Family diversity and the life course - Modernism and the nuclear family

• GENERATIONAL 
• SOCIAL CLASS - Income differences
• ORGANISATIONAL - Dual earners, different family roles, conjugal roles
• CULTURAL - Different ethic groups have different structures (Asian - extended)
• LIFE-STAGE - Differ according to their life stage (Newly weds, widowers, children who have left home)

• Marrige is essential
• Opposed to family diversity
• Lone-parent families = unnatural 
• Conservative and anti-feminist 
• Disapprove women going out to work
• Welfare benefits - 'dependency cultre', undermine the tradition family by discouraging men going out to work

CRITICISMS

• Little evidence that lone-parent families are part of a 'dependant culture'
• FEMINISTS - OAKLEY - Wrongly assume the wives role, nuclear family creates patriarchal depression

• WILLMOTT AND YOUNG - Symmetrical family
• Increased family diversity in reacent years
• The move away from the nuclear family
• Dual-earner families
• Most people choose to live in diverse families
• Evidence - Divorcees re-marry, cohabitation has increased, births outside marriage have increased, most people live in a household headed by a married couple