Family 4

CHANGES WITHIN THE FAMILY 

Power and control in the family 

• In 2013 Galim and Thompson forund that 80% of married women completed more housework than men, whilst only 10% of married men did the same amount of cleaning and washing as his wife. 
• Craig found that women do between a third and a half more housework than men. 
• Smith found that in nuclear families fathers only carry out 25% of the families childcare related activities in the week and 30% at weekends. 
• Wilmott and Young devised the term 'symetrical family' to describe a type of nuclear family where husband and wife share decisions and housework equally. These arised due to:
  • Slum clearance and the seperation of extended families meaning husband and wife relied more heavily on each other. 
  • More education and better job oppurtunities pushed MC to move for work. 
  • Feminisation of the economy gave them a larger economic contribution to the family- lessened the power of the breadwinner husband. Women also gained power of their own fertility. 
• Vogler and Pahl found that decision aking was heavily shaped by income and in most households decision making was controlled by men who earnt the higher wage and took the role of the breadwinner. 
• Green found that women mostly saw lesuire time as anytime time away from paid work and any commitments to the family- whereas husbands just saw lesuire time as time away from paid work. 
• Lesuire time tends to decrease drastically once they set up a home with a partner- this is known as a partnership penalty for the wife and a dual burden can turn into a triple burden with children. 
• The British Crime Survey 2001-2 shows that domestic violence among couples remains common with a quarter of women experiancing domestice violence at some point in their lives- this provides strong evidence that the family remains patriarchal (supported by feminists who see men suffering a 'crisis of masculinity' within the family and use violence as a show of male significance). 

Children and the social construction of childhood:

The development of childhood

• Functionalists: Once children became of little economic use families stopped having as many children and children began to be seen as weak and vulnerable. In addition to this in the modern industrial society it is seen to recuire a long process of socialisation to deal with the complex society. At this point education also needs to become compulsory. 
• Marxists: Similar to functionalists they believe that children were no longer needed for work once tasks became more complex- in this case the ruling class took children out of work and into education in order to gain the skills needed to be the next generation of workers. Education is also financed by taxes meaning it comes at little cost to the ruling class. 

How did childhood develop:

• Aries: Argues in the preindustrial society children were not dependent on parents and were treated the exact same as adults- with the same work and play, and uncertianty of age meant that children…