Family Changes Flashcards
What are the main reasons for family change in the UK?
- changes in laws
- changes in norms and values
- medicinal and technological changes
- secularisation
- economic changes
How has an advancement in technology caused changes in family types?
- people can now stay connected from all over the world so families can now disperse
- inventions (eg robotic hoovers, air fryers) make household duties quicker and easier so women can spend more time in employment
How have medicinal changes affected family types in the UK?
- people live longer because there is better healthcare; including more preventative medicine
- women are able to control their family size because of contraception and access to safe abortions: this gives women more sexual freedom to have multiple sexual partners
How have changes in norms and values affected family types in the UK?
- changes in expectations for men and women
- growth in the expectation for domestic labour participation from men
- individualisation
How has the rise in secularisation affected the types of families in the UK?
- less people feel bound to follow religious rules governing family life
How have economic changes affected family types in the UK?
- women are more career focused
- less financially dependent on a man to fully provide for them
- causing women to have children later on in life
How have changes in laws affected family types in the UK?
- 1969 divorce reform act (legalised marital breakdown as a reason for divorce)
- 2014 children and families act increased child protection
How do sociologists view childhood?
As a social construct
What is the functionalist view of childhood?
- crucial process in the modern family
- when a young person is socialised into a useful member of society
- as society becomes more complex, childhood as a process lengthens
What is the Marxist view of childhood?
- children are very important to modern capitalism
- creates new consumers as they are a market for consumer goods
What is the feminist view of childhood?
- children are socialised in accordance with traditional beliefs about gender and gender roles
- gender socialisation begins in the nuclear families where children observe differences recreated between their parents
What are conjugal roles?
Separation of roles within households based on the individuals gender
What are separated conjugal roles?
Men and women having a very traditional dispersement of roles
What are joint conjugal roles?
Men and women sharing out household tasks
What is lagged adaptation?
Socialisation that causes slower development
What is the functionalist view of conjugal relationships?
- segregated conjugal roles are natural
- men perform instrumental roles while women perform expressive roles
- both types of roles are needed for the family to run smoothly
What is the Marxist view of conjugal relationships?
- the separation of conjugal roles creates a hierarchy within the family, which resembles the hierarchy of our capitalistic society
- children who grow up in these families learn to adapt to the capitalist values and rules which help the ruling class maintain their societal positions
What is the feminist view of conjugal relationships?
- women carry the dual burden of carrying out housework while also financially contributing
- men view housework as being unmasculine
What are the functionalist views of the family?
- it is an institution contributes to society by reproducing the next generation
- socialises people
- helps cater to each family members needs
- central to social structure
- the family heavily ties into the organic analogy
What did Murdock say the 4 key functions of the family were?
- stabilisation of the sex drive (prevents children being born out of wedlock, ensures everyone has a nuclear family)
- reproduction of the next generation
- socialisation of the young
- economic function
What do Marxists think the three functions of the family are?
- inheritance of property
- ideological functions
- unit of consumption
What are the feminist views on the family?
- society is patriarchal
- is a breeding ground for patriarchal values
- gender roles are learned in the conventional family
- girls are taught domestic roles and subservience to men through processes of socialisation
- socialises boys into thinking their superior by witnessing them recreating paternal relationships
What are the new right views of the family?
- the traditional nuclear family is the best type of family
- the cornerstone of society; ab place of contentment, refuge and harmony
- the decline in of the traditional family is due to the many social problems eg an increase in crime rates, a decrease in moral standards
What are the postmodern views of the family?
- families have become more diversified and varied
- people chose the arrangements that suit them
- there is no single family type that can be identified because women can now reject traditional roles and chose their own life courses
