changing family patterns✅

Divorce trends

Divorce rates has increased significantly since the 1960s, most divorces being initiated by women

Reasons for the increase in divorce

1. Changes in the law

2. Declining stigma + changing social attitudes

3. Securlarisation

4. Rising expectations of marriage

5. Women’s increased financial independence

6. Feminist explanations

7. Modernity and individualisation

Changes in law

• Divorce Reform Act (1969)

• Legal Aid (1949)

Decline in stigma and changing attitudes

• Stigma - negative labels have been declining since 1960s

• Divorce and remarriages are normalised

Secularisation

Decline in the influence of religion in society

Rising expectations of marriage

• Higher expectations around love, intimacy, personal fulfilment

• Marriage is now based on love

• Giddens - ‘pure relationships’, if not satisfactory ending it is necessary

New right meaning of divorce

• Undesirable because it undermines marriage and the traditional nuclear family

• Creates a growing underclass of welfare-dependent female lone parents who are a burden on the state

Feminists meaning of divorce

• Desirable because it shows that women are breaking free from the oppression of the patriarchal nuclear family

Interactionists meaning of divorce

• Aims to understand what divorce means to the individual

• We cannot generalise about divorce because every interpretation is different

Postmodernists meanings of divorce

• High divorce rates shows that individuals now have the freedom to choose to end a relationship when it no longer meets their needs

• A major cause of greater family diversity

Functionalists meanings of divorce

• Sees it as simply the result of peoples higher expectations of marriage today

• The high rate of remarriages shows peoples continuing commitment to the idea of marriage

Personal life meanings of divorce

• Accepts that divorce can cause problems such as financial difficulties and a lack of daily contact between children and non-resident parents

• But divorce has become normalised and family life can adopt to it without disintegrating

Changing patterns of marriage

• Fewer marriages overall

• Marrying later

• Cohabitation increasing

• Rise in remarriages

• Decline in church weddings

Reasons for changing marriage trends

1. Secularisation

2. Decline stigma attached to alternatives of marriage

3. Changes in the position of women

4. Fear of divorce

5. Cost of weddings

Cohabitation

• An unmarried couple in a sexual relationship living together

• Seen as a trial marriage for some

• For others a permanent alternative to marriage

Same sex relationships

• Increasing since law changes

• Civil Partnership (2004) and Same Sex Marriage (2014)

• Adoption and IVF access

One-person households

Big rise in the number of people living along, 40% of all one-person households are over 65

LATs

• Living Apart Together

• In a significant relationship but not married or cohabiting

Childbearing trends

• Having children later in life, fewer children per family and more births outside marriage are increasing

• Women are now prioritising careers and education

• Effective contraception

• Less stigma for non-martial births

Lone parent families

• Make up 22% of all families with children

• Mostly headed by women

• Reasons include: divorce, single choice motherhood, abuse etc

New Right perspective of lone parenthood

Charles Murray:

• Growth of lone parent families as resulting from an over-generous welfare state providing benefits for unmarried mothers and their children’s

• Created a ‘perverse incentive’, meaning it rewards irresponsible behaviour

• Creates a ‘dependency culture’ in which people assume that the state will support them and their children

Criticisms of New Right

• Lack of affordable childcare prevents lone parents from working

• Inadequate welfare benefits

• Most lone parents are women, who generally earn less

• Failure of fathers to pay maintenance

Stepfamilies

• Reconstituted families account for over 10% of all families with dependent children in Britain

• Growth due to divorce and remarriage increasing

Black Caribbean family patterns

• Higher proportion of female lone-parent families

• Black women are independent

• Slavery legacy = broken families where children stayed with their mothers

• High male unemployment and racism means its less likely black men can provide for their family

• Chamberlain: Despite appearing ‘lone’, black families have supportive extended kin networks

South Asian family patterns

• Tend to be larger and place high value on marriage and extended families

• Have supportive kinship networks

Extended family today

Dispersed extended family (Willmott):

• Relatives are geographically separated but maintain frequent contact with visits and phone calls

• Performs important functions, emotional bonds

Beanpole family

• A type of extended family which is ‘long and thin’

• Extended vertically (up and down) through 3 or more generations

• Grandparents, great grandparents etc

2 reasons for the increase in beanpole families

1. Increased life expectancy

2. Smaller family sizes

Obligations to relatives

• Many people still feel a sense of obligation to help their wider extended kin

• More is expected of females than males

• People felt that help received should be returned to avoid any feelings of indebtedness