Families and Households
- Created by: Hannah B
- Created on: 02-05-14 20:08
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- Families and Households
- The role of the family in society
- Family types
- Nuclear family
- Extended family
- Single parent family
- Reconstituted family
- Functionalist view
- institutions are essential in society
- Murdock's 4 functions of the family
- Sexual
- Reproductive
- Economic
- Educational
- Parson's two functions of the family
- Primary socialisation
- Stabilisation of adult roles
- Marxist view
- Family benefits the bourgeoisie and the economy
- Engels - wealth is kept within the bourgeoisie through inheritance
- Zaretsky - family is where the proletariat can have control (when the working man got home, he was in charge)
- The family is a unit of consumption
- Feminist view
- Marxist
- Ansley - women are "takers of s***"
- Radical
- Delphy & Leonard - women do the work and men get the benefits
- Liberal
- social change is possible
- Marxist
- New Right
- Murray - welfare benefits are too high and create a culture of dependancy
- social policies undermine the family
- Family types
- Family Diversity
- Rapoport and Rapoport (1982)
- organisational diversity
- cultural diversity
- class diversity
- life - course diversity
- cohort diversity
- ethnicity
- whites/afro-caribbeans most likely to be divorced
- afro-caribbean most likely to be single parent families
- south asian families are most likely to be extended
- class
- middle class areas in the uk have a higher proportion of nuclear families
- working class areas more likely to have a higher proportion of lone-parent households
- rise of cohabitation
- in 2001 a quarter of all non-married adults ages 16-59 were cohabiting
- rise in divorce rates
- why?
- more available
- more socially acceptable
- women are less financially dependent on husbands
- marriage is less supported by the state
- why?
- people are having fewer chldren and having them later in life
- contraception more readily available
- women want successful working lives rather than children
- new technologies = new family structures
- IVF
- fertility treatments
- New Right
- family diversity is due to a decline in traditional values
- female headed families/lack of male role model = rise in crime rates
- functionalists
- growth in diversity is exaggerated
- Chester (1985) - there has been some growth in diversity, but nuclear families are still dominant
- postmodernists
- diversity is the new norm
- relationships are created to suit peoples needs
- Rapoport and Rapoport (1982)
- Changes in family structure
- Industrialisation changed family structure
- Pre-industrial society: the extended family is most common
- Industrial society: nuclear family becomes dominant
- Functionalists
- industrialisation changed family functions
- Parsons - the nuclear family became dominant because it is the best fit for industrial society
- Willmott and Young
- The famiy has developed in 3 stages
- 1 - Pre-industrial: family works together as economic production unit
- 2 - Early industrial: extended family is broken up as individuals leave home to work
- 3 - Privatised Nuclear: family based on consumption and not production. INTRODUCTION OF THE SYMMETRICAL FAMILY.
- The famiy has developed in 3 stages
- Social policy
- put in place to influence family structure
- The Welfare State supported families through benefits, public housing, free health care and family allowances
- Conservative government (Margaret Thatcher)
- wanted to free society from the influence of the state
- introduced means testing
- protect traditional family
- Child Support Agency
- Children Act
- divorce is more difficult
- New Labour (Tony Blair)
- third way
- aware of diversity
- civil partnerships introduced
- cohabiting couples could legally adopt
- Feminists
- saw the social policies as sexists and exploitative by reinforcing the idea that the woman was the primary carer
- Marxists
- social policy reinforces social class differences
- cutting benefits to the poor only makes them poorer
- Industrialisation changed family structure
- The roles within the family
- Elizabeth Bott - conjugal roles
- segregated - husbands and wives lead separate lives with clear responsibilities within the family. Man = instrumental role, breadwinner. Female = expressive role, emotional work, childcare and cooking.
- Willmott and Young - carried out strudy and predicted joint conjugal roles would be the norm in the future
- Oakley - pointed out this study only required men to do a few household tasks to be classed as joint roles
- conjugal roles are still unequal
- double burden (Oakley) women take on paid work and keep traditional responsibilities
- triple shift - housework, paid work and emotional work
- social construction of the housewife (Oakley)
- decision making
- Edgell interviewed middle class couples and found that men had decision making control over things both the husband and wife found important but women had control over minor decisions
- Pahl - husband controlled pooling was most common form of financial management
- explanations for inequality
- functionalist
- men and women perform different tasks because it is the most effective for a smooth running society
- marxist
- women need to care for working men to keep them health for their jobs
- feminist
- unequal to feed into the patriarchal society
- functionalist
- domestic violence
- Dobash and Dobash - domestic violence isn't usually recorded by police
- radical feminists see it as a way for men to control women
- Elizabeth Bott - conjugal roles
- Childhood
- Childhood is partly a social construct
- isn't the ame everywhere in the world
- Aries (1962) looked at paintings and said that in medieval society children were just mini-adults
- children are protected
- laws limit sexual behaviour, access to alcohol and tobacco and the amount of paid work they can perform
- Children Act 1989
- NSPCC
- functionalists
- position of children is a sign of progress
- child liberationalists
- society oppresses children
- Gittins (1985) age patriarchy
- Postman (1994) childhood is dissapearing
- Childhood is partly a social construct
- Household: a group of people who live together who may or may not be related
- Family: a household where the people living together are related
- The role of the family in society
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