Family Diversity

Question 1

Define secularisation

Answer 1

A decrease of religious influence

Question 2

Murdock’s definition of the family

Answer 2

A heterosexual couple with one or more children [adopted or not], living in the same house, sharing money and reproduce.

Question 3

What’s a Nuclear Family?

Answer 3

Man and woman living together with with biological or adopted children.
Usually isolated geographically and socially from extended kin.

Question 4

Trends with the Nuclear Family?

Answer 4

No change

Question 5

Three reasons for this trend [Nuclear]

Answer 5

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.

Question 6

What’s a Cohabiting Family?

Answer 6

Unmarried couple living together with or without any children.
60% marry, treat this stage as ‘practice marriage’.

Question 7

Trends with the Cohabiting Family?

Answer 7

Increasing

Question 8

Four reasons for this trend [Cohabiting]

Answer 8

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.

Question 9

What’s a Empty Nest Family?

Answer 9

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.

Question 10

Trends with Empty Nest Family?

Answer 10

Decreasing

Question 11

One reason for this trend [Empty Nest]

Answer 11

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.

Question 12

What’s a Lone Parent Family?

Answer 12

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.

Question 13

Trends with Lone Parent Family?

Answer 13

Increasing

Question 14

Six reasons for this trend [Lone Parent]

Answer 14

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.

Question 15

What’s an Extended Family?

Classic and Modified

Answer 15

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.

Question 16

Trends with Extended Family?

Answer 16

Classic Increasing

Modified No Change

Question 17

Three reasons for this trend [Modified]

Answer 17

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.

Question 18

What’s a Household?

Answer 18

People sharing accommodation, meals, bills and housework but aren’t related to each other. Usually friends or students.

Question 19

Trends with Households?

Answer 19

Increasing

Question 20

Three reasons for this trend [Household]

Answer 20

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.

Question 21

What’s a Singleton?

Answer 21

Person living alone, usually young adults and elderly.

Question 22

Trends with Singletons?

Answer 22

Increasing

Question 23

Three reasons for this trend [Singleton]

Answer 23

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’.

Question 24

What’s a Same-sex Family?

Answer 24

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.

Question 25

Trends with Same-sex Family?

Answer 25

Increasing

Question 26

Three reasons for this trend [Same-sex]

Answer 26

1) Changes in the law – homosexuality legal (1967) and the age of consent is now the same as heterosexuals. Have the right to have their relationship legally recognised (Civil Partnerships Act 2005) and to adopt children.
2) Changes in social attitudes – more liberal and accepting of homosexual relationships. People recognise that any stable relationship is good for children.
3) Medical advances – IVF.

Question 27

What’s a DINKs and LATs?

Answer 27

Dual income no kids (DINK) – a married couple, both in employment with no children.
Living apart together (LAT) – families or couples who do not live together, usually for work reasons.

Question 28

Trends with LATs?

Answer 28

Increasing

Question 29

Three reasons for this trend [LATs]

Answer 29

1) Modern technology enables people to meet online. May involve meeting a person who lives far away and the online friendship can become a long distance relationship.
2) Changes in social attitudes - people more accepting and tolerant of new styles of relationships
3) Changes in employment - a person has to move for work while their partner has to stay in a particular place for their work

Question 30

What’s a Beanpole Family?

Answer 30

Multi generational family (three or more) with few people from each generation.

Question 31

Trends with Beanpole Family?

Answer 31

Increasing

Question 32

Three reasons for this trend [Beanpole]

Answer 32

1 ) Ageing population - more elderly people so younger people don’t just have grandparents, but also great-grandparents.

2) Child-centredness – people having fewer children as they want to lavish them with care, love, money.
3) Increased life expectancy – people are living longer as a result of improving health care.

Question 33

What’s a Reconstitutional Family?

Answer 33

Step-family consisting of married or cohabiting couple with children who are not the biological offspring of both adults. 10% of all families. Problems associated with these families include tense relationships with step-parents, step-siblings and split loyalties.

Question 34

Trends with Reconstitutional Family?

Answer 34

Increasing

Question 35

Three reasons for this trend [Reconstitutional]

Answer 35

1) Increase in divorce – newly single people who may still want to find a lasting relationship, they try again at marriage.
2) Secularisation – some churches now allow marriage by divorced couples.
3) Influence of the media – films promote romantic love so even if a person’s first marriage wasn’t successful, they don’t give up on finding ‘the right one’.

Question 36

Evaluation - trends in family structures

Answer 36

Don’t apply to everyone as a person’s class background and ethnicity affect the type of family they live in.

Question 37

Middle Class and family structure

Answer 37

Isolated nuclear families.
Pursuit of higher education & career, people move from their extended kin, form relationships and settle down in areas geographically removed from their place of origin.
Makes them socially removed from their kin.

Question 38

Working Class and family structure

Answer 38

Extended families.
Less likely to pursue higher education so stay living near their extended kin.
Need financial and childcare support from relatives. In recent years, more w/c families are becoming lone parent families.
They experience high divorce rates due to economic problems.

Question 39

Black families and family structure

Answer 39

Lone parent families.
Linked to slavery. If the husband sold, his wife would have to take care of the children.
Created a culture among Afro-Caribbean women of self-reliance.

Question 40

Asian families and family structure

Answer 40

Nuclear families or modified extended families.
30 years ago - extended.
Linked to migration patterns. Man would come to Britain, followed later by his wife and children. Once settled, they helped other relatives come over to the UK. They would have formed extended families in order to help each other out.