Types of Family structures

What is family?

A family is a group of people who are connected by blood, marriage, or adoption.

What is Immediate family

parents, siblings, partner and/or children.

What is Extended family?

grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and/or cousins.

What is ABS defition of family?

two or more people, one of whom is at least 15 years of age, who are related by blood, marriage (registered or de facto), adoption, step or fostering, and who are usually resident in the same household.

Adoptive families

Permanent care is provided for children who are unable to live with their birth families. It is a legal process where all legal rights and responsibilities are transferred from birth parents to adoptive parents.

Blended Families

A couple family that contains both a natural parents and a step-parent, has a least one child who is biological child of both parents and at least one child who is the stepchild of either parent.

Childless Families:

A couple with no children. It may be temporary stage before the beginning a family, children may have left family home, they have a death of a child or the couple decided not to have children.

Communal Families

A group of families, or individuals either related or unrelated, living and sharing resources together. E.g. migrants new to Australia may live communally while other family members in their country of origin are saving money to come to Australia.

De Facto Families

A couple of opposite or same sex live together in the same household but are not married to each other; they are partners, common-law husband and wife, boyfriends or girlfriends. Marriage may not be suitable for some couples due to reasons surrounding unpleasant previous experiences and feeling that a strong commitment does not need a ceremony. 

Extended Families

At least one core family plus at least one relative living in the same house. The relative may include, e.g. a grandparent, aunt, uncle, or cousin who is not part of anther core family within the same house.

Foster Families

When children and young people, through no fault of their own, cannot live with their own parents or families. Foster carers can provide short or long term care. Therefore, a foster family results when non-biological children, needing care, are placed with another individual or family for an unspecified length of time.

Nuclear Families

Can be viewed as a heterosexual couple and their offspring. While nuclear families are traditionally the norm and are still the most common family structure, statistically it has the lowest growth. Declining marriage rates and fertility, rising divorce rates and other social trends means a reduced number of people will live in the family norm in the future.

Same-Sex Couple Families:

Can be defined as two people of the same-sex in a sexual relationship, living either with or without children. Many children of same-sex couples are conceived in previous heterosexual relationships. Male couples may also consider using a surrogate.

Sole Parent Families

Consists of a lone parent with at least one dependant or non-dependent child living in the household. Reasons why a family becomes a sole-parent family include divorce, separation, death of a partner, or the use of artificial reproductive technologies.

Kinship Families

Australian Aboriginal kinship care is 'provides by a person is a relative, considered to be family or a close friend or is a member of the child or young person's community'. Describes the system of living among Indigenous Australian, it will usually be large and ever changing, meaning adults and children will often move between households. 'For ATSI children, a kindship carer may be another Indigenous person who is a member of their community a compatible community or from the same language.'