Family Diversity Flashcards
Define secularisation
A decrease of religious influence
Murdock’s definition of the family
A heterosexual couple with one or more children [adopted or not], living in the same house, sharing money and reproduce.
What’s a Nuclear Family?
Man and woman living together with with biological or adopted children.
Usually isolated geographically and socially from extended kin.
Trends with the Nuclear Family?
No change
Three reasons for this trend [Nuclear]
1) Needs of the economy – economy needs the family to be geographically mobile in pursuit of employment. Easier to move one partner and children to another town than an entire extended family.
2) Increased social mobility – people move through the social scales developing different lifestyles to the rest of their extended kin. Weaken their bonds.
3) Welfare state – provides the service which used to be provided by the extended in such as benefits, education or healthcare.
What’s a Cohabiting Family?
Unmarried couple living together with or without any children.
60% marry, treat this stage as ‘practice marriage’.
Trends with the Cohabiting Family?
Increasing
Four reasons for this trend [Cohabiting]
1) Change in social attitudes - younger generations likely to accept cohabitation. Decline in stigma with to pre-marital sex.
2) Increased career opportunities for women - freed women from relying on a husband and can choose to cohabit rather than get married.
3) Secularisation - people don’t have to abide by rules which may teach that cohabitation is a sin.
4) Gender equality - young people cohabit as an attempt to create a more equal relationship.
What’s a Empty Nest Family?
A elderly couple living alone once their children have grown up. Start off as a nuclear family, but when the children grow up, they move away. This leaves their parents living alone.
Trends with Empty Nest Family?
Decreasing
One reason for this trend [Empty Nest]
Increase in adult-kids.
Young adults who moved back home after Uni, can’t afford to live independently. Moved back in with their parents because it is cheaper, easier and more comfortable are KIPPERS – kids in parents’ pockets. Transitional period from youth to adulthood is becoming longer and this stage is referred to as kidulthood.
What’s a Lone Parent Family?
Parent living with their children.
Due to separation or divorce, death of partner, end of cohabitation, and birth to a never-married, single mother.
23% of all families in Britain are lone parent families. 90% headed by women.
Trends with Lone Parent Family?
Increasing
Six reasons for this trend [Lone Parent]
1) Women’s economic independence – greater job opportunities and welfare support enable women to choose to have children without being married as they can support themselves.
2) Changing male attitudes – men no longer feel obliged to marry women in case of an unintentional conception.
3) Improved reproductive technology – IVF – women can choose to be lone parents.
4) Changing social attitudes – less stigma attached to being alone, unmarried parent.
5) Secularisation – having a baby out of marriage is no longer seen as sinful.
6) Increase in divorce rates – creates lone-parent families, especially those headed by women as courts tend to give the custody of children to mothers who are seen as more caring.
What’s an Extended Family?
Classic and Modified
Classic extended family contains wide kin – relatives based on blood or marriage - all living together.
Modified extended families are nuclear families that live separately from their extended kin, but maintain close ties through frequent visits and phone calls. Ties maintained primarily through women.
Trends with Extended Family?
Classic Increasing
Modified No Change
Three reasons for this trend [Modified]
1) CE declining as housing is too small to support large families. It’s too expensive for a few income earners to support a large number of people.
2) Grandparents can still provide support for the parents, e.g. providing advice, financial support and babysitting.
3) Needs of the economy – often have to move to another city for work, easier to move a nuclear family than a classic extended family.
What’s a Household?
People sharing accommodation, meals, bills and housework but aren’t related to each other. Usually friends or students.
Trends with Households?
Increasing
Three reasons for this trend [Household]
1) People going into higher education so live with friends in flat shares to save money.
2) Cost of living - people can’t afford to live alone, increasingly people in their 40s are living in households after divorce.
3) Some people choose to live with their friends as families of choice.
What’s a Singleton?
Person living alone, usually young adults and elderly.
Trends with Singletons?
Increasing
Three reasons for this trend [Singleton]
1) Increase divorce – when a marriage ends, usually the mother who gets the custody of children so the father moves out and lives alone.
2) Increased education and career opportunities – people choose to prioritise the pursuit of careers over relationships.
3) People are marrying at a later age, so may live alone until they find the ‘right one’.
What’s a Same-sex Family?
Became possible following the introduction of the Civil Partnerships Act 2005 – same legal rights as heterosexual married couples.
Can have children through IVF, adoption, or surrogate mothers.
5 – 7% of all families.
