Family 5: Willmott and Young

Question 1

D: What type of sociologists are W and Y?

E: In what decade are they writing?

C: How does their research method link with their sociological perspective?

Answer 1

D: functionalists

E: The 1970s

C: As functionalists are macro sociologists (they look at the big picture) they needed to collect research that was representative and reliable to map trends and patterns.

Question 2

D: What type of family did W and Y suggest is the new norm?

E: How many stages has the family gone through to get to the new type?

C: What did they predict would be the future family type?

Answer 2

D: Symmetrical (different but equal conjugal roles)

E: 1= Pre-symmetrical
2= Early- industrial
3= Symmetrical

C: ‘The Managing Director family’. The principle of stratified diffusion- the lifestyle of those higher up the class system will be adopted by those lower down.

Question 3

D: Identify one reason for increasing symmetrical families.

E: Identify one reason for the rise in nuclear families and decreasing extended families.

C: How did technology support both the rise in symmetrical families and increasing nuclear families?

Answer 3

D: Improved living conditions- men and women wanted to spend time together in the home.

E: Families needed to be able to move for jobs (increased geographical mobility)- smaller nuclear families could do this more easily.

C: TVs in the home- families wanted to spend leisure time together.
Housework became easier with technological changes.

Question 4

D: Identify the main research method used by W and Y.

E: They also completed a ‘time-budget study’ what is this?

C: Was their research representative?

Answer 4

D: Structured interviews

E: A diary/ record of the way a person spends their time. It allowed W and Y to measure the different amount of time spent by husbands and wives on different activities.

C:
Yes- they interviewed 2000 people.
No- this was only in Greater and Outer London. They started with a sample of 3000 people, many refused to take part.

Question 5

D: Identify one criticism W and Y’s conclusion that families are more symmetrical.

E: Identify one criticism of the idea that the nuclear family is the norm.

C: How did Ann Oakley criticise W and Y?

Answer 5

D: Conjugal roles aren’t equal, women complete the triple shift.

E: This underestimates the range of family diversity (The Rapoports)

C: They counted men washing up once a week as being ‘helpful in the home’. This isn’t ‘equal but different’ when Ann Oakley found that women were completing over 70 hours of domestic labour per week.