parents and children Flashcards
stats
Decline in fertility rate/people having less children
Calculated by comparing age fertility rates
Total Fertility Rate 1964 – 2.93
Total Fertility Rate 2019 – 1.65
Total Fertility Rate 2020 – 1.60
People are having children later in life
1973 – 26.4
2019 – 30.7 (lowest since 1938)
reasons for these changes
Education - more people are staying on to Higher Education
Relationship expectations - Delay in marriage and partnership formation
Changes in the position of women - wanting to have a longer working career before a family
Cost - unemployment/employment uncertainty
Contraception – cheap and safer
Changing values – not having children is socially acceptable
lone parent families
They make up 24% of all families with children, One in 5 children live in lone-parent families. 90% of these families are headed by women
reasons for increase in lone parent families
Lone parent families have risen due to increase in divorce and separation and increase in the number of never-married women having children. This is linked to the decline in stigma attached to births outside marriage
reasons why lone parent families are female headed
The widespread belief that women are by nature suited to an expressive or nurturing role
The fact that divorce courts usually give custody of children to mothers
the fact that men may be less willing than women to give up work to care for children
single by choice
Many lone-parent families are female-headed by mothers who are single by choice. They may not wish to cohabit or marry, or they may wish to limit the father’s involvement with the child. Renvoize found that professional women were able to support their children without the father’s involvement. Cashmore found that working mothers with less earning power chose to live on welfare benefits without a partner, often because they had experienced abuse. Feminist ideas and greater opportunities for women may also have encouraged an increase in the number of never-married lone mothers.
new right view of lone parent families
Murray argues that lone-parent families result from an over-generous welfare state providing benefits for unmarried women and their children. This has created a perverse incentive that is rewards to irresponsible behaviour. The welfare state creates a dependency culture in which people assume that the state will support them and their children. For Murray, the solution is to abolish welfare benefits. This would reduce the dependency culture that encourages births outside marriage.
critics of new right view
They argue that welfare benefits are far from generous and lone-parents families are much more likely to be in poverty. Reasons for these include - inadequate welfare benefits, most lone parents are women who earn less than men
what are step-families often called
Reconstituted families
step families stats
Account for 10% of families with dependents
85% of stepfamilies children are from woman’s previous relationship
11% from father’s
Ferri & Smith (1998) – stepfamilies are at greater risk of poverty
Allan and Crow (2001) – may struggle with divided loyalties and tensions
McCarthy (2003) – tend to be a mixed picture with differing tensions
reasons for step families
Increase in lone-parent families
Formed when lone parents find new partners
Divorce and separation have created new types of families
More at risk of poverty due to increased dependents
Each stepparent may have dependents from other
relationships
Tensions within some stepfamilies could be due to unclear social norms
