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.