Diverse Modern Families

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:

  1. 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.

  1. 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
  2. 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

  1. 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:

  1. 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

  1. 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