Sociologists Paper 2 - Families and Household

What did Boulton argue?

What did Boulton argue?

Less than 20% of husbands had a major role in childcare

The father might only help with specific tasks, but the mother was responsible for the child

What did Braun, Vincent and Ball argue?

3/70 families had fathers as the main carer, fathers were mostly breadwinners

What did Dex and Ward argue?

Although fathers had high levels of involvement with their 3 year olds (87% playing with their child), only 1% took main responsibility taking care of their sick child

What did Duncombe and Marsden argue?

Women have a triple shift:

Housework

Paid work

Emotional work

What did Kan argue?

Younger men do more housework. Each generation of men does more work each time

What did Oakley argue?

Families aren't becoming more symmetric. Young and Willmott's findings were too lenient

What did Parsons argue?

There is a clear division of labour between spouses, families went from extended to nuclear due to industrialisation and how easy it is to move with the change in jobs.

Mothers create a haven for the father, known as the 'Warm Bath Theory’

What did Ward and Hetherington argue?

Wives were 30x more likely to do the washing, whereas men were 4x more likely to wash the car.

Men only do housework when women aren't available

What did Young and Willmott argue?

Families are becoming more symmetrical.

When not working, men typically spend their leisure time with the lads, whereas women spend their free time with their relatives

What did Kempson argue?

Women in low income households are denied their own needs, eating smaller portions or skipping meals altogether

What did Pahl and Volger argue?

There exists an Allowance System (Men have the money and women have an allowance) and Pooling (Joint bank account)

What did Smart argue?

Homosexual couples have greater freedom to do what they wanted with the money because they didn't have to worry about the historical context that linked money with power in relationships and didn't see the control of money representing equality

What did Weeks argue?

The typical pattern for homosexual couples was pooling money for household spending with separate accounts for personal spending

Increased social acceptance explains the trend towards same sex and cohabitation amongst couples

What did Dobash and Dobash argue?

Violence is caused by the husband when he saw a challenge to his authority, with marriage legitimating violence against women and giving authority and power to husbands.

What did Dar argue?

It can also be difficult to count separate domestic violence incidents as abuse can be continuous or occur so often that the victim can't keep track

What did Millett and Firestone argue?

Every society has been founded on patriarchy

What did Ansley argue?

Women were 'The Takers of Shit’

What did Murdock argue?

The Universal Nuclear Family is the family type that exists everywhere, being the best family type, with every family:

Needing to reproduce

Meeting the economic needs

Teaching basic norms and values to the next generation to ensure that they are integrated in society

Being stable and heterosexual

What did Engels argue?

The isolated nuclear family means that men can confirm if a child is theirs, giving them private inheritance, which keeps the wealth within the family rather than distributing it amongst the community

What did Zaretsky argue?

The family allows the man to feel in control and powerful, which they didn't feel in work due to bourgeoisie oppression

Families are used for profit, being targeted by advertisers to 'Keep up with the Jones’ and also be victim to 'Pester Power'

What did Althusser argue?

The family socialises the next generation into believing in the ruling class ideology, maintaining the unequal social hierarchy

What did Sommerville argue?

Radical Feminists fail to see improvements made to women's experiences

What did Giddens and Beck argue?

Traditional social structures have lost a lot of influence they had over people's actions, causing advancements such as contraceptions and female independence

What did Stacey argue?

Greater freedom and choice has benefitted women, enabling them to free themselves from patrarchal oppression.

She also notes of a 'Divorce-Extended family', in which no longer connected members still help eachother financially and domestically.

What did May argue?

“Beck and Giddens view of the individuals is simply an idealised version of the white middle class man”. Not everyone has the same freedom and opportunities

What did Pilcher argue?

The most important feature of modern childhood is the notion of separateness

Inequalities such as class and gender remain important when it comes to the individual's occupational position.

What did Punch argue?

In Bolivia, once children are 5 years old, they are expected to take work responsibilities with no hesitation

What did Holmes argue?

In Samoa, 'Too young’ was never a reason for a child to not do work, if they think that they can do it, parents can't object

What did Firth argue?

In Tikopia, doing as you are told by a grown up isn't a right to be expected by the adult

What did Malinowski argue?

In the South West Pacific, adults took an attitude of tolerance towards children's sexual exploration and activities

What did Aries argue?

In the Middle Ages, the idea of childhood didn't exist, as children weren't seen as different from adults

What did Shorter argue?

High death rates encouraged indifference and neglect, as parents referred to their children as 'it’ or a dead relative, even forgetting how many children they have

What did Postman argue?

Childhood is 'disappearing at a dazzling’, with the transition of print culture to television culture being the result of this, as due to the TV, children can have access to a lot of mature content

What did Hillman argue?

Boys were more likely to be allowed to go outside unaccompanied at a younger age than girls

What did Bonke argue?

Girls did 5x more housework than boys

What did Brannen argue?

Asian parents were more likely to be strict towards their daughters.

There exists a 'Beanpole’ family, families which are long and thin, having 3 or more generations but doesn't involve cousins, aunts or uncles.

What did Gittens argue?

There is an 'age patriarchy’ of adult domination and child dependency as patriarchy literally means 'rule of the father’

What did Humphreys and Thiara argue?

¼ women in their study left their abusive husband because they feared for their children's lives

What did Hockey and James argue?

One strategy children do to avoid the oppressive childhood is 'acting up' - acting like adults by doing things children aren't supposed to do (swearing, drinking) and then saying 'I'm nearly 9’ as an excuse.

What did Harper argue?

Women's education is the main reason for the long term decline in Birth Rates, due to their change in mindset, education on family planning and delaying childbearing to pursue a career

Greatest fall in death rates was a reduction of smoking and vaping, however in 2012, ¼ adults in the UK were obese.

However, obesity rates remained low due to drug therapy, which she argues that we are moving to an 'American’ health culture.

What did Brass and Kabir argue?

The trend of Infant Mortality Rate falling is less apparent in Rural Areas with worse housing, nutrition and knowledge of hygiene and kids health

What did McKeown argue?

Better nutrition accounted for up to half the reduction of death rates as it made people more fit, being important for reducing TB deaths

What did Walker argue?

People living in England's poorest areas die 7 years earlier than people living in England's richest areas. People with disabilities die 17 years earlier.

What did Phillipson argue?

Our identity and status is linked to our value in capitalism and our role in production (People working will be seen as more valuable than ageing population)

What did Hunt argue?

We can choose a lifestyle and identity regardless of our age

What did Hirsch argue?

A number of important social policies will need to change to tackle new problems caused by an aging population

For example, we can finance a longer period of old age through paying more taxes or increasing the age of retirement

What did Mitchell and Goody argue?

An important change since the 1960s has been the rapid decline in the stigma attached to divorce, with more people nowadays normalising divorce as they see it as a misfortune rather than shameful.

What did Fletcher argue?

The higher expectations of marriage means that less individuals are willing to tolerate an unhappy marriage

The introduction of health, education and housing policies in the years since the industrial revolution has gradually led to the development of a welfare state that supports the family in performing its function effectively

What did Weston argue?

Same sex cohabitations are 'quasi-marriage’, many gay couples are deciding to cohabit as stable partners

What did Einasdottir argue?

While many gays and lesbians welcome the opportunity to have their partnerships legally recognised, others fear it may limit the flexibility of the relationship

What did Duncan and Philips argue?

People would rather be Living Apart Together because they feel that they would be constrained by marriage and cohabitation, concluding that while LAT isn't abnormal, it doesn't amount to a rejection of more traditional relationships

What did Renvoize argue?

Professional women were able to support their child without the father's involvement

What did Murray argue?

The growth of lone parent families is because of an 'over-generous’ welfare state, which causes a 'perverse incentive’ and the state rewards irresponsible behaviour through adults having children without providing for them

What did Mirza argue?

Lone parents in black families are not a result of disorganisation, but rather more as a result of the fact that black women place a huge value of independence

What did Ballard argue?

Extended family ties provided an important source of support among Asian migrants in the 1950s and 60s

What did Willmott argue?

The extended family continues as a 'dispersed extended family’ where relatives are geographically separated but maintain frequent contact through visits and phone calls

What did Chamberlain argue?

In Carribean households, despite being geographically dispersed, families continue to support eachother

What did Benson argue?

Over the first 3 years of the baby's life, 20% of cohabitating couples broke down, whereas 6% of married couples broke down.

This is because cohabitation allows partners to avoid commitment and responsibility. Laws need to change in order to encourage marriage

What did Chester argue?

Families are going from traditional to neo-conventional (symmetrical family, dual earners). However, there isn't a significant change, the nuclear family remains ideal

What did Cheal argue?

We have moved past a predictable society with orderly structure of what a family should look like

What did Giddens argue?

In recent decades, the family and marriage have been transformed by greater choice and more equal relationships between men and women (such as contraceptions)

What did Beck argue?

The negotiated family is more common as we live in a 'risk society’ where tradition has less influence and people have more choice. We are more aware of risk as having choice means we spend more time calculating the risks and rewards of different course of action available

What did Budgeon argue?

The individualisation thesis exaggerates how much choice people have about family relationships today, reflecting the neoliberal ideology that individuals today have complete freedom and choice

What did Donzelot argue?

The government uses policies to exercise power and control over families

What did Foucault argue?

Surveillence surpasses beyond the government and diffuses throughout society and found within relationships

What did Condry argue?

The state tries to control and regulate family life by imposing Parenting Orders through the courts and parents with badly behaved children are forced to attend parenting classes to 'correctly’ nurture their children

What did Land argue?

Many social policies assume the ideal family is the patriarchal nuclear family

What did Leonard argue?

Even when policies appear to support women, they may still reinforce the patriarchal family and oppress women

What did Drew argue?

Social policies in different countries can either encourage or discourage gender equality in the family and at work, and there are 2 types of gender regimes.

Familistic Gender Regime: Traditional gender division between male breadwinner and female housewife (e.g. Greece, there is little state welfare or publicly funded childcare).

Individualistic Gender Regime: Husbands and wives should be treated the same (e.g. Sweden, equal opportunity policies and good quality welfare services mean that women are less dependent on their husbands and have more working opportunities).

Most EU countries will move to an Individualistic Gender Regime.