Families and Households 1.4- Family Diversity (changing family patterns)

Social trends indicate more variety of families and households. Official social trends statistics show that the variety of family type has increased in Britain since the mid 20th Century. There is no such thing as the “British Family”.

Evidence:

1. There were 24.4 million households in the UK in 2002, up by a third since 1971

2. The average size of households are getting smaller, the number of households made up form 5 or more people have decreased from 14% to 7% since 1971

3. The percentage of nuclear families has decreased from 35% to 25% since 1971

4. Two of the biggest increases have been in single person and lone parent households. Explaining why the average size of households have gotton smaller.

5. Increase in the proportion of families which are reconstituted families (AKA step families), there are more stepfamilies because of an increase in divorce  

6. WEEKS, DONOVAN et al (1999) found there has been an increase in the number of same sex (homosexual) house holds since the 1980s, due to changed in public attitudes and legislation

7. Been a rise in the number of people cohabitating without marriage, with an estimate of over 3 million couples by 2020

8. The number of children born outside of marriage has increased to 40% of all births

THERE ARE 2 CLEAR PATTERNS:

1. there has been an increase in the diversity of families in the UK

2. the nuclear family is still the most common type of family, even though the proportions of them have gone down. in 2002 78% of children lived in nuclear families  

RAPOPORT AND RAPOPORT (1982) 5 types of family diversity

1. Organisational Diversity

Differences in the way a family is structured, examples?

2. Cultural Diversity

Differences that arise from the different norms and values of different cultures

3. Class diversity

Different views held by different parts of society concerning families. EG affluent families sending children to boarding school over public

4. Life-course Diversity

Diversity caused by different stages people have reached in their lives. eg difference between newly weds with a baby, and an older couple with older children

Chohort Diversity

Differences created by the historical periods the family have lived through. eg children that reached maturity in the 80s more dependent on parents due to high levels of unemployment

CLASS, ETHNICITY and SEXUALITY affect the type of family you experience  

EVERSLEY and BONNERJEA (1982), found middle class areas of the UK have higher proportions of nuclear families, and working class areas have a higher rate of lone parent households.

Lesbian and Gay families have been hidden from the statistics, the official definition of a couple has onle included same-sex couples since 1998.

MODOOD et al (1997) found:

1. White and Afro-Caribbean are more likely to be divorced. Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and African Asians were more likely to be married

2. Afro-Caribbean households, more likely single parent families

3. South Asian families are traditionally extended families, but there are more nuclear family households than in the past. Extended Kinship Links stay strong and often reach back to India, Pakistan or Bnagladesh

4. Diversity is present within each ethnic group

Fewer people marry and more people live together instead

in 2001, the lowest number of marriages took place in the UK since records began, this doesn’t b=mean that there is a decline in family life:

1. over the same period, there was an increase in the number of adults living with a partner (cohabitation). in 2001/2 a quarter of all non married adults aged 16-59 were cohabiting.
2. social trends statistics, show that living with a partner doesn’t mean you won’t get married, it often means a delay in marriage. A third of people cohabiting, went onto marriage
3. the majority of people in the UK do marry, but the proportion who are married at any one time has fallen
4. men tend to die before women, elderly widows make up a lot of the single person households. There are more old people these days, explaining why there is o many living in single person households

The UK has one of the highest divorce rates in Europe

1. there has been a steady rise in the divide rate in most modern industrial societies
2. the divorce rate is defined as the number of people per 1000 of the population who get divorced per year. In 2000, Britains divorce rate was 2.6 compared the the European average of 1.9
3. actual divorces in the UK rose from 25,000 in 1961 to 146,000 in 1997
4. the proportion of the population who were divorced at any one time was 1% in 1971 and 9% in 2000
5. the average length of marriage before it ends in divorce has remained about the same- 12 years in 1963, 11 years in 2000- Census 2001
6. although divorce rate is increasing, divorced people marry again. In 2001, 40% of all marriages were re-marriages

There are several social, cultural and political facts you need to understand

1. Divorce has become easier to obtain
2. Divorce is more socially acceptable
3. Women may have higher expectations of marriage, and better employment opportunities may make them less financially dependent on the husband
4. Marriages are increasingly focused on individual emotional fulfilment
5. The New Rights believe that marriage is less supported by the state these days

*Not all couples divorce, they just separate.

*You cannot presume that marriage was happier in the past because of few divorces. A marriage can break down but the couple still stays married and living together. This is called an EMPTY SHELL MARRIAGE.

People are having fewer children, and having them in later life

British families have had a decrease in the amount of children they have had

1. people are having fewer children, the average number of children per family was 2.4 in 1971, compared to 1.6 in 2001
2. women are having children later. The average age of women at the birth of their first child was 24 in 1971, compared to 27 in 2001
3. more people are not having children at all. 9% of women born in 1945 were childless at age off 45 compared to 15% of women born in 1955

Social changes have influenced these findings:

Contraception is now readily available and women roles are changing. The emphasis on the individual in post industrial society is a key factor. Children are expensive and time consuming, and couples choose to spend their time and money else where.

The conflict between wanting a successful working life and being a mum has made many women put off from having kids until later

Families with many generations of only children are called BEANPOLE families because their family trees can be arranged into a single vertical line

New technologies have created New Family Structure

1. MACIONIS and PLUMMER (1997) highlighted the ability of fertility treatment to allow family structures that were previously impossible
2. Treatments such as IVF allows eggs to be fertilised inside of a tube and then medically implanted into the womb of a surrogate mother who ay not be the original donor egg
3. In 1991, ARLETTE SCHWEITZER acted as as surrogate mother using a fertilised egg, originally taken from her own daughter. So it is arguable that the child is both her daughter and granddaughter
4. Fertility treatments allow gay and lesbian couples, and single and older women to have children, when they couldn’t before. Meaning that family structures exists where it was impossible in the past

EVERSLEY and BONNERJEA (1982) found regional variations of family structure

found that some family structures were more likely dependent on the area:

1. Inner cities have higher concentration of single parent and ethnic minority families
2. Southern England has high number of two parent families, upwardly-mobile families
3. Coastal areas are home to large numbers of retired couples without dependent children
4. Rural areas tend to be characterised by extended families and strong external patterns of kinship
5. Declining industrial areas have large numbers of traditional families, but also show a high amount of diversity

New Right think that family diversity is caused by falling moral standards

1. New Right theorists believe that family diversity is the result of the decline in traditional values. They see it as a threat to the traditional nuclear family and blame it for antisocial behaviour and crime
2. MURRAY (1989), suggests that single mother families are a principle cause of crime and social decay because of the lack of a male role model and authority figure in the home
3. The New Rights believe that state benefits should be cut and social policy targeted to discourage family diversity and promote marriage and the nuclear family

Functionalists think that the growth in diversity has been exaggerated

ROBERT CHESTER (1985)

-Admits that there has been some growth in family diversity, but believes that the nuclear family remains the dominant family structures.

-Argues that statistics show a greater increase in diversity than is actually happening. This is because the UK society has an ageing population. The distribution of ages in society is changing so that the proportion of older people is increasing. This increases the number of people who are at a stage in their life when they’re temporarily not in a nuclear family

-Also suggests that nuclear families are becoming less traditional and more symmetrical to better fit modern living.

Postmodernists see diversity and fragmentation as the new norm

1. Postmodernists claim that there is no longer a single dominant family structure, postmodern society is highly diverse and its diversity is increasing
2. Improvements in women rights and the availability of contraception have resulted in people having far more choice in their type of relationship
3. People now tend to create their relationships to suit their own needs rather than following the traditional values of religion or government
4. Their relationships only last as long as their needs are met, creating even greater diversity and instability

*postmodernists emphasise the role of individualism as a crucial feature of postmodernist society

BECK (1992) Negotiated Family

1. Beck believed that many people now live in a negotiated family. Where families are a unit which vary according to changing of the needs within them
2. Negotiated families are more equal than traditional nuclear families, but are less stable
3. WEEKS, DONOVAN et al (1999) suggested that family commitment is now views as a matter of ongoing negotiation rather than something that lasts forever once entered into

JEFFERY WEEKS (2000) increase in choice in morality

1. Believes that personal morality has become an individual choice, rather than a set of values influenced by religion or dictated by society.
2. He sees more liberal attitudes towards marriage, divorce, cohabitation and homosexuality as a major cause of irreversible diversity