✅ Family diversity

Modernism and the nuclear family

• Functionalism and the new right have been called modernist, + see modern society as having a fairly fixed, clear-cut and predictable structure; they see one ’best‘ family type (nuclear) as slotting into this structure and helping to maintain it by performing certain essential functions

Functionalism:

• According to parsons, there is a ‘functional fit’ between the nuclear fam + modern society, parson sees the nuclear fam as uniquely suited to meeting the needs of modern society for a geographically/ socially mobile workforce, and as performing 2 ‘irreducible functions’ (primary socialisation of children + stabilisation of adult personalities,) these contribute to the overall stability and effectiveness of society

Functionalists generalisation of family types

• In the functionalist view, because of the family’s ability to perform these essential functions, we can generalise about the type of family that we will find in modern society, (a nuclear with a division of labour between husband and wife)

• Hence other family types can be considered as dysfunctional, abnormal or even deviant, since they are less able to perform the functions required of the family

The new right

• Have a conservative and anti-feminist perspective of the family, are firmly opposed to family diversity

• Hold view that there is one correct/ normal family type: the traditional/ conventional patriarchal nuclear fam, consisting of a married couple + their dependant children, w a clear cut division of labour between bread-winner husband and homemaker wife

How new right see the nuclear fam

• See nuclear fam as ‘natural’ and based on fundamental biological differences between men and women, in their view, this fam is the cornerstone of society, a place of refuge, contentment and harmony

What are the new right opposed to?

• Oppose most changes in family patterns such as cohabitation, gay marriage, lone parenthood. Argue that the decline of trad nuclear fam + growth of fam diversity are the cause of many social problems

• Are concerned about growth of lone-parent fams in particular : see as resulting from the breakdown of a couples relationship, see lone parent fams as harmful to kids

New right  see lone parent fams as harmful to kids as:

• Lone mothers cannot discipline their children properly

• Lone-parent families leave boys w/out ab adult male role model, resulting in education failure, delinquency and social instability

• Are likely to be poorer and thus a burden on the welfare state and taxpayers

Main cause of lone-parent families according to the new right

• the collapse of relationships between cohabiting couples, e.g. harry benson 2006 analysed data on the parents of over 15k babies, he found that over the first 3 years of the baby’s life, the rate of family breakdown was much higher among cohabiting couples (20%) than married (6%). New right believe only marriage can provide a stable environment in which to bring up children

Benson 2010+11

• argues that couples are more stable when they are married, e.g. rate of divorce among married couples is lower than the rate of breakups among cohabiting couples, in bensons view, marriage is more stable because it requires a deliberate commitment to each other, whereas cohabitation allows partners to avoid commitment and responsibility

What have new right thinkers + conservative politicians used bensons evidence + arguments for?

• to support the view that both the family + society at large are broken:

Why do conservative politicians + new right thinkers view that both the family + society at large are broken:

• They argue that only a return to ‘traditional values’, including the value of marriage, can prevent social disintegration + damage to children

• Regard laws + policies such as easy access to divorce, gay marriage + widespread availability of welfare benefits as undermining the conventional family

Feminist Ann Oakley 1997‘s Criticism of the new right

• argues that the new right wrongly assume that husbands + wives roles are fixed by biology, instead, cross- cultural studies show great variation in the roles men + women perform within the family, believes that the new right view of the family is a negative reaction against the feminist campaign for women’s equality

Feminists Criticism of the new right

• also argue that the conventional nuclear family favoured by the new right is based on the patriarchal oppression of women and is a fundamental cause of gender inequality. In their view, it prevents women working, keeps them financially dependent on men , and denies them an equal say in decision making

Critics of the new right argue?

• that there is no evidence that children in lone-parent families are more likely to be delinquent than those brought up in a two-parent family of the same social class

Criticisms of the new right

• The new right view that marriage equals commitment while cohabitation doesn’t, has been challenged, it depends on the meaning of the relationship to those involved, some people see cohabitation as a temporary phase, while others see it as a permanent alternative to marriage

• Rate of cohabitation is higher among poorer social groups, therefore, as carol smart 2011 points out, it may be poverty that causes the breakdown of relationships, rather than the decision not to marry

Chester’s neo-conventional family

• Chester 1985 recognises that there has been some inc family diversity in recent years, but he doesn’t regard this as very significant nor sees it in a negative light. He argues that the only important change is the move from the dominance of trad/ conventional nuclear family, to 'neo-conventional families'

• He defines the neo-conventional family as a dual-earner family in which both spouses go out to work, this is similar to young and Willmott's symmetrical family

What does Chester mean by conventional family

• the type of nuclear families with its division of labour between a male breadwinner and female homemaker

Does Chester see major change?

• Apart from the neo-conventional family, Chester doesn’t see any other evidence of major change,

• Argues the fact that people are not part of a nuclear family at any one time is largely due to the life cycle, many of the people currently living in a one-person household were either part of a nuclear family in the past or will be in the future

• For Chester, the extent + importance of family diversity has been exaggerated, like functionalists, he sees the nuclear family as dominant

Why are statistics on household composition misleading

• cuz they are merely a snapshot of a single moment in time, they don’t show us the fact that most people will spend a major part of their lived in a nuclear family

• As evidence of his view that little has changed, Chester identifies a no. Patterns

• Most people live in a households headed by a married couple

• Most adults marry and have children, most children are reared by their two natural parents

• Most marriages continue until death, divorce has increased, but most divorcees remarry

• Cohabitation has increased, but for most couples it is a temporary phase before marrying or re-marrying. Most couples get married if they have children

• Although births outside marriage have increased, most are jointly registered indicating that the parents are committed to bringing up children

The only important difference between Chester’s view and that of the functionalists

• is that Chester sees a change from a conventional to a neo-conventional nuclear family where both spouses play an ‘instrumental’ or breadwinner role

Rhonda and Robert rapoport 1982

• argue that diversity is of central importance in understanding family life today, they believe that we have moved away from the traditional nuclear family as dominant to a range of diff types- that is, one in which cultures and lifestyles are more diverse, in their view, family diversity reflects greater freedom of choice and the widespread acceptance of diff cultures + ways of life in today’s society

Rhonda and Robert rapoport 1982 See diversity as

• a positive response to peoples different needs and wishes, and not as abnormal or a deviation from the assumed norm of a ‘proper’ nuclear family

5 diff types of family diversity is Britain today

Organisational

Cultural

Social class

Life-stage

Generational diversity

organisational diversity

this refers to differences in the way family roles are organised, e.g. some couples have joint conjugal roles + 2 wage earners, while others have segregated conjugal roles + 1 wage earner

Cultural diversity

diff cultural, religious + ethnic groups have diff family structures, e.g. there is a higher proportion of female-headed lone-parent families among African-Caribbean households and a higher proportion of extended families among Asian households

Social class diversity

differences in family structure are partly the result of income differences between households of diff social classes, likewise there are class differences in child-rearing practices

Life-stage diversity

family structures differ according to the stage reached in the life cycle, e.g. young Newlyweds, couples with dependant children, retired couples whose children have grown up and left home, + widows who are living alone

Generational diversity

older + younger generations have diff attitudes + experiences that reflect historical periods in which they have lived, e.g. may have diff views about the morality of divorce/ cohabitation

Postmodernism + Family diversity

• post modernists start from the view that we no longer live in 'modern' society with its predictable, orderly structures such as the nuclear family. In their view, society has entered a new, chaotic, postmodern stage

• In postmodern society, there is no longer 1 single, dominant, stable family structure, instead , family structures have become fragmented into many different types + individuals now have much more choice in their lifestyles, personal relationships + family arrangements

Some writers argue that this greater diversity + choice brings with it

• both advantages + disadvantages:

  • It gives individuals freedom to plot their own life course- to choose the kind of family + personal relationships that meet their needs

  • But greater freedom of choice in relationships means a greater risk of instability, since these relationships are more likely to break up

Stacey: post modern families

• Judith stacey (1998) argues that greater freedom + choice has benefited women, it has enabled them to free themselves from patriarchal oppression + to shape their family arrangements to meet their needs

How did Stacey 1998 construct a series of case studies

• Stacey used life history interviews to construct a series of case studies of postmodern families in silicon valley, california, she found that women rather than men have been the main agents of changes in the family

• E.g. many of the women she interviewed has rejected the trad housewife-mother role, they had worked returned to education as adults, improved their job prospects, divorced + re-married, these women had often created new types of family that better suited their needs

Stacey’s new family structure

• the divorce extended family' whose members are connected by divorce rather than marriage, the key members are usually female and may include former in-laws, such as mother and daughter in law, or a mans ex-wife and his new partner

Stacey’s Pam Gamma case study

• E.g. stacey described in one of her case studies how Pam Gamma created a divorce-extended. Pam married young then divorced and cohabited or several years before re-marrying. Her second husband has also been married before

• By the time the children of pams 1st marriage were In their 20s, she had formed a divorce-extended family with shirley, the woman cohabiting with her 1st husband they helped each other financially + domestically, e.g. exchanging lodgers in response to the changing needs of their households

What does the Pam Gamma case study illustrate

• the idea that postmodern families are diverse and their shape depends on the active choices people make about how to live their lives - e.g. whether to get divorced, cohabit, or come out as gay, etc

David Morgan (1996:2011)

• argues, it is pointless trying to make large-scale generalisations about 'the family' as if it were a single thing, as functionalists do. Rather a family is simply whatever arrangements those involved choose to call their family. In this view, sociologists should focus their attention on how people create their own diverse family lives and practices. One way of exploring this is by means of life course analysis

Life course analysis=?

• A method of research developed by Hareven 1978, using in-depth, unstructured interviews, it explores the meanings that individual family members give to the relationships they have + the choices they make at various turning points in their lives, e.g. decision to have a baby / coming out as gay

Holdsowrth + Morgan 2005

• examine what it means for young people to leave home and become independent/ ‘adult’ + how parents, friends, etc influence their decisions

2 major strengths of life course analysis in the view of its supporters

1. It focuses on what family members consider important rather than what sociologists regard as important, it looks at families + households from the viewpoint of the people involved and the meanings they give to their lives, relationships + choices

2. It is suitable for studying families in todays postmodern/ ‘late modern’ society, where there is more choice about personal relationships + more family diversity, family structures are increasingly just the result of the choices made by their members

Individualisation thesis

• argues that traditional social structures such as class, gender + family have lost much of their influence over us, according to the thesis, in the past, peoples lives were defined by fixed roles that largely prevented them from choosing their own life course, e.g. everyone was expected to marry + take up the appropriate gender role, by contrast, individuals in today’s society have fewer such certainties/ fixed roles to follow

According to the individualisation thesis, we have become

•  ‘disembedded’ from traditional roles + structures, leaving us with more freedom to choose how we lead our lives. As Beck 1992 puts it, the ‘standard biogrpahy’ or life course that people followed in the past has been replaced by the ‘do-it-yourself biography’ that individuals today must construct for themselves

Giddens: choice + equality

Giddens 1992 argues that in recent decades the family + marriage have been transformed by greater choice + a more equal relationship between men and women

• Giddens 1992 argues that in recent decades the family + marriage have been transformed by greater choice + a more equal relationship between men and women, this transformation occurred because:

• Contraception allowed sex + intimacy rather than reproduction to become the main reason for the relationship’s existence

• Women have gained independence as a result of feminism + greater opportunities in education + work

Giddens 1992 argues that in recent decades the family + marriage have been transformed by greater choice + a more equal relationship between men and women, As a result:

•  the basis of marriage + the family has changed, Giddens argues that in the past, traditional family relationships were held together by external forces e.g.  the laws governing the marriage contract + by powerful norms against divorce + premarital sex

(giddens choice + equality) today couples are free to

 define their relationship themselves, rather than simply acting out roles that have been designed in advance by laws + tradition, e.g. a couple nowadays don’t have to marry to have children + divorce is readily accessible so they don’t have to stay together ‘till death do us part’

According to Giddens, what holds relationships together today is

•  no longer law, religion, social norms or trad institutions, instead intimate relationships are based in individual choice + equality

• Giddens describes this kinds of relationship as the ‘pure relationship’, he sees it as  typical of today’s late modern society, in which relationships are no longer bound by traditional norms

The key feature of the pure relationship is

• that it exists solely or satisfy each partner’s needs, as a result, the relationship is likely to survive only so long as both partners think it is in their own interests to do so, couples stay together cuz of love, happiness or sexual attraction, rather than because of tradition, a sense of duty or for the sake of kids

Giddens notes that with more choice, personal relationships inevitably become?

• less stable, the pure relationship is a kind of ‘rolling contract’ that can be ended more or less at will by either partner, rather than a permanent commitment, this in turn produces greater family diversity by creating more lone-parent families, on person households, stepfamilies etc

Same-sex couples as pioneers

Giddens sees same-sex relationships as leading the way towards new family types + creating more democratic + equal relationships

In giddens’ view,  same-sex relationships as leading the way towards new family types + creating more democratic + equal relationships because?

• same-sex relationships are not influenced by tradition to the extent that heterosexuals are, as a result, same-sec couples have been able to develop relationships based on choice rather than on trad roles, since these were largely absent

same-sex couples have been able to develop relationships based on choice rather than on trad roles, since these were largely absent This has enabled those in same-sex relationships to?

•  negotiate personal relationships + to actively create family structures that serve their own needs, rather than having to conform to pre-existing norms in the way heteros traditionally had to

Weston 1992 found that same-sex couples created?

• supportive ‘families of choice’ from among friends, former lovers + biological kin, while weeks 2000 found that friendship networks functioned as kinship networks for gay men + lesbians

Beck: the negotiated family

• Another version of the individualisation thesis is put foreword by Beck 1992, he argues that we now live in a ‘risk society’ where tradition has less influence + other people have more choice, as a result, we are more aware of risks, this is cuz making choices involves calculating risks + rewards of the diff options open to us

Beck: the negotiated family contrasts with

•  an earlier time when people’s roles were more fixed by tradition, + rigid social norms dictated how they should behave

• E.g. in the past people were expected to marry for life + once married, men were expected to play the role of breadwinner and disciplinarian + to make the important financial decisions, while women took responsibility for the housework, childcare + care of the sick/elderly

(Beck: the negotiated family) Although this trad patriarchal was unequal + oppressive, it did provide?

 a more stable + predictable basis for family life by defining each member’s role + responsibilities,

(beck) the patriarchal family has been undermined by 2 trends:

• Greater gender equality, while has challenged male domination in all spheres of life, women now expect equality both at work + in marriage

• Greater individualism, where people’s actions are influenced more by calculations of their own self-interest than by a sense of obligation to others

the patriarchal family has been undermined by 2 trends, these trends have led to

• a new type of family replacing the patriarchal fam, Beck + Beck-Gernsheim 1995 call this the ‘negotiated family, negotiated families don’t conform to the trad norm, but vary according to the wishes + expectations of their members, who decide what is best for themselves by negotiation, they enter the relationship in an equal basis

Although the negotiated family is more equal than the patriarchal family, it is less stable, cuz?

• individuals are free to leave if their needs aren’t met, as a result, this instability leads to greater family diversity by creating more lone-parent families, 1 person households, re-marriages etc

The zombie family

• Although in today’s uncertain risk society people turn to the family in the hope of finding security, in reality family relationship are themselves now subject to greater risk + uncertainties than ever before

• For this reason, Beck describes the family as a ‘zombie category’: it appears to be alive, but in reality it is dead, people want it to be a haven of security in an insecure world, but today’s family cannot provide this because of its own instability

The connectedness thesis

• Instead of seeing us as disembedded, isolated individuals with limitless choice, smart argues that we are fundamentally social beings whose choices are always made 'within a web of connectedness'

• According to the connectedness thesis, we live within a network of existing relationships + interwoven personal histories, + these strongly influence our range of options + choices in relationships

 Finch + Mason's 1993 study of extended families found that

• although individuals can to some extent negotiate the relationships they want, they are also embedded within family connections + obligations that restrict their freedom of choice

 Finch + Mason's 1993 study  findings challenge:?

•  the notion of the pure relationship, families usually include more than just the couples that Giddens focuses on, + even couple relationships are not always 'pure' relationships that we can walk away from at will

• E.g. parents who separate remain linked by their children, often against their wishes, as Smart says 'where lives have become interwoven + embedded, it becomes impossible for the relationship to simply end'. Smart therefore emphasises the importance of always putting individuals in the context of their past + the web of relationships that shape their choices + family patterns

The connectedness thesis also emphasises

the role of the class + gender structures in which we are embedded, these structures limit our choices about the kinds of relationships, identities + families we can create for ourselves

e.g. of how  class + gender structures in which we are embedded limit our choices about the kinds of relationships, identities, + families we can create for ourselves

• After a divorce, gender norms generally dictate that women should have custody of the children, which may limit their opportunity to form new relationships + 2nd families

• Men are generally paid better than women + this gives them greater freedom + choice in relationships

• The relative powerlessness of women + children as compared w men means that many lack freedom to choose + so remain trapped in abusive relationships

The power of structures - Beck + Giddens

• Beck + Giddens argue that there has been a disappearance or weakening of the structures of class, gender + family that traditionally controlled out lives + limited our choices

The power of structures- May

• However, as May argues, these structures are not disappearing, they are simply being re-shaped, e.g. while women in the past 150 yrs have gained important rights in relation to voting, divorce, education + employment, this doesn't mean they now 'have it all'

e.g. to back up May’s argument to the power of structures

• E.g. while women can now pursue trad 'masculine' roles i.e. careers, they are still expected to be heterosexual. As Einasdottir 2011 argues, while lesbianism is now tolerated, heteronormativity means that many lesbians feel forced to remain 'in the closet' + this limits their choices abt their relationships + lifestyles

Thus, the PLP doesn't see inc diversity as a result of greater freedom of choice, as Beck + Giddens do, instead it:

• emphasises the importance of social structures in shaping the freedoms many people now have to create more diverse types of families

• Thus, although there is a trend towards greater diversity + choice, the PLP emphasises the continuing importance of structural factors such as patriarchy + class inequality in restricting people's choices + shaping their family lives