Families - not done Flashcards
What are the key studies for families?
- Parsons (1956) - 2 key functions of the family
- Zaretsky (1976) - Marxist view on families
- Delphy and Leonard (1992) - (radical) Feminist view on families
- Rapoport and Rapoport (1982) - family diversity (postmodernists)
- Young and Willmott (1973) - symmetrical family (functionalists)
- Ann Oakley (1982) - conventional family (feminist)
What is the functionalist view on families?
The functionalist approach to families focuses on the positive and important functions that the nuclear family performs for individuals and society
What did Murdock research?
Murdock (1949) identified four essential functions of the family:
- The sexual function
- The reproductive function
- The economic function
- The educational function
What is the sexual function?
- Society needs to regulate sexual behaviour
- The nuclear family fulfils this need by controlling the married couple’s sexual behaviour, which helps preserve their relationship
What is the reproductive function?
- Society needs new members if it is to endure over time
- The nuclear family is crucial for procreating and childbearing so that the next generation of workers in society is produced
What is the economic function?
- Society needs a way of providing people with economic support, e.g. for shelter, food and clothes
- The nuclear family fulfils this need as economic cooperation is based on a division of labour between the husband and wife
What is the educational function?
- Society needs to ensure that new members learn its culture
- The nuclear family fulfils this need through socialisation as parents teach their children the norms and values of society
Who is the Functionalist key study on families?
Parsons (1956)
What did Parsons’ say about functions of the family?
According to Parsons (1956), society relies on the nuclear family to carry out essential functions linked to personality formation
- He contends that other institutions in society have progressively taken over some of the roles that the family once played
- Nowadays, organisations outside the family (like food banks and charities) provide for many needs, including clothing and food
Parsons identifies two basic and vital functions that all families perform in all societies
Parsons also links sex roles within the family to its functions
What did Parsons identify as the two basic and vital functions that all families perform in all societies?
- Primary socialisation of children
- Stabilisation of adult personalities
What is Primary socialisation of children according to Parsons?
- The nuclear family is an agent of socialisation
- Children acquire their society’s culture and embrace its shared values and roles through primary socialisation, preserving social order
What is Stabilisation of adult personalities according to Parsons?
- The nuclear family is an agency of personality stabilisation
- To ease the strain and stress of everyday life outside the family, the husband and wife offer each other emotional support
- This is the ‘warm bath’ theory: when a man returns from work, he could relax into his family, like a warm bath, relieving his stress
- Parents can display their childish side by living with children
- The family is viewed as a safe haven since it is essential to preserving adults’ emotional stability
What are overall criticisms of Parsons, Murdock and the functionalist perspective?
- Murdock’s ideas are outdated, unrealistic and sexist
- Parsons focuses on American middle-class families and ignores social class, religious and ethnic diversity
- Parsons ignores alternatives to the nuclear family (such as lone-parent or same-sex families) that are just as functional and effective in performing essential functions for society (Rapoport and Rapoport, 1982)
- Parsons is accused of idealisation as he ignores family dysfunction in which child abuse and domestic abuse occur; the picture he paints does not match reality
- The nuclear family can increase stress between spouses and between parents and children, which leads to conflict
What are Marxists criticisms of Parsons, Murdock and the functionalist perspective?
- Marxists are critical of the nuclear family, as they see it as functional for capitalist society
- Socialising children into accepting the values of capitalism serves capitalism
What are Feminist criticisms of Parsons, Murdock and the functionalist perspective?
Feminists are also critical of the nuclear family as they see it as a major source of female oppression:
- Nuclear families imprison women in their own homes, tied to children and housework
- The apparent increase in domestic violence in the home shows that families are not a safe haven and that family life doesn’t always contribute to members’ wellbeing
What are other criticisms of Parsons, Murdock and the functionalist perspective (including New Right)
Other agencies of socialisation are more significant, such as the media and schools as:
- many schools perform essential functions for society, like feeding and clothing children
- social media and celebrity culture is becoming more influential on children’s norms and values, particularly as many children have their own devices and can access ‘up-to-date’ information
However the New Right perspective suggests that the nuclear family is the best way for children to develop into stable, functioning adult members of society (Charles Murray, 1998)
- Other types of family forms would not be desirable since the lack of a father figure as a role model could be damaging
What are Marxist views of the family?
- Unlike functionalism, the Marxist perspective is critical of the nuclear family
- Marxists, in contrast to functionalists, believe that the family socialised children into accepting the values of capitalism
-Marxists argue that social inequality is passed down from one generation to the next primarily through the family
Marxists argue that social inequality is passed down from one generation to the next primarily through the family as:
- the bourgeoisie are able to pass on their wealth to family members, maintaining the social class system
- educational advantages are passed down through families, e.g. only wealthy people can afford to send their children to expensive private schools
- working-class people may learn to accept their subordinate position in capitalist society and see the system as fair through socialisation
What is the Marxist key study for families?
Zaretsky (1976)
What does Zaretsky (1976) believe about families?
- Marxist, Zaretsky (1976) argues that the family was a unit of production before the early 19th century - During the early days of the textile industry, every member of the family produced cloth at home
- Work and family life became increasingly separated with the rise of industrial capitalism and factory-based production
- The family and the economy are now seen as two separate spheres: The private sphere and The public sphere
- Women became in charge of the family’s personal relationships and welfare as a result of the division of work and home
- However, Zaretsky thought that families could only serve as a buffer against the negative effects of capitalism, not as a source of emotional support
- Zaretsky believes that only socialism can end the separation of family and public life and make it possible for people to be personally fulfilled
How does Zaretsky (1976) believe that the family serves the interests of capitalism?
The family has an economic function
- Women carry out unpaid labour within the home, e.g. childrearing and housework
- Women work for the capitalist system for free by keeping workers fed and clothed
- Domestic labour is devalued as it is viewed as separate from the world of work
The role of the family is to reproduce labour
- The bourgeois family passes down its private property from one generation to the next
- The proletarian family reproduces the labour force by producing future generations of exploited workers
The family is a vital unit of consumption
- Families buy and consume the products of capitalism and enable the bourgeoise to make profits
- For instance, children are frequently the target of advertising, which encourages them to put pressure on their parents to buy expensive items
What are criticisms of Zaretsky and the Marxist perspective on families?
- Many people are satisfied with family life and see marriage and having children as goals in life — Marxists ignore this
- The education system and the mass media are alternative agents that serve the needs of the capitalist system , which are more significant than the family
- Feminists argue that Marxists, like functionalists, ignore family diversity as they tend to work with the traditional model of the nuclear family, with a male breadwinner and female housewife
- Feminists also question the Marxist view that female oppression will simply disappear in a socialist society
- Functionalists view the nuclear family in positive terms as meeting the needs of individuals and industrial society
What are Feminist views of the family?
- As a conflict approach, feminists are critical of the family as an institution and its role in society
- They see families as having a negative impact on the lives of women
- Feminists believe that families contribute to the social construction of gender roles through primary socialisation and canalisation
- For example, dressing girls in pink and boys in blue or giving girls dolls and boys toy cars to play with
- Within families, children learn the norms and values expected of males and females
- Children that see their mother cleaning and cooking may assume that domestic tasks are part of a woman’s role
- Families therefore prepare children for their gender roles in a patriarchal society and they reproduce gender inequalities over time
Who is the Feminist key study of families?
Delphy and Leonard (1992)
What methods did Delphy and Leonard (1992) use to do their research?
- They used unstructured or in-depth interviews
- They observed how individuals interacted with one another in their homes using non-participant observations
- They used information from existing research on families
What does Delphy and Leonard (1992) believe about families?
- Delphy & Leonard are radical feminists who used qualitative research methods to investigate the idea of the symmetrical family
- They view the family as a patriarchal institution that men benefit from, as women are expected to do unpaid work inside the home
- Unpaid work includes cooking, cleaning, shopping and less obvious tasks (such as booking medical appointments and sending birthday cards)
- Wives are exploited as their work is undervalued, their husbands profit from their labour, and they remain financially dependent on them
- The family is based on a hierarchy
- The patriarchal family upholds men’s dominance over women and children, which in turn upholds societies’ patriarchal structure
Why does Delphy and Leonard (1992) say that the family is based on a hierarchy?
The family is based on a hierarchy:
- Other family members occupy lower positions, with the husband at the top
- The husband provides for his wife’s upkeep and controls her labour for his own use
- She has no money of her own
- Even when women have well-paid, full time employment, they still have the dual burden of doing most of the domestic work and childcare
- Time at home for men is leisure time, whereas for women it is also work time
What are criticisms of Delphy and Leonard and the feminist perspective?
- Delphy and Leonard do not consider egalitarian families that share power between their members
- Marxist approaches argue that inequalities within families is linked to capitalism rather than patriarchy
- Functionalists see the structure of the family as meeting the needs of individuals (including females) and society
What are overall criticisms of families?
Additional criticisms of the family include:
- Concern regarding the decline in traditional family values - The idea that a normal family type is made up of a married couple bringing up their biological children
- Social changes such as the increase in marital breakdown, divorce and lone-parent families
- These changes undermine the functions of the family, according to functionalists, and threaten the stability of society as a whole if the family can’t fulfil its functions
- The isolation of the nuclear family from the wider kinship networks and its loss of contact with the wider family
- The loss of traditional functions (such as education, economic production) that families once carried out, which have now been transferred to other agencies like the education system
- The functionalist perspective’s unrealistic idealisation of the nuclear family - It ignores dysfunctional families in which domestic violence and abuse occur
What is a family?
A couple who are married, civil partners or cohabiting, with or without dependent children, or a lone parent with their child(ren)
What is a household?
A household contains either one person living alone or a group of people who live together at the same address
- They may share facilities such as a bathroom
- It could consist of a nuclear family or same-sex family
- It could consist of a group of students who live in a shared house
- Individuals in a household aren’t necessarily related by blood or marriage
What are examples of different family types?
- Nuclear families
- Extended families
- Beanpole families
- Reconstituted families
- Same-sex families
- Lone-parent families
What is a nuclear family?
A family containing a father, mother and their child(ren), where parents are married or cohabiting. Two generations live together in the same household. Also known as a ‘cereal packet’ family.
What is an extended family?
A group of relatives extending beyond the nuclear family, which contains three generations living together in the same household. In modified extended families, members live apart but have regular contact and support.
What is a beanpole family?
Families with multiple generations of older people and few children in any one generation. In 4-generation families, the children’s parents, grandparents and great-grandparents are all alive.
What is a reconstituted family?
A blended or step-family in which one or both partners have a child or children from a previous relationship living with them.
What is a lone-parent family?
One parent (usually mum) lives with their child(ren). This could be due to a couple’s separation, divorce, the death of a partner, or a single woman bringing up a baby on her own.
What is a same-sex family?
A gay or lesbian couple (married, civil partner or cohabiting) live together with their child(ren).
What factors have led to an increase in family diversity in Britain?
- Changing social attitudes and values have led to a greater acceptance of alternatives to living as a family, such as same-sex families or cohabiting
- Secularisation, or the decline in religion, means that marriage isn’t viewed as being as sacred as it used to be so new family types, such as the lone-parent family, are now seen as being socially acceptable
- Changes in the law have made divorce easier to obtain, causing a rise in lone-parent, same-sex families and reconstituted/blended families
- Migration to the UK has brought family traditions from other cultures, such as extended families
What are alternatives to families?
- one-person households
- children’s homes
- residential care homes
Why are there one-person households?
- One-person households in the UK have increased significantly as people are living longer
- Increased life expectancy means that there are more elderly, one-person households that typically contain older women whose partners have died
- The influence of feminism and the changing role of women in society has led to more financially independent women living alone who are career-focused
There are more younger people living alone because they:
- remain single and childless
- are divorced
- are international migrants who have moved to Britain
- choose to live alone before marrying or cohabiting
- choose to live apart from their partner
Are friends family?
- Friends are increasingly becoming a source of emotional support rather than family
- More friends than kin provided support to those with mental health issues, according to research by Roseneil and Budgeon (2006)
- When romantic relationships ended, friends offered support instead of family
- However, critics argue that many people turn to their family first when they need support and friends may be becoming more like family rather than replacing them
How many looked-after children are there and why?
- In March 2015, local authorities looked after 69,540 children in England
- Around 60% of these were looked after due to neglect or abuse
- Around 75% of looked-after children are placed with foster carers and many others are placed in children’s homes or secure units
- Children’s homes provide young people with accommodation and care
- Some specialise in looking after children with behavioural or emotional difficulties
- Secure units accommodate children who have committed a criminal offence
How many people live in residential care and nursing homes?
- Some older people live in residential care and nursing homes
- In 2011, 3.2% of over 65s lived in care homes in England and Wales
What is the key study on family diversity?
Rapoport and Rapoport (1982)
What do Rapoport and Rapoport (1982) believe about families?
Rapoport and Rapoport (1982) argue that families in the UK are changing
- There is no longer a dominant norm regarding what family should be like
- Today, people value their freedom to choose the kind of family life that suits them; therefore, the diversity of families we see today reflects the needs and desires of individuals in society
- Diverse family types are just as functional and effective as nuclear families in performing essential functions for society
The Rapoports reviewed previously published works by other sociologists and therefore used secondary sources in their research to develop the five types of family diversity
What does Rapoport and Rapoport (1982) say are the 5 types of family diversity?
- Organisational diversity
- Cultural diversity
- Social class diversity
- Life-course diversity
- Cohort diversity (life cycle diversity)
What is Organisational diversity?
- Families differ in their structures, the way their domestic division of labour is organised and their social networks
- Examples of family structures include conventional nuclear families, reconstituted families and dual-worker families
What is Cultural diversity?
- Families differ in their cultural values and beliefs
- Different minority ethnic groups (such as South Asian, Cypriot or African-Caribbean heritage) illustrate this diversity in beliefs and values
- These differences can affect people’s lifestyles, ideas about gender roles, child-rearing and attitudes towards education
For example:
- African-Caribbean communities have a higher than average proportion of lone-parent families and Asian communities have lower than average
- A relatively high percentage of extended families are found in the British Asian community
What is Social class diversity?
- Working-class families tend to favour conventional role relationships between husbands and wives
- Middle-class family roles may be unequal due to the husband’s demanding career
- Social class also affects childrearing, as discipline is more physical among working-class parents
What is Life-course diversity?
- The structure of a family changes depending on where in the life cycle the family is
- Newlyweds without children, families with young children and retired couples in empty-nest families all have different lifestyles
What is Cohort diversity?
- The particular time period in which a family passes through different stages of the family life cycle
- e.g. Homosexuality has lost its social stigma so younger people may find it easier to live in same-sex families today compared to 40 years ago
What are recent finding about family diversity?
Since this study, family diversity has further increased due to
- Changes in social attitudes towards divorce
- Changes in the law, such as the introduction of civil partnerships and same-sex marriages
- Developments in reproductive technology like IVF or surrogacy
What are examples of how families differ in a global context?
Cross-cultural studies show that different family types exist in different cultures
- Communes
- Kibbutzim
- One-child family policy in China
What are communes?
- A group of people who share living accommodation, ownership of property and the division of labour, valuing equality and cooperation between members, such as an Israeli kibbutz
- These small communities tend to share similar political or environmental beliefs, such as the Findhorn ecovillage community in Scotland, in which members avoid activities that might exhaust the earth’s natural resources
- Members share the ownership of wealth and may follow certain religious beliefs, such as the Bruderhof Christian community in East Sussex
What are Kibbutzim?
- Originally agricultural settlements set up by Jewish settlers in Palestine a century ago, now over 2% of Israel’s population live in kibbutzim
- A kibbutz is a group of people who live together communally and value equality between members
- Children used to sleep separately from their parents and were looked after by a metaplet but now, children live with their biological parents up to age 15
- Children born in the same year are raised and educated together
What is the One-child family policy in China?
- Introduced in 1979, couples living in cities in China were legally allowed to have just one child
- If they had a second, they could face fines, demotion or dismissal from work
- In 2016, this controversial policy ended and married couples in China could request government-issued birth permits for up to two children
- Since 2021, married couples are now allowed to have up to to three children
- These changes are due to China’s ageing population so more young people are needed to provide the workforce of the future and to look after ageing relatives
Why is there cultural diversity in the UK?
Cultural diversity is due to migration
- In the 19th century, migrants came from Ireland
- After World War 2, there was migration from former colonies, e.g., India, Pakistan and parts of the Caribbean
- Asylum seekers may move to another country to seek protection from persecution
- Immigration takes place alongside emigration
How does cultural diversity affect family forms?
Cultural diversity is associated with different patterns of family formation
- Among those of African-Caribbean heritage, becoming a mother is not always associated with stopping full time work
- Among those of Asian heritage, there is still some emphasis on being a full time mother
- However, these patterns are changing among second-generation migrants
How many extended families are in the UK?
- In 2001, 10% of Bangladeshi and Pakistani homes in England and Wales had an extended family with three or more generations.
- This contrasts with 3% of black Caribbean homes and 2% of white British and mixed households.
- According to Qureshi et al. (2015) British Asians are often seen as committed to traditional, old-fashioned family life with low rates of divorce and lone-parent families
- However, this pattern is changing
How do family relationships differ with ethnicity and social class?
- Popular belief suggests that British Asian families are based on unequal, male-dominated relationships
- This is challenged by sociologists who argue that this image of ‘the Asian family’ is based on prejudice
- In reality, there are ethnic differences between people of Asian heritage in Britain according to their religion and social class
- This makes it difficult to make generalisation about ‘the Asian family’
- Some sociologists argue that relationships within families vary according to social class
- Popular belief suggests that working-class families are male-dominated
- There is evidence to suggest that middle-class role relationships are more egalitarian or equal than working-class relationships
- Some evidence suggests that working-class fathers are more involved in childcare than middle-class fathers
What are conjugal roles?
- Conjugal roles are the domestic roles of married or cohabiting partners (such as who is responsible for the ironing or the gardening)
- Bott (1971) studied families using qualitative research methods such as in-depth interviews with husbands and wives in 20 London-based families with children under 10 years of age
- She identified two different types of conjugal roles:
-Segregated conjugal roles
-Joint (integrated) conjugal roles
What are Segregated conjugal roles and relationships?
- In the home, tasks are assigned based on gender. Typically the husband repairs household equipment and does DIY, whilst the wife is responsible for the washing and cooking
- Partners spend little free time together as they have separate interests and leisure activities and their own friends
- There is a clear division of labour in the household
- Financial decisions made by the husband
- Roles are separate and unequal
What are Joint (integrated) conjugal roles and relationships?
- The husband and wife share many tasks (the husband may cook and clean on some days, and on other days, the wife will perform these tasks)
- Partners spend much of their leisure time together and share interests and friends
- There is no rigid division of labour in the household
- Financial decisions shared by both partners
- Roles are collaborative and equal
What were conjugal roles like in the early 20th Century?
- During the early 20th century, conjugal roles were segregated as married women were expected to take responsibility for housework and childcare and their husbands were expected to be the breadwinner
Women’s roles differed according to their social class
- Many working-class women had to go out to work in addition to having housework and childcare responsibilities (dual-burden)
- Middle-class women were not expected to work but instead supervise household employees (such as the maid or the nanny)
- Amongst both classes, husbands were expected to be the breadwinner and families were male-dominated
Are conjugal roles changing?
- Sociologists argue that families are changing as they move towards equality in conjugal roles and relationships
- Conjugal roles are becoming more joint (integrated conjugal roles) rather than segregated
What are instrumental & expressive roles?
From a functionalist perspective, Parsons (1956) links sex roles within the family to its functions
- In the nuclear family, the man takes the more instrumental role as the breadwinner
- The woman takes the more expressive role as a housewife and mother, with responsibility for the household and for providing emotional support
- These roles are important in the primary socialisation of children
Parsons believed these roles were allocated based on biological differences between men and women
- Childbearing means that women are attuned to build strong relationships with their children
- Men’s assertiveness leads them to instrumental direction in the workplace
What is the key study on the symmetrical family?
Willmott and Young (1973) on the symmetrical family
They are functionalists
What methods did Young and Willmott (1973) use?
- They studied families in London using large-scale social surveys, where nearly 2000 people took part in a structured interview
- They also carried out a time budget study where participants were asked to complete a diary on the sequence, times and during of their activities
- Using this primary data, they were able to compare how much time husbands and wives spent on domestic work
- Only 411 people completed the diaries
- Using the mixed methods approach, they were able to collect qualitative and quantitative data
Willmott and Young developed the term symmetrical family as the typical family type in Britain, whereby:
- there is more equality between spouses
- spouses perform different tasks but each makes a similar contribution to the home
- leisure time is spent together and much more home-centred
- decision-making is shared, including financial decisions (deciding whether to move house or buy a particular car is a joint decision)
- The nuclear family is privatised
What is the principle of stratified diffusion?
- Willmott and Young developed the principle of stratified diffusion to explain the changes in family life
- Many social changes start at the top of the stratification system and filter downwards from the middle class to the working class
What did Young and Willmott (1973) are the reasons for the move to symmetrical families?
- The rise of feminism since the 1960s has changed women’s attitudes towards education and work and caused them to reject the housewife role
- Legal changes gave women more equality and status in the workplace, such as the Equal Pay Act (1970) and the Sex Discrimination Act (1975)
- Effective birth control means women can decide whether and when to have children
- Many women are financially independent due to entering the workplace, so they have more freedom, equality and status
- Men are more likely to spend time at home and become more involved with their family
- It is thought that men are more interested in DIY and home improvements than women
- Advances in technology has led to more home-based leisure activities (such as playing computer games, watching sports, and streaming services like Netflix)
What are feminist criticisms of the symmetrical family?
- Radical feminists Delphy and Leonard argued that family relationships involve economic exploitation as men benefit from the unpaid work of women inside the home
- Liberal feminist Ann Oakley rejected the idea of the symmetrical family as she found little evidence of symmetry in her research
- In 1974, she conducted 40 in-depth interviews with housewives who came from working- and middle-class areas of London
Oakley found that:
- women in paid work still had the main responsibility for housework
- 15% of husbands were heavily involved in housework
- 25% of husbands were heavily involved in childcare
What are Marxist criticisms of the symmetrical family?
Marxists believe that women and men have unequal roles because that structure supports capitalism. Women who stay at home doing unpaid housework and emotional work are supporting capitalist society because they are providing healthy, happy workers
What are overall criticisms of the symmetrical family?
People’s behaviour has not changed much, despite shifts in attitudes towards gender roles
- Media stereotyping portrays women as primarily responsible for many domestic tasks
- Men still typically do home repairs, but women are more likely to do the laundry
- Women still feel they do more of the housework and caring for family members; there is an unequal gender division of labour in the family
- A new man is possibly hard to find
Today, both partners tend to work so there are more dual-earner households than before
- This means that women now work a double shift by having a paid job and doing most of the housework and childrearing
- Duncombe and Marsden argue women continue to be exploited as women work a triple shift where emotional work is added to domestic work and paid work
What is the key study on the conventional family?
Feminist, Ann Oakley (1982) on the conventional family
What method did Ann Oakley (1982) use?
- Oakley, a feminist, reviewed the work of other sociologists who had studied the family
- She used this secondary data to provide a critical analysis of the conventional nuclear family, supported by relevant official statistics
What does Ann Oakley (1982) believe about the family?
According to Oakley, a nuclear family is a conventional family that reinforces patriarchal relationships
- Women are expected to do unpaid work inside the home, while men are expected to do paid work outside the home
- The man’s economic power is linked to his income from paid work
- The woman’s dependence on the man’s wages creates gender inequality, especially when children are young and women are stay-at-home mums
- When women do work, it is usually in part-time, low-paying jobs where their earnings go towards paying bills
Oakley believed the conventional family, although archaic, was still idealised even though it is no longer the dominant family form, especially among middle-class people who are considering alternative lifestyles
- Dual-worker and lone-parent families are increasing
- Some are choosing to live without families
This might be the case because, despite popular belief, the conventional family can be stressful
Mothers may suffer from depression, and men may develop health issues as a result of the pressure of providing for their families
What is power and decision-making in families like?
One area of interest for sociologists is the distribution of power in conjugal relationships between partners
- Within symmetrical families, Willmott and Young (1973) noted a rise in shared decision-making, including financial decisions
- Alternatively, feminists Delphy & Leonard (1992) contend that because male dominance and the subjugation of women form the foundation of family life, the family is hierarchical and patriarchal
Feminist Jan Pahl (1989) interviewed 102 married couples with dependent children and found that:
- men have more power than women in relationships as they dominate decision-making
- although more couples make shared decisions about spending the household income, in many marriages husbands control the finances
- women and children sometimes live in poverty even though the man they live with has a good income
What is domestic violence?
- Domestic violence (DV) is a form of power and control within families in which one partner is violent towards the other
- It also covers abuse of older people, violence between siblings, and physical, psychological, or sexual abuse of children
Why is domestic abuse often not reported to the police?
Victim surveys, like the Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW), are used to gauge the extent of domestic violence, and they show that DV is often not reported to the police because:
- men might be reluctant to disclose physical abuse they have received from a female partner
- according to the victims, it is best handled in the privacy of the home
- victims are afraid of the repercussions if reported to the police
- victims believe the police can do nothing about it
What were Pre-industrial parent-child relationships like?
- Children, beyond infancy, were not considered to have needs which differed from those of adults so the concept of childhood did not exist
- Young children started working at a young age to support their families because they were viewed as ‘mini-adults’ who had the same responsibilities and skills as adults
- Parental attitudes towards children were very different from today due to high death rates, which encouraged indifference and neglect towards infants
What were Industrial parent-child relationships like?
In the 19th century, children’s experiences differed according to their social class
-Middle-class children were often looked after by a nurse
-Working-class children (boys more so than girls) were expected to work in paid employment in factories such as cotton mills and coal mines
- Many girls were involved in unpaid work at home such as housework and childminding
- The state began to provide education, but since many parents relied on their children’s income, poverty may have prevented them from sending their children to school
- According to Willmott and Young, childhood became officially recognised as a separate stage of life when children were legally required to attend school up to age 14 (Education Act, 1918)
What are Modern parent-child relationships like?
- As a result of their increased rights and recognition of their views, families are becoming increasingly child-centred
- Class differences still exist in that middle-class families are more likely to have democratic relationships with their children and involve them in major household decisions (such as moving house or where to go on holiday)
- Parent-child relationships are emotionally closer and parents are more attentive due to smaller family sizes
- The emphasis is less on punishment, obedience and parental authority and more on individual freedom
- However, one could argue that these changes have created a ‘toxic’ childhood as children are increasingly isolated - Due to mobile phones and social media, parents are no longer able to control what their children have access to
Nowadays are young people financially stable?
- Young people are financially dependent on their families for longer, as the minimum school-leaving age was raised to 18 years in 2015
- Even though they may have part-time jobs, young people are legally limited in the number of hours they can work, and the national minimum wage is lower for those under 21
- Many young adults move back home to live with their parents, having originally moved away
- They are known as boomerang kids who may return to the family home after university, a relationship breakdown or because of expensive housing
- This, as well as youth unemployment, can lead to conflict within the family
- However, children’s dependence on the family can be questioned
- Therefore, it could be argued that children contribute a great deal to their families (Scott, 2004)
Why can children’s dependence on the family can be questioned?
As:
- many children contribute to childcare and housework
- some children help out in family businesses
- some children are young carers for a family member, providing emotional and practical support
- children of immigrant parents may be asked to translate for their parents
How has people’s relationships with wider family changed?
Young and Willmott (1957) studied family life in Bethnal Green in 1950s London and found that:
- the extended family flourished among working-class families as many young married couples lived with one set of parents
- family ties were strong and 43% of daughters had seen their mothers within the previous 24 hours
In their later study, Willmott and Young (1973) found that the nuclear family had become more separated from the extended family because of:
- increasing geographical mobility (moving to another area of the UK or country)
- women’s increasing involvement in paid work and growing financial independence reduced the need for a supportive extended family
.
- It could be argued that the wider, extended family is becoming less important in Britain and that family ties are weakening
- However, due to cultural diversity, there is a relatively high percentage of extended families found in the British Asian community
What is an alternate view to Y and W on how has people’s relationships with wider family changed?
Charles et al. (2008) studied families in Swansea between 1960 and 2002 and found that family members continue to depend on each other
- There were high rates of in-person interactions between family members:
- Grandparents regularly cared for their grandchildren, enabling young women to continue paid employment
- Fathers helped adult children with home improvements
- Adult children looked after their parents
- Older grandchildren were involved in caring for their grandparents
Geographical mobility impacted the support family members received, but it came in the form of telephone calls, visits and financial support
What are some contemporary Family Related Issues?
- The quality of parenting
- Relationships between teenagers and adults
- Care of disabled & elderly people
- Arranged marriage
How doe the quality of parenting affect their children?
- The quality of parenting is one of the main factors affecting children’s wellbeing
- Children’s educational achievements depend on the quality of the child-parent relationship
- Parental involvement in with school is linked to children’s achievement
Reading ability is linked to the environment around them, such as:
- having access to reading material in the family home
- parents making time to read with their children
- how often children see parents themselves reading
Children’s social skills and relationships with peers depend on the quality of the child-parent relationship
- Parental warmth is important in developing children’s social skills as a caring parent offers a model of empathy and helping behaviours that children may emulate
- The development of children’s social skills is largely dependent on the absence of conflict and control. This is because democratic parenting fosters the growth of self-control, initiative, motivation, and high self-esteem in children
What are relationships between teenagers and adults like?
- Some parents cannot control their teenage children: delinquent teens are likely to have been inadequately socialised into society’s norms and values by their parents
- Another concern is that some teenagers are parents themselves and may be unready to be parents
- In dual-earner families, both parents may be engaged in full-time work, leaving less time for direct interaction with their teenage children, leading to strained relationships
- Teenagers are increasingly spending more time social networking and online gaming, which parents may find difficult to regulate and set boundaries for
- Parents often experience conflicting expectations as they are encouraged to foster independence in their children but they are also expected to protect and monitor them, leading to a rise in helicopter parenting
What is the life expectancy of men and women?
Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS, 2014) shows that life expectancy for men is 79.3 years and for women is 83 years
Life expectancy has increased in the UK due to:
- NHS provision
- advances in healthcare
- improvements in nutrition
- improvements in living and working conditions
What has the increased life expectancy lead to?
- As a result, the UK has an ageing population, with an increasing percentage of older people and a declining percentage of children and young people
- Women in beanpole families are likely to be under pressure as they may have the burden of caring for family members from different generations
- The women are part of the sandwich generation because they are sandwiched between caring for younger and older generations
- Class, gender and ethnicity affect an older person’s independence, well-being and social life
- These factors are linked to the availability of resources like savings, good health and access to care in their own home
What is an arranged marriage?
- An arranged marriage is one in which parents or other family members choose a partner they believe will be suitable for their children
- It is based on consent and the individuals’ right to choose whether to accept the partner
What is a forced marriage?
- A forced marriage is not the same, as this is where one or both partners do not give their consent but the wedding goes ahead against their will
- Forced marriages are illegal in Britain and forcing someone to marry carries a maximum prison sentence of 7 years
