Families and Households: Patterns + Trends Flashcards
“triple shift”
Feminist idea that after women gained the right to work men benefited from their wife’s paid work, domestic work, and emotional work. Therefore marriage remains patriarchal.
19% of all marriages
Are remarriages where one partner has been previously married.
Serial monogamy
Multiple long-term relationships that are monogamous.
A trend of marriage-divorce-remarriage.
Family types + location: Eversley and Bonnerjea
The geriatric wards
Coastal areas which attract retired and elderly couples who may live some distance from relatives.
Extended family
All kin including and beyond the nuclear family.
Family types + location: Eversley and Bonnerjea
The affluent south
More likely to have mobile two-parent nuclear families.
Eversley and Bonnerjea
Family types may be linked to geographical location.
Areas connected to different family organisation: affluent south, rural areas, inner cities, recently declined industrial areas, older industrial areas, geriatric wards.
Rapoports + Rapoports
Diversity is central in understanding family life. Family diversity reflects greater feeling of choice.
CLOGS: Cultural, Locational diversity, Organisational, Life stage diversity, Generational diversity.
Why are remarriages increasing?
Divorces are increasing.
The rising number of divorces provide a supply of people who are now available to remarry.
Family diversity Rapoports’:
Cultural diversity
Caused by migration. Ethnic groups have different family structures.
E.g more children, multi-gen families.
Modified extended families
Extended family living apart, but keeping in touch by phone, letters, email, social media, and frequent visits.
Reasons for increase in cohabitation:
Changing social attitudes and declining stigma
Decline in stigma attached to sex outside of marriage.
Young people more likely to cohabit.
Reasons for increase in cohabitation:
Changes in the position of women
Better educational and career prospects. Women less economically dependent on men.
Feminist view that marriage is an oppressive patriarchal institution might dissuade women from marrying, choosing to cohabit instead.
Reasons for increase in cohabitation:
Secularisation
Churches in favour of marriage but as their influence decreases, people feel freer to choose not to marry.
Symmetrical family
Authority and household tasks shared equally between male and female partners.
Rapoports’ family diversity:
Life-stage diversity
Through an individuals life course they are likely to experience a variety of different structures.
E.g childless couple, retired couple, parents with young children.
Bernard (1976)
Rising divorce rates are because most divorce petitions come from women, suggests that women are accepting feminist ideas.
Women are more conscious of patriarchal oppression, more confident rejecting it.
Coast (2006)
Cohabitation is a prelude to marriage.
75% of cohabiting couples expect to marry each other, if cohabitation is successful.
Classic extended family
Extended family sharing the same household or living near each other.
Nuclear family
Married heterosexual parents with dependent children.
Two-gen, parents + children living in the same household.
Fewer people are marrying:
Changing attitudes to marriage
Less pressure to marry.
Quality of couple’s relationships is more important than its legal status.
“Norm” of marriage has greatly weakened.
How many people aged 16-59 were cohabiting in 2012?
5.9 million
3 million difference in 16 years
Family types + location: Eversley and Bonnerjea
Recently declined industrial areas
More likely to be found in the midlands.
Young families have often moved there and have little support from extended kin.
Cohabitation
Unmarried couple in personal/intimate relationship that live together.
Secularisation
Declining influence of religion within society.
Civil ceremony
Non-religious legal marriage ceremony performed by a government official or functionary.
How many marriages were remarriages in 1999?
108,488
Accounting for 41% of all marriages
Family types + location: Eversley and Bonnerjea
Older industrial areas
More likely to have traditional family structures, relationships and older populations.
Fewer people are marrying:
Fear of divorce
Rising divorce rates means some people are put off marrying because they see increased likelihood of marriage ending in divorce.
Fewer people are marrying:
Declining stigma attached to marriage alternatives
Cohabitation, remaining single, having children outside of marriage, all widely viewed as acceptable.
Pregnancy no longer puts pressure on “shotgun wedding”.
Why have civil ceremonies increased?
Secularisation: fewer people see relevance of religious ceremonies.
Many churches refuse to marry divorces. Divorces make up growing proportion of those marrying.
Why are people marrying later?
Spend longer in full time education.
To establish themselves in their career.
To save money.
Individualisation thesis: people are able to make more individual choices.
People want to cohabit before hand to see if their partner is “the one”.
Cooke and Gash (2010)
Found no evidence that working women are more likely to divorce.
Argue that working is now the norm for married women.
Chester (1985)
Said that cohabitation is a short term stepping stone into marriage.
Transient, temporary phase that is part of the marriage process.
Rapoports’ family diversity:
Social-class diversity
Income of a family can influence its structure. E.g Middle-class women pursuing careers may choose to have children later and class differences in childrearing.
Mitchell and Goody (1997)
Divorce is no longer associated with shame and stigma. This is an important change from the 1960s.
Giddens and Beck (1992)
Individualisation thesis: argue that in modern society traditional norms loose their hold over individuals. People are free to pursue own self interest so relationships are more fragile, which explains rising divorce rates.
What is the average age for first time marriage in 2012?
32 for men
30 for women
Chandler (1993)
Cohabitation has become accepted as a long-term permanent alternative to marriage.
Reflected by the increase of children born outside of marriage in cohabiting relationships.
Marriage rates are at their
lowest since 1920
When did the proportion of civil ceremonies first exceed religious ceremonies?
1992
Family types + location: Eversley and Bonnerjea
Inner cities
High levels of social deprivation and larger turnover of inhabitants.
Many single person households and higher proportion of migrants.
Many single parent families and people more likely to be isolated from kin.
When did marriages peak?
1940 at 426,000
91% were first marriages
Conjugal roles
Roles relating to marriage and relationships.
Family types + location: Eversley and Bonnerjea
Rural areas
Families who work in agriculture and related areas of the economy tend to be extended and traditional.
However, many of these areas have been taken over by commuters.
Reconstituted/stepfamilies
One or both parents previously married with children from previous relationships.
What is the proportion of households that contain a married couple in 2016?
42%
Marriage rate in 2010
8.7/1000 unmarried people aged 16+
Rapoports’ family diversity:
Organisational diversity
Different ways of organising the household and the family roles.
E.g Single or dual earners and joint or segregated conjugal roles.
Rapoports’ family diversity:
Generational diversity
Depending on era in which an individual is raised, they may have different views towards different household structures: attitudes to divorce, cohabitation e.c.t
Fletcher (1966)
Increase in divorce indicative of high expectations attached to marriage rather than its declining significance.
Beanpole family
Multi-gen extended family which is long and thin, few aunts, uncles, and cousins. Few people marry, reflecting fewer children born in each generation. People living longer.
Barlow et al (2001)
Marriage is a life style choice rather than an extended part of life.
L.A.T
Living apart together.
People in a significant relationship who are not cohabiting or married. E.g Long distance couples.
Single person household
A household containing one person.
People living alone.
“Creative single hood”
The idea that people are deliberately choosing to live alone because of changing social stigma and norms.
Blended family
Families born out of post-divorce parenting.
When divorced people or lone parents remarry and at least one partner has a child or children from previous relationships.
Co-parenting
Sharing the duties and responsibilities of parenting, often between a separated couple.
Bi-nuclear family
Two separate post break-up households that are essentially one family system as children are concerned.
Civil partnership
Non-religious legal union of same-sex couples.
Same-sex family
Same-sex couples with children.
Friendship as kinship
When you see your friends as family, because you are shunned and pushed out of your own family.
Finding familial figures in friends.
Dispersed extended family
Relatives are geographically separated but maintain contact through visits, phone calls e.c.t
Principle of reciprocity
Taking turns to take care of others.
People feel help received should be returned to avoid feelings of indebtedness.
Neo-conventional nuclear family
Nuclear family with dual earners, instead of the man taking the instrumental breadwinner role and the wife having the expressive homemaker role.
Pure relationship
Relationship not held together by norms but based on satisfying individual needs.
The relationship will only survive if it is what both people want.
Like a rolling phone contract.
Negotiated family
Families decide what’s best for them and what meets their wishes and expectations.
“Zombie category” of the family
The institution of the family appears to be alive but in reality is dead. People want to be secure in an insecure world, but the family is too unstable to provide this.
Reasons for increase in the number of children born outside of marriage:
More people are cohabiting
Greater opportunity and risk of people getting pregnant before getting married.
Reasons for increase in the number of children born outside of marriage:
Declining stigma
People are no longer judged for having children “out of wedlock”.
What percentage of 25-34 year olds think marriage should come before parenthood?
Only 28%
Brown (1995)
Believes the increase in children being born outside of marriage reflects a reduction in “shot-gun weddings”, where couples married to legitimise pregnancy.
In 2011 how many births were registered to married couples?
53% - decrease from 1961
Reasons for patterns and trends in childbearing:
Changes in the position of women
Women now have more opportunities than just motherhood.
Women are choosing to establish themselves in their career before starting a family, if they choose to start a family at all.
Increased choice and effectiveness in birth control means women can be in charge of their own fertility.
Patterns and trends in childbearing
Increase in the number of children born outside of marriage.
Women are having children later.
Women are having fewer children.
More women are remaining childless.
1 in 4 children
Live in lone parent families.
9 out of 10 lone parent families
Headed by single mothers.
Reasons for Matrifocals’
A widespread belief that women are by nature suited to an expressive or nurturing role, as a result divorce courts usually give child custody to mothers.
In general men are also less willing than women to give up work and care for children.
Lone parents with dependent children represented
26% of all families with dependent children in 2011.
L.P.F life cycle
Duncan and Rodgers (1990) found that less than a third of children born into a lone parent family stayed in one throughout their childhood. Lone parent households are not a permanent state but a transitory state.
Only 2% of lone parents were
under 20, contrasting to media stereotypes and representations.
Right wing commentators views on L.P.F
Critical.
Believe LPFs are: Expensive, lacking moral responsibility, and dysfunctional.
Murray (1984)
Saw the growth of LPFs as resulting from an over-generous welfare state rewarding irresponsible behaviour: having children without the capacity to provide for them.
Child Support Agency (CSA)
Set up by conservatives in 1993. Designed to reduce the number of LPFs by stressing financial responsibility. Enforcing absent parents to financially support their children.
Reasons for the link between low living standards and LPFs
Lack of affordable childcare which prevents LPFs from working.
Inadequate welfare benefits.
Most LPFs are women who earn less than men.
Failure of fathers to pay maintenance, especially is they have formed a second family.
Renvoize (1985)
Found that professional women were able to support their child without the fathers involvement suggesting that women may no longer “need” a man to help them raise a family.
Single person households have increased:
Changes in marriage patterns
Decline in numbers marrying coupled with trend towards people marrying later, means more people are remaining single or experience some time living as a single person.
The number of young unmarried people living alone
has tripled since 1961
Single person households have increased:
Ageing population
Demographic factors.
Women’s higher life expectancy means women are left as widows.
Single person households have increased:
Increase in separation and divorce
Following a divorce, children are more likely to live with their mother so father is likely to leave the family home and become a single person household.
In 2006, 3 in 10
households contained only one person, nearly three times the figure for 1961
Stein (1976)
Argues that growing number of people are deliberately choosing to live alone “creative single hood”.
Duncan and Phillips
British Social Attitudes Survey (2007)
Found that 1 in 10 adults are “living apart together”.
LATs are no longer seen as abnormal, but it is also unlikely that more traditional relationships are being rejected in favour of it.
Reasons for LAT
People want to keep their own home.
It was too early to cohabit.
They cannot afford it.
Still affected by previous troubled relationship.
Amount of people who see LATs as their “ideal relationship”
20%
Reconstituted families now account for
10%
Reconstituted families now account for
10% of all families with dependent children in Britain
Allan and Crow (2001)
Reconstituted families may face particular problems of divided loyalties and issues such as contact with the non-resident parent.
McCarthy et al (2003)
Argue that there is great diversity amongst reconstituted families - some have tensions whilst others have no more tensions than intact nuclear families.
Ferri and Smith (1998)
Found reconstituted families are at greater risk of poverty because there are often more children to support and stepfather may have too support children from a previous relationship. Conclude that the involvement of stepparents in childcare and childrearing is usually positive and similar to first families in all major respects.
In 85% of reconstituted families
At least one child is from the woman’s previous relationship.
Reasons for patterns and trends within reconstituted families:
Changes in parental relationship status
Increase in LPFs.
Factors that cause an increase in lone parent families, such as divorce and separation, are also responsible for the creation of reconstituted step families.
Reasons for children coming from a woman’s previous relationship in reconstituted families:
Children usually remain with the mother
Women are more likely to take main caring responsibilities for any children when relationships break down, therefore becoming lone parents.
Divorce courts usually give custody to mothers.
Men are less willing to give up work to care for children.
Reasons for greater risk of poverty in reconstituted families:
More children to support
Stepfather may have to support children from a previous relationship.
Reasons for tensions faced by reconstituted families:
Lack of social norms
Lack of clear guidance on how individuals should behave in such families.
E.g The division of childcare and parenting style
Since 2015 same-sex couples have increased by
40% in 2019
Same-sex cohabiting couples has decreased
To 51.6% in 2019
Driven by the growing number of same-sex married couple families since the legalisation of gay marriage.
Stonewall (2012)
Estimate 5-7% of the adult population today have same-sex relationships.
Reasons for increase in same-sex couple families:
Changes in legislation
Human fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008 and the Civil Partnership act in 2004 have made it easier for lesbian couples to secure parental rights for any children they conceive through artificial insemination.
Adoption for same-sex couples became legal in 2005.
Same legal rights to parenthood as everyone else.
Centre for family research at Cambridge (2010)
Found young children with gay parents do not see their families as being any different to those of their peers. Many older children saw their families as special and different.
Found that children with gay parents liked having gay parents and would not want things to change but sometimes they wish others were more accepting.
1967
Male homosexual acts were decriminalised
Weeks (1999)
Increased social acceptance may explain a trend towards same-sex cohabitation and stable relationships that resemble those found among homosexuals.
Saw homosexual individuals as creating families based on creating “friendship as kindship”.
Described these families as “chosen families”
Allan and Crow
Lack of legal frameworks for homosexual relationships. meant that same-sex partners had to negotiate their commitment and responsibilities more than married couples.
Thought that this made same-sex couples more flexible and less stable than straight couples.
Reasons for increase in same-sex couple families:
Changing social attitudes
Opinion polls show more tolerance of homosexuality.
In 2000 the age of consent was equalised.
In 2014 same-sex couples were allowed to marry.
In 2004 same-sex couples given same legal rights as married couples in respect of pensions, inheritance, tenancies, and property.
Extended family
Any group of kin extended beyond the nuclear family.
The family may be extended vertically (E.g. grandparents) or horizontally (E.g. aunts) or both.
The classic extended family live together in very close proximity.
Charles (2008)
Found that the classical three generational extended family all living under one roof is now “all but extinct”.
The only significant exceptions were found within city’s Bangladeshi community.
Willmott (1998)
Argues where extended family structures do exist they are “dispersed extended families”.
Where relatives are geographically separated but maintain contact through visits and phone calls e.c.t.
In modern industrial society the modern family has been replaced by
the nuclear family.
Extended families have increased, however they still represent only a small proportion of all households at
1% in 2012
Rosser and Harris (1965)
Found that whilst the nuclear family had become the focus of family life, the extended family continued to have a role.
Argues high levels of individual, social, and geographical mobility and dispersal did not prevent the maintenance of high levels of contact between extended kin.
Acknowledged that the nature, function, and role of the extended family have been modified: favoured the term “modified extended family”.
Chamberlain (1999)
Study of Caribbean families in Britain found that despite being geographically dispersed extended families continued to provide support.
“Multiple nuclear families”, with close frequent contact between siblings, uncles, aunts, and cousins, who make contributions to childrearing.
Finch (1989)
Argues the nature of all family relationships is largely determined by gender, economics, generation, and region. However the extended family survives because it performs functions for members.
Demographic changes resulting in beanpole families
Increased life expectancy means more surviving grandparents and great-grandparents.
Smaller family sizes meaning people have fewer siblings, and thus fewer horizontal ties.
Brannen (2003)
Described beanpole family as “long and thin”
Reasons for changes in extended families:
Beanpole families
Changes in demographic factors including increased life expectancy and smaller families explain why there is a “long and thin structure”
Reasons for changes in extended families:
Dispersed extended families
Changes in technology allowing people to remain in contact despite being physically distant.
Finch and Mason (1993)
Found over 90% of people had given or received financial help and over half had cared for a sick relative. However there is some variability: found that more is expected of females than males. Principle or reciprocity is also important.
Cheal (2002)
Argues there is a “systematic set of rules for deciding who has the greatest obligation to help”.
Usually the spose followed by daughters or daughters in law and then sons.
Mason (2011)
Found that obligations to relatives depend on: the history of the relationship; the particular obligations women feel towards their relatives; what other responsibilities they have that would give them legitimate excuses not to be involved.
Black families:
Higher proportion of female headed LPFs
Under slavery, when couples were sold separately children stayed with the mother. It is argued that this established a pattern of family life which persists today.
Male unemployment and poverty means black men are less able to provide for their family, resulting in higher rates of desertion or marital breakdown.
In 2012 1/2 of all families with dependent children headend by a black person
were lone parent.
Mirza (1997)
Argues that higher rate of LPFs among black families is not the result of family disorganisation, but rather reflects the high value black women place on independence.
Reynolds (1997)
Argues that statistics are misleading. Many “lone” parents are in stable, supportive but non-cohabiting relationships.
Asian families:
Larger households
Result of younger age profile. Higher proportion are in childbearing age groups compared to population as a whole.
Larger households reflect the value placed on the extended family in Asian cultures.
Ballard (1982/1990)
Found that extended families provided an important source of support among migrants during 50s and 60s. In this early period of migration houses often shared by extended families, whereas today Asian households are nuclear.
Relatives often live nearby though, reflecting the importance of kinship networks.
Ballard (1990)
Found whilst many marriages are arranged and seen as a family contract, children today increasingly expect to have more say in marriage partners and expect more independence from kin.
Studies Institute’s Fourth National Survey of Ethnic Minorities (1997)
Divorce, lone parents and smaller families were now found within the British Asian community.
More likely than other ethnic groups to marry and marry earlier than their white peers: cohabitation, separation, and divorce were relatively rare.
Many couples including those with children, still continue to live in the same house as the males parents.
How are Asian households organised?
Larger than other ethnic groups.
Sometimes multi-generational include three generations.
Organised through a network of males bound together by ideas of brotherhood and loyalty.
Most are nuclear rather than extended families.
Same-sex family
Same-sex couple living together in a household with dependent children.
