Family diversity- changing family patterns

Question 1

general social trends that indicate more variety of families and households

Answer 1

• official gov stats show the variety has increased since the mid 20th C
• no such thing as ‘the british familiy’

Question 2

Evidence of their being more variety of households and family

Answer 2

• biggest increase in single person households and lone parent households
• single person household increased by 500 000 from 2003-2013 due to increased divorces and people over 65 living alone
• fastest growing household type is multi-family households, increased by 65% due increased number of beanpole families
• cohabitation doubled from 1996 to 2012 to 2.9 mill

Question 3

overall patterns of family diversity

Answer 3

• increase
• more different types of family
  -nuclear family is still the most common type of family but the proportion is going down the drain

Question 4

Rapport and Rapport (1982): 5 types of family diversity

Answer 4

• organisational diversity
• cultural diversity
• class diversity
• life course diversity
• cohort diversity

Question 5

what is organisational diversity?

Answer 5

• differences in the way families are structured
• nuclear, extended or reconstituted

Question 6

what is cultural diversity?

Answer 6

• differences that arise from norms and values of different cultures

Question 7

what is class diversity?

Answer 7

• more affluent families are more likely to send their children to boarding school
• poorer families will have a different relationship between parents and children

Question 8

what is life course diversity?

Answer 8

diversity caused by the different stages people reached in their lives

Question 9

what is cohort diversity?

Answer 9

• differences between the historical periods the family has lived through
• e.g. children who reached maturity in the 1980’s may have relied on their parents for longer due to high unemployment