Couples
- Three views on domestic division of labour
- Instrumental/expressive (Parsons)
- Criticised by feminists ('biological')
- Segregated conjugal roles & joint conjugal roles (Bott)
- Symmetrical family (Young & Willmott)
- Criticised (Oakley and Boulton)
- Housewife role originated to keep women from paid work (Oakley)
- Women working full time have less housework
- 73% housework if working full time, 82% if working part time, 83% if not working (Gershuny)
- Not work but earning power- still unequal (Crompton)
- Commercialisation of housework (Silver & Schor)
- Criticised- hasn't helped working class; what's left still done by women
- Dual burden (Ferri & Smith)
- Dual burden worst for working class women (Arber & Ginn)
- Triple shift (Duncombe & Marsden)
- Ingrained gender scripts are to blame
- Dunne- lesbian couples share domestic labour
- Weeks- same sex relationships free from expectations/norms/traditions- more negotiation
- Inequalities in how money is shared
- Men get more from domestic work than returned in financial support (Barrett & McIntosh)
- Women on benefits without husband may be better off (Graham)
- Pooling or allowance system (Pahl and Vogler)
- Allowance system on increase (Vogler)
- Men make biggest decisions (Edgell)
- Women more likely to suffer domestic abuse (Coleman et al) and most incidents committed by men (Mirrlees-Black)
- Domestic violence often unreported/not investigated (Cheal)
- Families seen as good thing
- Private sphere
- Assumption that women are free to leave
- Radical feminists see domestic violence as inevitable- patriarchy (Firestone and Millett)
- Not all men aggressive; not all domestic violence from men (Elliot)
- Some groups more at risk (Mirrlees-Black)
- Children/youth
- High consumption of drugs/alcohol
- Rented accomodation
- Domestic violence may be caused by stress from social inequality (Wilkinson)
Childhood
- Childhood is a social construct (Wagg)
- Separate from adults (Pilcher)
- Different in other cultures (Benedict)
- Work responsibilities taken on earlier (Punch)
- Obedience to adults isn't adults right but child's concession (Firth)
- Sexual beahviour tolerated/amused interest (Malinowski)
- Children treated very differently in Middle Ages (Aries)
- Linked to higher infant mortality rate (Shorter)
- Criticised- childhood present but different (Pollock)
- March of progress view
- Childhood improving
- 'history of childhood... a nightmare' (Lloyd de Mause)
- More protection/rights; less exploitation/harm
- Nutrition, healthcare, housing, sanitation etc. improved
- Society child-centred- children valued & prioritised
- Conflict view
- Inequalities among children and between children/adults
- Differences
- Gender (Bonke)
- Ethnic/cultural (Bhatti)
- Class (Howard)
- Adult control- oppression/segregation/control (Firestone and Holt)
- Neglect & abuse
- Controls over time/space/bodies
- Age patriarchy (Gittins)
- Women leave abusive partners to protect children (Humphreys & Thiara)
- Children act up/down to reduce childhood (Hockey & James)
- Childhood disappearing due to information hierarchy & required skills (Postman)
- Childhood still present in games etc. (Opie)
- Western childhood/norms globalised
- Today's childhood is very negative- 'toxic' (Palmer)
- Confined to small groups (Womack)
- Falling birth rates- childhood could become more isolated or more valued (Qvortrup)
Functions of the Family
- Functionalist- family performs essential functions for society
- Four functions (Murdock)
- Stable satisfaction of the sex drive
- Meeting members economic needs
- Socialisation of children
- Reproduction of the next generation
- Functional fit- society (pre-industrial/industrial) and family type (extended/nuclear) fit together- geographical/social mobility- two functions
- Socialisation of children
- Stabilisation of adult personalities
- Functionalist criticisms
- Other institutes could perform functions
- Extended family not present in pre-industrial society (Laslett)
- Extended family emerged in early industrial (Young & Willmott)
- Family not always positive
- Class/gender
- Not all functions performed well/at all
- Marxist- family aids capitalism
- Ensures inheritance of property (Engells)
- Legitimises/reproduces class inequality
- Acts as unit of consumption
- Marxist criticisms
- Assumes nuclear family dominant
- Doesn't acknowledge oppression of women
- Ignores positives of family life
- Feminist- family oppresses women
- Liberal
- Equality not yet achieved, but progress made- eg, less domestic work & career opportunities
- Marxist
- Capitalism women's main oppressor
- Unpaid domestic labour
- Reserve army of cheap labour
- Absorb male anger from capitalism (Ansley)
- Radical
- Family inevitably patriarchal
- Women should live in matrilocal households (Greer) or political lesbianism
- Difference
- Impossible to generalise- different women have different experiences- eg, refuge from racism
- Feminist criticisms
- Focuses on women
- Nuclear family/gender roles biological (Parsons)
- Liberal feminists believe small changes will reform big problems
- Radical feminists take it too far
- Separatism unlikely to work (Somerville)
- All viewpoints criticised for assuming dominant family type to be nuclear and seeing world as too structures
Demography
- Birth rate
- Number of live births per 1000 of the population per year
- Decline since 1900 (with 'baby booms' after world wars & in 1980s)
- Changes in position of women
- Decline in infant mortality rate
- Number of deaths of infants less than a year old per 1000 live births per year
- May not be linked (Brass & Kabir)
- Children now economic liabilities
- Society has become more child-centred
- Predicted to remain constant
- Total Fertility Rate
- Average number of children a woman will have in their childbearing years (15-44)
- Risen recently, but lower than in past
- More women remaining childless
- Many women having children later in life
- Family sizes smaller
- Dual earner couples more likely
- Dependency ratio decreasing but will increase
- Public services/policies may change
- Deaths
- Death rate number of deaths per 1000 of the population per year
- Number of deaths remained constant (excluding wars/influenza epidemic)
- Death rate has decreased
- Decrease in deaths from infectious diseases (Tranter)
- Improved nutrition (McKeown)
- Medical improvements & NHS
- Public health measurements & environmental improvements
- Social changes
- Dangerous occupation decline
- Smaller families
- Higher incomes
- Greater health knowledge
- Life expectancy
- How long, on average, someone born in given year can expect to live
- Increased a lot over last 100 or so years
- Differences
- Middle class live longer than working class
- Women live longer than men
- People in the South live longer than those in the North/Scotland
- Ageing population
- Result of fewer births, decreased death rate & longer life expectancy
- Average age of UK is rising
- Need more public services for elderly
- More one person pensioner households
- Increased dependency ratio
- Old doesn't mean dependent
- Offset by fewer dependent children
- Old age is social construct
- Negative attitudes- vulnerable/incompetent/burden
- Period of dependency (Townsend)
- Needs accomodation
- Attitudes
- Retirement age/taxation/housing (Hirsch)
- Migration
- Immigration- movement into society/area
- Emigration- movement out of society/area
- Net migration- difference in number of people emigrating and immigrating within an area
- Reasons
- 'Push'- unemployment; escaping conflict
- 'Pull'- higher wages; better study/work opportunities
- Complex effect on dependency ratio (increase/decrease/increase/decrease)
Changing Family Patterns
- Divorce
- Increase since 1960s
- Changes in law
- Declining stigma & changing attitudes (Mitchell & Goody)
- Secularisation
- Rising expectations of marriage (Fletcher)
- Changes in women's position
- Views on increase
- Functionalists
- High divorce rate doesn't mean marriage bad, just higher expectations
- Most people remarry
- Feminists
- Most petitions from women
- Conscious rejection of the patriarchy (Bernard)
- Postmodernists
- Divorce gives individuals freedom to make own choices
- New Right
- Divorce undermined nuclear family
- Creates welfare-dependent lone females
- Interactionists
- Impossible to generalise
- Everyone has different response to divorce (Morgan)
- Marriage
- Fewer people marrying & marriage occurring later
- Changes in stigma/attitudes
- Secularisation
- Declining stigma to marriage alternatives
- Changes in women's position
- Fear of divorce
- Increase in remarriages
- Cohabitation
- Unmarried partners living together in sexual relationship
- Decrease in stigma
- Increased career opportunities for women
- Less need for financial security
- Secularisation
- May be part of journey to marriage (Chester)
- May be permanent alternative- allows negotiation not based on tradition/patriarchy (Beijin)
- Same Sex Relationships
- Affect 5-7% adult population (Stonewall); probably higher; hard to compare
- Social policies/attitudes more positive than in past
- Chosen families- friendship as kinship (Weeks) and cohabitation as quasi-marriage (Weston)
- Relationships more flexible due to lack of frameworks (Allan and Crow)
- One Person Households
- Increase in one person households
- Increase in separation/divorce
- Decline in marriage
- Marrying later
- Choosing to live alone
- Many of pension age
- Men dying earlier than women, leaving women alone
- Too few potential partners in age group
- Living Apart Together
- Not all who live alone are without a partner
- Around 10% of population (Thomson et al)
- Affected by choice & constraint (Duncan and Phillips)
- Attitudes positive- not rejection of traditional relationships
- Childbearing
- Fewer children had & more women not having children
- Women have more choice
- More children born outside of marriage
- Decrease in stigma
- Increase in cohabitation
- Secularisation
- Lone Parent Families
- Increasing part of society
- Increases in divorce/separation
- Change in stigma
- Secularisation
- More never-married women being single mothers
- Most headed by women
- Divorce courts more likely to give custody to women
- Belief that women are suited to expressive role
- 'Natural' for women to be main caregiver
- Women may be more likely to give up work for childcare
- Mothers may choose to be single
- Don't want to marry/cohabit
- Prevent father's involvement (eg, abuse)
- Opposed by New Right
- Harmful to society
- Welfare benefits 'perverse incentive' (Murray)
- More likely to be in poverty
- Welfare benefits often inadequate
- Stepfamilies
- 10% of UK's families
- Formed when lone parents form new partnerships
- Increases in divorce/separation
- Change in stigma
- Secularisation
- Children generally from women's previous relationships
- Children more likely to stay with woman
- Similar to first families (Ferri & Smith)
- May face issues and tensions (Allan Crow)
- More likely to experience poverty (Ferri & Smith)
- Diverse- should talk about 'stepfamilies' not 'the stepfamily' (Ribbens McCarthy et al)
- Ethnic Differences
- Immigration increases family diversity
- Black families
- Greater proportion of lone-parent families
- Linked to family disorganisation- slavery/unemployment
- Value placed on independence (Safia Mirza)
- Parents may be in stable, supportive relationships (Reynolds)
- Asian families
- Bangladeshi, Pakistani & Indian households often larger- more British Asians in childbearing age groups
- Importance on extended families and support (Ballard)
- Extended Family Today
- Functionalists say nuclear family is dominant (Parsons)
- Others disagree (Young and Willmott)
- Extended family almost non-existent (Charles)
- Save for Bangladeshi community
- Extended family still present
- 'Dispersed extended' (Willmott)
- 'Multiple nuclear families' (Chamberlain)
- Parental contact important, siblings less so (Bell)
- Increase in non-kin family
Family Diversity and the Life Course
- Modernists
- Includes functionalists & New Right
- See society as being fixed, clear-cut and structured
- Family ideals
- Nuclear family
- Functionalists
- Nuclear family type performs necessary functions so other family types abnormal/deviant
- New Right
- Nuclear best & biological- diversity bad
- Lone parents especially bad
- Delinquency and social instability
- Marriage best for bringing up children; other types unstable (Benson)
- Children who experience family breakdown disadvantaged (Amato)
- Welfare benefits perverse incentive (Murray)
- Criticisms of New Right
- Commitment, not marriage, that prevents family breakdown
- Roles not biologically fixed (Oakley)
- Patriarchal oppression of women
- Lone parents may not be dependent- research invalid
- Neo-Conventional Family (Chester)
- Nuclear family with dual earners
- No difference, diversity not threat
- Rapoport & Rapoport
- Types of family diversity
- Organisational
- Life stage
- Cultural
- Generational
- Social Class
- Postmodernity
- Reject ideas of ideals; individuals make own choices
- Increase diversity
- Life course analysis
- Flexibility and variation
- Timing/sequence important
- Focuses on meanings
- Focuses on what individuals see as important
- 'Family practices' (Morgan)
- Routine actions that create sense of being in family
- Influenced by beliefs about rights/obligations
- Families not structures but what we do but families exist in context of structures
- Society less clear cut
- Friendship as kinship (Weeks)
- Can't talk about 'the family' but 'families' (Cheal)
- More freedom and choice
- Increase in risk and instability
- 'Pure relationships' (Giddens)
- Increased choice and equality
- Changes in women's position
- Changes in contraception
- Relationships exist to meet needs; link to love and happiness
- More instability
- Risk society (Beck)
- Tradition has less influence- must make own choices and weigh up risks
- Negotiated family (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim)
- Family negotiated; varies according to individual wishes and expectations
- More equal, less stable
- Divorce-extended family (Stacey)
- Signifier of diversity & improved position of women
- People connected by divorce
- Growing acceptance of sexual/familial diversity- family patterns traditional, but diversity growing (Weeks)
Families and Social Policy
- Government actions/policies can have big effect on family lives
- Functionalists
- Positive view
- Government policies help support nuclear family to perform functions
- Functionalist criticisms
- Too positive
- Assume everyone benefits equally
- New Right
- Policies shouldn't undermine natural self-reliant nuclear family
- Oppose welfare state
- 'Perverse incentives' (Murray)
- Benefits tightened & policies should support nuclear family
- Less state has to do with family the better
- New Right criticisms
- Attempting to justify patriarchal oppression
- Wrong to say nuclear family natural
- Benefits minimal- cutting these might increase poverty
- Feminists
- Social policies help maintain patriarchal oppression
- Make assumptions about what natural/ideal family should be
- Patriarchal nuclear family (Land)
- Policies reinforce assumptions/patriarchy, even if seemingly positive
- Maternity policies seem to aid women but assume they're main caregiver (Leonard)
- Gender regimes (Drew)
- Familistic
- Traditional & based on assumptions
- Greece
- Individualistic
- Diversity & gender equality
- Sweden
- Feminist criticisms
- Policies reinforce roles that are best/natural
- Some policies do aid women
- Marxists
- Social policies don't benefit all- help to reinforce & serve capitalism
- Improvements are only concessions & are easily lost
- Seemingly beneficial policies only to benefit capitalism
- Childcare to enable working women during World War Two
- Marxist criticisms
- Policies do offer benefits
- Oppression is on women, not class
- State policies and institutions merely to police family & target 'problem' families (Donzelot)