Diversity of family and household types
50 years ago, the family was father, mother and biological approach so fathers are breadwinners and mothers leave paid work to be a housewife
Stay married and are traditionally working class
Maintain strong relationship with other relatives
Not all Families fit the image and sociologists seen changes in society so known as family diversity
Family and Households in the UK
A family is generally regarded by relationship of blood, marriage and adoption so emergence of families of choice so traditionally not related such as cohabiting couple may be a family
Household is a group of people who live under the same roof a single person living alone also constitutes to a household such as students or friends
Nuclear Family
Most of Britain in 1960 were a nuclear family
Consists of a mother and father and one or more children whether they are biological and adopted
Father was a breadwinner and mother were housewife
1970 sociologists saw the nuclear family as the typical family of western industrial societies
Over the last 50 years ago family has experienced great change
Argued that over 21st century there is no such thing as a normal or typical and that the nuclear family is in decline
Office for National Statistics
Most common type of family with children in 2013 either married or civil partnership with dependent children was 4.7 million
One type of family to decrease since 1996 with an increase in other types such as cohabitating so couple families and lone-parent family
Extended Family
Common in working class communities in Britain in 1960s
Most maintained strong relationships with extended kin who would mutually support another
Beyond nuclear family
Extended vertically meaning it comprises not just 2 generations but 3 or more
Extended horizontally meaning that relatives from the same generation live together such as 2 brothers their wives and their children
Male relatives help others to find jobs and give one another money
Female relatives would help other female relatives out with childcare and car of elderly or the sick
Young and Willmott (1973)
Found most families have evolved into a new type of nuclear family called symmetrical family by 1970s so spreads all social class
More recent socialists Beck and Beck (1995) argued an undergoing process of individualisation so rather than following norms laid down by tradition
Most people live in nuclear family, but most people are most likely members of dispersed extended families
Stay conflict with digital technology platforms such as Facebook
Evidence that extended kin still physically come together for special occasions, so children are born
Postmodern sociologist argue that people have much greater choice and flexibility today in one they organise their personal and family views
Family diversity has become the norm so many social groupings that qualify is families
Office of national statistics 2013 is less than 1% of households in the UK are multi-households and it’s the fastest growing type of household
Lone parent families
Families with at least one child that lives with one parent as most are headed by mother’s majority is children stay with mother following a divorce or separation
Is custody is awarded by family courts, family judges tend to go favour the custody to mothers
Make up a ¼ of families with dependent children in 2013
For individuals being part of lone parents’ families is a stage in the life course
Remain alone for an average of 5 years
Millennium cohort study was a longitudinal study following babies born in 2000 found that:
- 7% remained alone
- 9% become cohabiting
- 9% become married
- 9% started as married or cohabiting had become lone parents after 5 years
Reconstructed family
Def. A step family formed by people with children from previous relationships marrying one another
Also known as blended families
Lone parents often evolve into reconstructed family so mothers after remarrying or cohabit and children acquire a step father
They may also contain half siblings if mother and step father have children
In 2011 there was 544’000 reconstructed family with dependent children in England and Wales
- 340’000 were married
- 203’000 were cohabiting
- 11% were reconstructed
Grant (2006) Suggested that men are increasing likely to be living with other men’s children whilst their children grow up somewhere else
It is divorce category of families
Parent line puts on an organisation for step families as there are 72 ways to be formed
Children may have strong relationships with their absent biological parents or have little contact or no contact
Same sex family
Appeared in last 30 years and increased during 21st century so partially since the government legalised gay rights since equality in society 1967
Office for National Statistics 2013
Same sex families with children only numbered about 13’000 compared to 57 million nuclear family
Only 8’000 civil partnership
5’000 cohabitating same sex couples with children
Most families were almost non-existent until recently
Significant change and further extension of diversity in families in the UK
Non-Family Households
In 21st century the UK is experiencing a process of individualisation so breaking away from traditional rules, taboos and social pressure to choose own identity
Society is seen the emergence of families of choice in which individuals may choose to include people as family who are not related such as cohabitating couple may call each other husband and wife but not formally married
Living Alone
Klineberg 2013 argues that people in modern societies like the UK and USA are increasingly living alone for several reasons:
- Influenced by cult of the individual so more focused on own needs rather than their role in larger social structures and before others in society such as families
Cultural pressure today is to be good to oneself soc individuals choose to opt out of living with others or as part of a family
Argues that philosophy may be responsible for the large increase in single person households such as woman are socially expected to settle down with a man and start a family
However, this means she will put her needs before someone else as parents desire to be grandparents and this may mean she lives alone whilst establishing a career.
- Communication revolution is influenced in which individuals achieve pleasure from social media life even when living alone such as email, mobile phone so popularity of social media makes single households’ lifestyles more attractive due to face to face physical interaction so no longer essential to establish relationship
- UK society has an aging population as Klineberg observes that many single households are made up of divorced and widowed people as people are living longer
Latter group is more likely to be female due to females generally outlive males
Klineberg sees popularity of living alone as a significant change in society
Smith and colleagues (2205) found that between 1991 and 2002 only 7% of those studied remained living alone
Data found from Scottish household’s survey that those who live alone throughout the 59% had been to visit relatives in last 2 weeks so still part of family networks
Also found that older single people living alone were very active as part of a dispersed extended family network so often visited and supported by their children and grandchildren
Living Apart Together
Elderly people have regular contact with their children and other family’s member
Levin (2004) identified LATs as a newly emerged form of family which allows individuals to enjoy the intimacy of being a couple with an autonomy
Haskey and Lewis (2006) point out that many LATs are simply to evolve into cohabitation and possibly marriage and nuclear family so many may aspire to relatively conventual relationships
Some minority of couples in a long-term relationship agree to bring their children while living separately
May be popular among young couples because as Taylor notes they allow individuals to combine the freedom of living alone with the intimacy
Rosehill and Bilagen (2004)
Radical feminists
Suggest the aspect of intimacy and emotional relationships are increasingly taking place outside the family
- Suggest that traditional nuclear family does not appeal to some woman due to it based on the hetero-norm so the idea of intimacy or sex with a member of the opposite sex forms the heart of the family
Their study was based on small scale research on individuals who lived without partners focused on:
- Friends are taking piece of family so the idea that friendship networks are more important than blood or marriage such as students in shared households.
Personals relationships were fluid with a range of covers, friends, work colleagues and extended family members offering changing lots of personal relationship in place of traditional family
- De-centring of conjugal relationships so roles played by husband and wife with domestic labour, so individuals no longer build their lives and identities around marriage and sharing a home – nuclear family is no longer central
A person’s significant other may not in fact be someone with who she or he was a sexual relationship
Woman does not subscribe to the hetero-sexual norm
Evidence is limited to a small amount of case studies and may not be generalisable to the population at large
Points to another way in which some individuals are diverging from traditions notions of family life