Changes in family patterns

Through the recent years there has been a significant increase in:

• Divorce rates
• Siingle parent families
• Family diversity
• Reconstructed families

Explanations for the increased divorce rates:

• Changes in the law which enable women to apply for a divorce
• Divorce is more accessable now (cheaper)
• Decline in the stigma attached to divorces
• Secular society
• Rising expectations of marriage make it highly unlikely to meet someone with all charactaristics

New right - see high divorce rate as undesirable because it undermines traditional families which hold the society together
Postmodernists - high divorce rates show that individuals have a lot more freedom to chose to end a relationship if they don't feel happy anymore 
Interactionalists - aim to understand the reasons for individuals

There is a higher rate of second marriages, and a decline in church marriages over the recent yrs

• Marriage doesn't fit with the modern way of life
• Cohabitation, and others are now a norm
• People  are a lot more secular now, hence don't need marriages
• Changes in womens positions = don't need a man
• Fear of divorce (fatalism)

There has now been a big increase in cohabitation couples, as the stigma attached to them has declined, and the society has taken ore liberal views on sex. Now couples treat it as a trial before marriage as well as they usualy lack the sex division of house work. 

Same sex relationships - gay marriage gives stability and equality

Increase in single person households due to:

• Living apart together
• Pensioner households
• Increase in seperation/divorces

• Women are having fewer children
• 4/10 children are born outside marriage
• More women are not having children

90% of lone parent families are female headed, this is as the stigma attached to sex outside marriage is decreasing, as well as after duvorce women are  more liekly to get custody over the children. 

Murray critisises lone parent families by his 'Underclass theory'
Welfare benefits  -> Female headed families -> Children develop anti-school subculrutes -> Failure

He claims if the Welfare benefits stopped it would mean men would have to come back, and support the family. Nevertheless, taking these benefits away from everyone may lead to poverty, as some cannot provide.