AQA Sociology: Families and Households

Adolescence

A stage in the life course between childhood and adulthood which occurs during teenage years.

Ageing population

The phenomenon by which life expectancy continues to increase - people living longer

Baby boom

A sudden increase in the birth rate of a population

Beanpole family

A family that is vertically extended but not horizontally extended

Birth rate

The number of births per 1000 people per year

Bourgeois

Middle-class

Childhood

The state of a child between infancy and adolescence

Cohabitation

Living together without being married

Conjugal roles

The roles played by husband and wife - joint or separated

Conjugal

Relating to marriage or the relationship between a married couple

Consensus

General agreement

Dark side of the family

Family abuse and violence that is hidden behind closed doors

Divorce

The formal and legal procedure that ends a marriage

Domestic division of labour

The division of tasks, roles and duties within the household.

Double burden

When a woman takes on two roles within a relationship, usually unpaid work and caring for the children

Dysfunctional family

A family structure that fails to operate in accordance within societal norms and values

Emotion work

The roles performed in relation to the emotional needs of family members

Empty nest household

A type of family constructed when children have left the parental home

Empty shell marriage

A married couple in a loveless relationship who no longer wish to live together

Extended family

A household made up of several generations of family members

Fatherhood

The role of the man in the context of raising a child

Feminism

A female movement for gender equality.

Feral children

Children assumed to have been raised by animals, in the wilderness, isolated from humans

Fertility

Actual reproduction as opposed to fecundity

Fertility rate

The number of live births per 1000 women of childbearing age

Functionalist

The perspective in sociology according to which society consists of different by related parts each of which serves a particular purpose

Globalisation

The world becoming more connected

Household

A person or group of people living in the same residence

Housewife

A married woman who takes on the traditional feminine role of raising children and performing household chores

Housework

A set of chores performed within the home such as cleaning

Instant gratification

The desire to experience pleasure or fulfilment without delay or deferment

Joint conjugal roles

When a husband and wife both go out to work and do the housework

Life course

The stages of our life as we go from birth to death

Life expectancy

The number of years a person can expect to live

Lone parent

A family headed by one parent

Lone parent family

One parent is responsible for raising their child / children

Marriage

Where individuals enter a formal bind with one another

Matrifocal family

A family headed by the mother where she is not a co-resident with a male partner

Marxism

A perspective based on social class

Monogamy

A man and woman being faithful, staying together

Motherhood

The state of being a mother

Nature / nurture debate

An important debate within society

Nature

What we think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other biological factors

Nurture

Genetics

New man

Man who is willing to help in the home

Nuclear family

Mother, father and children living as a unit

Patriarchal family

A family centred by the father

Patriachy

Male domination, Rule of men

Primary socialisation

The period of a person's life in which they initially learn and build them selves

Reconstituted family

A new family formed after a person remarries

Remarriage

Marrying again after being divorced from a previous marriage

Segregated conjugal roles

The man goes out to work and the women stays at home to do the housework

Shared household

A household in which non-married people live together

Social construct

An idea or belief system created by the norms and values of society

Socialisation

The process of acquiring values, attitudes and behaviours through interacting with others.

Symmetrical family

Authority and household tasks shared between male and female partners

Trial marriage

A colloquial term used to describe a cohabiting couple

Triple Shift

Women taking responsibility for domestic tasks, a full time job and emotional care

Dependency ratio

A measure showing the number of dependents, aged zero to 14 and over the age of 65, to the total population, aged 15 to 64.

Pilcher (Childhood)

- Childhood is separate from adulthood.
- They each have different products/services, lifestyles, and children are viewed as more innocent/vunerable.

Aries (Childhood)

- Looked at paintings from the middle ages, found children were like 'mini-adults'.
- Childhood and adulthood are becoming more similar.

Postman (Childhood)

- Line between adulthood and childhood becoming blurred
- (e.g. Primark selling padded bikinis for children + TV making adult information accessible for children)

Jenks (Childhood)

- Increase in divorce means postmodern society is much riskier.
- Means parents place more value on their children, as relationships with children are permanent and stable, whereas relationships may breakdown.

Murdock (Functionalism)

Family provides 4 essential functions (RESS):
- Reproduction
- Economic
- Sexual
- Socialisation.

- Nuclear family is essential and is found in every society.

Parsons (Functionalism)

- Family adapts to function in the kind of society it is in.
- During industrialisation, the family adapted from extended to nuclear to increase social mobility.
- Industrialisation also led to loss of family functions and achieved status over ascribed.
- Family has two essential functions: SOAP and primary socialisation.

Willmott + Young (Functionalism)

- Industrialisation strengthened extended family.
- Poor living conditions meant extended family relied on one another for emotional and financial support.

Murray (New Right)

- Growth of SPFs is dysfunctional
- Both harmful to society + individuals
- Result of overgenerous welfare state
- Has created dependency culture + underclass of people who assume the state will support them
- Welfare benefits should be abolished

Engles (Marxism)

- Monogamous family developed as a means of passing property onto heirs.
- Provided proof of paternity ^
- Woman's position like prostitute - provided sex + heirs in return for economic security

Zaretsky (Marxism)

- Family has roles to prop up capitalism:
1) Primary socialisation - teaches children there is always someone 'in charge'.
2) Family creates 'buffer zone' - allows workers to go back the next day refreshed.
3) Unit of consumption:
* Family is an important market for consumer goods.
* Workers exploited by selling products of their labour for much more than they are paid to produce them.
* Pester Power persuades parents to spend

Althusser (Marxism)

- Family is an ISA (Ideological State Apparatus)
- Concerned with social control + passing on ideology of ruling class
- Through these apparatuses, people accept that capitalism is a fair and just system

Ansley (Marxist Feminist)

- Family functions to provide SOAP (stabilisation of adult personalities).
- Wife acts as 'safety value' to husband that comes home frustrated from work in capitalist system.
- Rather than being turned away from the system, anger is absorbed by comforting wife
- Women are 'takers of shit'

Oakley (Feminist)

- Industrialisation led to separation of paid work from the home.
- This meant women were gradually excluded from the workplace + confined to the home with sole responsibility for childcare and housework.
- Led to economic dependence on men.

Dunne (Difference Feminist)

- Lesbian relationships differed considerably to that of heterosexual ones.
- More equal, as no gender scripts assigned to household tasks.

Dobash and Dobash (Radical Feminist)

- Patriarchal, heterosexual marriage legitimises violence against wives
- Happens by conferring power + authority on husbands and making wives economically dependent.
- Found violent incidents could be triggered by what a husband saw as a challenge to his authority (e.g. asking 'why are you late?')

Somerville (Liberal Feminist)

- Increased choice + growth of dual worker families have created greater equality in marriage.
- Reform more realistic approach of improving women's position than revolution.

Parsons (Gender Roles, DDOL + Power Relationships)

- Segregated conjugal roles normal and natural
- Husband plays instrumental role, wife plays expressive role
- Based on biological differences

Willmott and Young (Gender Roles, DDOL + Power Relationships)

- Phone interviews in the 50s and 70s
- Found a march of progress: families had become more symmetrical over this period
- 72% of husbands 'helped around the house' in the 70s, compared to much more segregation in conjugal roles in the 50s

Oakley (Gender Roles, DDOL + Power Relationships)

- Study on DDOL to prove Willmott + Young wrong
- 72% 'helping in the house' does not mean equality - it could be as little as making breakfast once a week
- Interviewed 40 women in London (half middle, half working class) and asked how much husbands participated in housework + childcare.
- 15% had high level of participation in housework, 25% in childcare.
- Conjugal roles are therefore still segregated and this is unfair and socially constructed.

Edgell (Gender Roles, DDOL + Power Relationships)

- Very important decisions (e.g. moving house) always made by the husband, or jointly made.
- Less important decisions (e.g. home furnishings) made by the wife.

Pahl and Vogler (Gender Roles, DDOL + Power Relationships)

- Families have two main income control systems:
1) Allowance system - Men give wives an allowance, out of which they budget to meet family needs.
2) Pooling - Both have access to joint account.
- However, even in pooling, most of the time men made the major financial decisions

Causes of birth and fertility rates have decreasing

- Abortions more socially acceptable + easily accessible.
- Education on contraception + easier to get hold of.
- More women in work, no time for children.
- IMR has decreased which means women no longer need to have lots of children in the hope one will survive.
- Length of schooling has increased, meaning children are dependent on parents for longer, meaning they cost more.
- Gernsheim: Individualisation process means people more concerned with own needs, no longer have to follow traditional norms + values so choose to not have kids.

Consequences of birth and fertility rates have decreasing

- Increased dependency ratio (more elderly than young)
- Possible redundancies - less children means less midwives needed.
- Women can focus on a career, increasing gender equality.

Causes of an decreasing death rate and IMR, increased life expectancy and population 'pyramid' becoming square (Demographic Trends)

- Beveridge report led to creation of NHS, welfare benefits, pensions etc, which led to more elderly help, preventing death.
- Medical advances such as antibiotics, vaccinations and more effective treatments on diseases like heart attacks.
- Improved hygiene means less people becoming very unwell
- McKeown: Decline in absolute poverty (malnutrition) is the biggest cause of the declining death rate.
- Improved maternity care means less IMR

Consequences of an decreasing death rate and IMR, increased life expectancy and population 'pyramid' becoming square (Demographic Trends)

- Increased dependency ratio has come about due to people living for longer. This puts a strain on the NHS.
- More family diversity: More lone person household (widows), more extended families if these people move in with their kids, more beanpole as fertility rate decreased but life expectancy increased.
- Increased strain on families to care for elderly. The Griffiths report concluded that care homes be privatised due to growing no. of elderly, so these people had to be cared for by family.
- Blaikie: Increased role of grandparents means mother can go back to work. Additionally, more opportunities for older people e.g. silver cinema.

Causes of immigration increasing a lot and emigration increasing slightly over the last 20 years (Demographic Trends)

- Many companies are now transnational, giving more opportunities for people to work and therefore live abroad.
- Internet means we have better knowledge about other parts of the world, gives people aspirations to move abroad. Litwak 'modified extended family': families can move abroad and stay in contact via video call.
- Transport improved and is fairly cheap (e.g. EasyJet, RyanAir), so is cheaper + easier to migrate.
- Introduction of the EU has meant all members of EU countries have the right to live and work in another EU country, without needing a visa.

Consequences of immigration increasing a lot and emigration increasing slightly over the last 20 years (Demographic Trends)

- More family diversity - for example, more single parent families due to Afro-Caribbean families being largely matrifocal SPFs.
- Increased population - Immigrants have a fertility rate of 2.2, whilst UK-born women have a far lower-fertility rate of 1.9, increasing our population.
- Immigration has led to a bigger population, which means our NHS is under more strain.
- Lower average age of population, as many immigrants are young adults. This means the dependency ratio is not as high as it would otherwise be.

Causes of divorce, re-marriage + cohabitation increasing, whilst marriage rates have decreased (Demographic Trends)

- Divorce Reform Act 1969 made divorces more accessible
- General society no longer sees divorce as shameful, and no longer sees marriage as necessary for all. Giddens argues this is a consequence of individualisation.
- Secularisation means divorce is no longer seen as a 'sin' by general society.
- Secularisation also means cohabitation is more possible, as sex before marriage is okay.
- Functionalists such as Fletcher argue that higher expectations of marriage are leading to more divorces. Couples less willing to tolerate an unhappy marriage. This therefore reflects a better quality of life.
- Women no longer economically dependent on men, so can divorce without having to worry about surviving.

New Right (Demographic Trends: Divorce)

- Divorce stats support belief that there is a family crisis
- High divorce rates undermine TNF
- Divorce is too easy and so people are not as committed to marriage as they once were.

Beck (Postmodernism in Family Diversity)

- Risk society: more choice nowadays and therefore more risk.
- Negotiated family involves no traditional norms + values but roles are assigned via negotiation.
- 'Zombie family': the family is dead due to the fact it no longer provides stability.

Giddens (Postmodernism in Family Diversity)

- Feminism has allowed for 'pure relationships' - existing solely to meet each partners needs and not due to economic reasons or gender inequality, based on 'confluent love'.
- However, these relationships are less stable.
- Same-sex couples are pioneers of pure relationships as they are not bound by expectation or tradition (gender roles).

Stacey (Postmodernism in Family Diversity)

- Conducted interviews in California.
- Found women rejected traditional housewife roles and went to adult education, worked, aimed for promotions, divorced, and remarried so the family more suited their needs.
- This has created a divorce extended family.

Rapoports (Family Diversity)

- 5 types of family diversity (CLOGS)
1) Cultural diversity (variations in ethnicity in families)
2) Life stage diversity (no longer traditional)
3) Organisational diversity (variations in family structure)
4) Generational diversity (different attitudes and experiences through generations)
5) Social class diversity (affects chance of divorce, quality of life etc.)

Postmodernism (Personal Life)

- Fictive relatives have emerged (those we are not actually related to but say we are).
- We are now independent and make our own choices, no longer tied down by traditional norms/values.

Connectedness Thesis (Personal Life)

- We do have choices but they are made within a web of connectedness.
- All our choices are linked and influenced by our networks of existing relationships.

Divorce Reform Act 1969 (Social Policy)

- Marriage could be ended if it had just broken down, no need to blame a party.

Equal Pay Act 1970 (Social Policy)

- Illegal to discriminate against men or women on the grounds of their sex in relation to pay.

Sex Discrimination 1975 (Social Policy)

- Discrimination illegal on grounds of sex and marital status.

Child Support Agency 1993 (Social Policy)

- New Right
- Designed to make fathers pay maintenance and discourage people from pregnancy outside marriage.