cheal : fragmentation of family life

Answer 3

No longer live a modern world that is predictable with orderly structures like the nuclear family.
Family structures are more fragmented and diverse and individuals have greater choice in their lifestyles, personal relationships and family arrangements.

Question 4

Hareven : Life course analysis

Answer 4

Family structures aren’t completely fixed. They change over time depending on the situations in peoples lives.

Question 5

Morgan : blurring of family identities

Answer 5

Argues that there is no point in making large scale generalisations about the family as if it were a single thing as functionalist do.
Members participate by constructing a life course and relationships within the family due to their own decisions.

Question 6

Stacey : postmodern families

Answer 6

Greater choice for women gives them the ability to break out of patriarchal oppressions and shape their families to their needs.

Question 7

Giddens : the individuation thesis

Answer 7

Family and marriage has been transformed by greater choice and equality betweeen men and women. With greater choice, personal relationships inevitably become less stable and can be ended by either party at any time.

Question 8

Beck : Risk society and the negotiated family

Answer 8

Tradition has less influence and people have more choice. This means we are more aware of risks and we calculate the risks and rewards of different actions and decisions. The patriarchal family has been undermined by greater gender equality and greater individualism. This has given rise to the negotiated family who do not conform to any one standard or traditional family norm.

Question 9

Explain what is meant by the term Zombie Family

Answer 9

In todays risk society, people turn to their families in hope of finding security. As family relationships are now unstable they are unable to provide security for their members. Concept of family appears to be alive but is in fact dead as family can no longer provide security haven for its members.

Question 10

Define cereal packet family

Answer 10

Ideological nuclear family portrayed in the media (advertisements of household products and the types of families promoted in the process)

Question 11

Functionalist perspective on family diversity

Answer 11

Family has moved away from being extended and is now nuclear. Kinship networks once relied on in families are no longer necessary as there are many other institutions that fulfil these roles. The family has become privatised.

Question 12

McGlone

Answer 12

Challenges idea nuclear family has taken over extended family. The extended family still remains an important source of help and support

Question 13

Modified extended family

Answer 13

Extended kin are less likely to live with each other now but maintain the strong support networks despite geographical distance.

Question 14

Define Local extended family

Answer 14

Traditional horizontal or vertical extended family where members will live with each other

Question 15

Define dispersed extended family

Answer 15

Wider kin might live far away but links are maintained through technology. Parsons would reject this as an extended family and argue that it demonstrates isolated nuclear families.

Question 16

Define attenuated extended family

Answer 16

Single people might move away from their kin

Question 17

New right perspective on family diversity

Answer 17

Agrees with functionalist ideas that the nuclear family is ideal. Believes there has been a shift from the nuclear family to the neo-conventional family.

Question 18

Define neo-conventional family

Answer 18

Nuclear in structure but is a dual-earner family where conjugal roles are joint - a symmetrical family.

Question 19

Identify two reasons for the increase in homosexual families

Answer 19

Less social stigma

Change in social policy e.g. civil partnership act (2004)

Question 20

Identify two reasons for the increase in lone person households

Answer 20

More socially acceptable

Increase in divorce

Question 21

Identify two reasons for the increase in lone parent families

Answer 21

Domestic violence

Changes in position of women as more financially independent.

Question 22

Suggest two reasons why lone parent families tend to be poorer than couple families

Answer 22

Only one income so not much money to afford necessities or commodities.
No income as parent may not be able to work because of childcare commitments.

Question 23

Outline three reasons why lone parent families are generally headed by women

Answer 23

Courts tend to favour women in custody battles.
Women seem more suited to raising children.
Women more likely to give up work to care for children.

Question 24

Define perverse incentives

Answer 24

Incentives that result in unintended negative consequences due to actions people take to receive the incentive. Murray says welfare state discourages people from work.

Question 25

Criticism of new right (Oakley)

Answer 25

Wrongly assumes husband and wife roles are biologically fixed. Negative reaction against the feminist campaign for women’s inequality. Other critics argue that there is no evidence of dependency for lone parent families.

Question 26

How can we criticise the new right view of family diversity using Weeks views?

Answer 26

Sexual and family diversity are now widely accepted because sexual morality is a matter of choice, secularisation, growing acceptance of sexual and family diversity especially amongst younger people.

Question 27

Rapoport and Rapoport (1982)

Answer 27

Only a minority of families resemble the ideal nuclear family put forward by functionalists and the new right. Instead they identify five types of family diversity in Britain.

Question 28

Define organisation diversity

Answer 28

Different patterns of domestic and paid work that exists within different families.
Some families are symmetrical.
Some families have dual earners.

Question 29

Define cultural diversity

Answer 29

Different patterns based on religion or ethnicity

Question 30

Define social class diversity

Answer 30

Different patterns of conjugal roles and child rearing practices between working class and middle class families

Question 31

Define life stage diversity

Answer 31

Throughout our lives we will live in different types of family structures.

Question 32

Define generation diversity

Answer 32

People from different generations have attitudes and experiences of family.
Attitudes towards divorce, cohabitation or homosexual relationships to be controversial to one generation but not to another.

Question 33

Identify two reasons to explain why some ethnic minority groups maintain these traditional family structures

Answer 33

Religion or cultural ideas.
Extended family support new family members coming over from immigration. Economic reasons because it is expensive to move from country to country.

Question 34

Geriatric wards

Answer 34

Attract the elderly and retired couples

Question 35

Rural areas

Answer 35

Families who work in agriculture and tend to be extended and traditional. Many of these areas have been taken over by commuters

Question 36

Older declining industrial areas

Answer 36

Areas with declining industry, often have traditional family structures and relationships

Question 37

The south of sunbelt

Answer 37

Attracts mobile two parent families more likely to be middle class and owner occupiers.

Question 38

Inner cities

Answer 38

Experience high levels of deprivation. More likely to find single parents who are isolated from kin.

Question 39

Recently declining industrial areas

Answer 39

Found mainly in the midlands and are dominated by diverse structures.

Question 40

Outline the reasons for the different patterns of step families

Answer 40

Factors causing an increase in the number of lone parents such as divorce and separation mean it is more likely that step families are created.
Children more likely to remain with mother when relationships break down.
Step parents at greater risk of poverty because there are more children and step father may have to support children from previous relationships.

Question 41

Define individualisation thesis

Answer 41

People are free floating independent individuals.
Individual choice over relationships.
Pure relationships exists to meet the needs of each partner.
People can walk away when the relationship no longer meet their needs.
Negotiated roles mean that wishes and expectations of individual family members are met.

Question 42

Define connectedness thesis

Answer 42

People are fundamentally social beings.
Individual choices are influenced by social networks, existing relationships and personal histories.
Family involves more than just a couple so challenging idea of pure relationships.
People may not always be able to walk away even from couple relationships as this depends on their wider social network and past experiences.
Negotiated roles are also embedded within family connections and obligations which may restrict their choices.