reasons for family diversity

trends in cohabitation

• Beaujouan and Bhrolchain used data from General Household Survey to analyse patterns of cohabitation

• cohabitation before marriage has become the norm - 80% of couples who marry previously cohabitated in 2004-7, compared to 30% in 1980-4

• 2004-7 - couples spent 4 years cohabiting before getting married

• greater proportion of couples choose to cohabit rather than marry now

significant change in attitudes to remaining single

• used to have a negative status

• ‘old maid’, ‘spinster’, ‘left on the shelf’ used to describe older single women

• being single now seen as more glamorous - young single people living more fulfilled lives

creative singlehood

lifestyle choice to remain single

Hall et al (1999)

• single people found freedom in being solo

• could focus on their careers, personal growth, self-sufficiency, flexibility

Heath (2004) - rise of the KIPPERS (kids in parents pockets eroding retirement savings)

• term used to describe adult children who continue to live with their parents and rely on them financially

• reasons: economic factors, cultural shifts, impact on parents/strain finances and delay plans for retirement, impact on adult children (provide a safety net but also delay development of financial development and life skills)

Jamieson et al (2002)

• questions the view put forward by individualisation theorists that couples living together without marrying represent a reduced willingness to create and honour lifelong partnerships

• found that most of the cohabiting couples strongly stressed their ‘commitment’

• many respondents questioned the idea that they would gain any added value in marriage

• however, some respondents also perceived cohabitation as a ‘try-and-see’ strategy, part-way to the perceived full commitment of marriage

• the notion that ‘marriage is better for children’ also continued to have support among respondents

• therefore suggested that the rise of cohabitation does not represent a turning away from committed relationships, rather it offers an alternative choice to marriage - one that in many cases may precede marriage

explanations for changing divorce rates - the privatised nuclear family - functionalists

have tended to see high divorce rate as going hand in hand with a trend towards nuclear families

explanations for changing divorce rates - the privatised nuclear family - parsons and bales (1955)

• argue that the modern american family has become structurally isolated from extended family with the main focus on the relationship between the husband, wife and children

• means there is less pressure from extended family for a couple to stay together and greater demands are placed on the couples relationship, which becomes central to the working of the nuclear family

• for functionalists, this is not a problem; high divorce rates are simply the price we have to pay for living in nuclear families

explanations for changing divorce rates - the privatised nuclear family - Edmund Leach (1967)

• argued that the nuclear family was the ‘source of all our discontents’

• portrayed the relationship between husband and wife as like an over-looked circuit, having to fulfil all of the emotional needs of a couple

• argued that it was no surprise that nuclear families were a source of conflict for many, with divorce one possible outcome

explanations for changing divorce rates - higher expectations of marriage - functionalist Ronald Fletcher (1966)

argued that higher divorce rates were linked to a higher value being placed on marriage as couples come to expect a more companionate relationship based on love and mutual support rather than one based on the economic and practical reasons that kept couples together in more traditional family systems

explanations for changing divorce rates - changing social attitudes

up until the 1960s there was a strong stigma attached to divorce, but more recently most people in britain (apart from some with strong religious or moral views) appear to view divorce as normal and acceptable

explanations for changing divorce rates - changing social attitudes - the british social attitudes survey 2006 (duncan and phillips 2008)

• 63% of respondents agreed that ‘divorce can be a positive step towards a new life’

• 7% disagreed

• 78% agreed that ‘it is not divorce that harms children, but conflict between their partners’

• 7% disagreed

explanations for changing divorce rates - changing social attitudes - decline of religious beliefs - Colin Gibson (1994)

argues that britain has undergone a process of secularisation, whereby religious values have weakened in society, including the influence of the traditional teaching of the church about the value of lifelong marriage

explanations for changing divorce rates - changing social attitudes - Deborah Chambers (2012)

• highlights a range of evidence that ‘divorce, cohabitation and loneliness parenthood are still viewed within dominant public discourses as signs of moral decline, despite being widespread.’

• for example, lone parents are often defined by the tabloid press as ‘undeserving scroungers’, and there is still a widespread belief that divorce leads to bad parenting

• this would suggest that the stigma attached to divorce has not entirely disappeared

explanations for changing divorce rates - individualisation and reflexivity - Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (1995) - changing expectations of marriage

• they argue that in late modernity there is less agreement over what marriage should be like - instead, there is growing individualisation and uncertainty, meaning that the nature of relationships is open to negotiation and choice in what they describe as the normal chaos of love

• this means that traditional norms and values about marriage and family life no longer constrain people, and where individuals feel that a relationship no longer serves their personal interests, they are less likely to maintain it purely because of a sense of commitment to others

explanations for changing divorce rates - changing role of women - Graham Allan and Graham Crowe (2001)

• argue that the changing position of women in society has been one of the main factors influencing a rise in the number of divorces

• in the 1940s, around 2/3 of divorce petitions were initiated by men

• women often did not have the financial resources to fund divorce cases and were likely to find themselves much worse off without the economic support of a husband

• in 2012, 65% of divorces were initiated by women

• since the 1970s, far more married women are employed, giving them a degree of financial independence, and welfare benefits for women with dependent children have improved

• however, most women still find themselves financially worse off after divorce

explanations for changing divorce rates - the changing role of women - Lynn Prince Cooke and Vanessa Gash (2010)

• found no clear relationship between women’s employment and earnings and their likelihood of divorcing

explanations for changing divorce rates - the changing role of women - Duncombe and Marsden

• for some feminists, the large number of women seeking to escape from marriage reflects the problematic nature of traditional marriage more than the fact that life as a lone parent is easier for women than it was in the past

• found that many of the women they interviewed who had been married for some years became increasingly dissatisfied with the their husbands inability to take on responsibilities in marriage, leaving them to not only perform housework but also to care for the family’s emotional needs