AQA A LEVEL SOCIOLOGY - FAMILIES & HOUSEHOLDS

What is the Domestic Division of Labour?

- Refers to the roles that men & women play in relation to housework, childcare & paid work.

Parsons - Instrumental & Expressive Roles

- Instrumental role - breadwinner, husband.
- Expressive role - homemaker, wife.
- Division of labour is based on biological differences.
- Feminists - it only benefits men.

Joint & Segregated Conjugal Roles

- Bott (1957) - two types of conjugal roles.
- Segregated conjugal roles - couple have separate roles - Parson's instrumental / expressive roles.
- Joint conjugal roles - couple share tasks.
- Young & Willmott - identified pattern of segregated conjugal roles.

Taking Responsibility for 'Quality Time'

- Southerton (2011) - responsibility of family 'quality time' usually falls to mothers.
- Different experiences of leisure time for men & women.
- Indicates that women are carrying a dual burden.

Explaining the Gender Division of Labour

- Crompton & Lyonette (2008) - two different explanations for unequal division of labour.
- Cultural / ideological explanation of inequality - division of labour - determined by patriarchal norms - shape gender roles in our culture - women perform domestic labour - what society expects them to do.
- Material / economic explanation of inequality - economically rational for women to do more housework as they earn less than men.

Evidence for the Cultural Explanation

- Gershuny (1994) - couples whose parents had a more equal relationship are more likely to share housework equally themselves - suggests parental role models are important.

Evidence for the Material Explanation

- Ramos (2003) - found that where the woman is the full-time breadwinner & man is unemployed, he does as much domestic labour as she does.

Money Management

- Pahl & Vogler (1993) - two main types of control over family income.
- Allowance system - men give their wives an allowance they have to budget to meet family's needs.
- Pooling - both partners have access to income & joint responsibility - joint bank account - increasing.

Decision-Making

- Pahl & Vogler (2007) - even where there was pooling, the men usually made the major financial decisions.
- Some evidence of a limited move towards greater equality in financial decision making - Laurie & Gershuny (2000) - women who were high earning professionals - more likely to have equal say.

Cultural versus Material Explanations

- Gershuny & Laurie's findings - support for material explanation of inequality - Crompton & Lyonette.
- Feminists argue that in patriarchal society, cultural definition of men as decision-makers is instilled through gender role socialisation.

The Meaning of Money

- Vogler et al found that cohabiting couples were less likely to pool their money.
- Nyman (2003) - notes that money has no automatic meaning & different couples can define it in different ways.

A 'Personal Life' Perspective on Money

- Focuses on meanings couples give to who controls the money.
- Smart (2007) - same-sex couples did not see control of money as meaning either equality or inequality in the relationship.
- Smart found that there is greater freedom for same-sex couples.

The Symmetrical Family

- Young & Willmott - see family life as gradually improving for all its members.
- Roles are now much more similar between husbands & wives.
- Rise of symmetrical family among younger couples due to social changes such as changes in women's position.

A Feminist View of Housework

- Oakley (1974) criticises Young & Willmott's view that the family is now symmetrical.
- Oakley found that only 15% of husbands had a high level of participation in housework.
- Only 25% - in childcare.

Impact of Paid Work

- March of progress view - leading to more equal division of domestic tasks?
- Does it mean women have to carry 'dual burden' of paid work as well as domestic work? - feminist view.

March of Progress View

- Men are becoming more involved in housework just as women are becoming more involved in paid work.
- Gershuny (1984) - argues that women working full-time is leading to a more equal division of labour in the home.

Feminist View

- Women going into paid work has not led to greater equality in the division of domestic labour.
- Women now carry out a dual burden.

Taking Responsibility for Children

- Boulton (1983) - although fathers may help by performing specific childcare tasks, it is usually the mother who takes responsibility for the child's security & well-being.
- Ferri & Smith (1996) - fathers took responsibility for childcare in fewer than 4% of families.

Emotion Work & Triple Shift

- Hochschild (2013) - 'emotion work' - women are responsible for managing emotions of family members.
- Duncombe & Marsden (1995) - women have to perform 'triple shift' - housework, paid work & emotion work.

What is Domestic Violence?

- Any incident of controlling behaviour, violence or abuse who have been intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality.

What Views of Domestic Violence have Sociologists Challenged?

- Domestic violence is far too widespread - Women's Aid Federation (2014), domestic violence accounts for between a sixth & a quarter of all recorded violent crime.
- Domestic violence does not occur randomly - follows particular social patterns, patterns have social causes.

Official Statistics

- Understates true extent of the problem.
- Victims may be unwilling to report it to the police - domestic violence - least likely to be reported.
- Police & prosecutors may be reluctant to investigate those cases that are reported to them.

Explanations of Domestic Violence - Radical Feminist Explanation

- Emphasises role of patriarchal ideas, cultural values & institutions.
- Dobash & Dobash - Marriage legitimises violence against women & husbands were often provoked by challenges to their authority.
- Domestic violence is inevitable of patriarchal society.

Evaluation of Radical Feminist Explanation

- Elliot (1996) - not all men are aggressive - they can be victims of domestic violence.
- Also fail to explain female violence, including child abuse.

Materialist Explanation

- Focuses on economic & material factors e.g. inequalities in income to explain why some groups are more at risk than others.
- Wilkinson & Pickett (2010) - see domestic violence as a result of stress on family members caused by social inequality.

Evaluation of the Materialist Explanation

- Useful in showing how social inequality produces stress & violence in families.
- Does not explain why women are more likely to be vicitms.
- Marxists feminists also see inequality causing domestic violence - Ansley (1972) - wives as 'takers of shit'. Domestic violence is product of capitalism.

Modern Western Notion of Childhood

- Pilcher (1995) - most important feature of modern idea of childhood - separateness.
- This view of childhood as separate age-status is not found in all societies.
- Wagg (1992) - childhood is socially constructed.
- Western cultures, children are defined as vulnerable.

Cross-Cultural Differences in Childhood

- Benedict (1934) - argues that children in non-industrial societies are generally treated differently.
- They take responsibility at an early age - Punch - rural Bolivia - five years old, take work responsibilities in home & community.
- Less value is placed on children showing obedience to adult authority.
- Children's sexual behaviour is often viewed differently.

Globalisation of Western Childhood

- International humanitarian & welfare agencies have exported western norm of what childhood should be.
- Campaigns have little impact on position of children in developing countries.

Historical Differences in Childhood

- Aries (1960) - 'idea of childhood did not exist' in Middle Ages.
- Used works of art - children / adults dressed in same clothing.

Modern Cult of Childhood

- Aries - argues that we have moved from a world that is obsessed with childhood nowadays.
- Pollock (1983) - argues that society simply had a different notion of childhood from today's.

Reasons for Changes in the Position of Children

- Laws restricting labour.
- Introduction of compulsory schooling,
- Growth of idea of children's rights.
- Declining family size.

Disappearance of Childhood

- Postman (1994) - argues television has led to disappearance of childhood due to the boundaries breaking down between adults & children.

Information Hierarchy

- Postman argues that childhood emerged as a separate status along with mass literacy.
- Television blurs distinction between childhood & adulthood by destroying the information hierarchy.

Evaluation of Postman

- Opie (1993) - argues that childhood is not disappearing - strong evidence of separate children's culture over many years.
- It is valuable in showing how different types of technology can influence way in which childhood is constructed, but it is over-emphasised.

Childhood in Postmodernity

- Jenks (2005) - does not believe childhood is disappearing, but it is changing.
- It is undergoing change as society moves from modernity to postmodernity.
- Postmodern society - strengthens view of children as vulnerable. Childhood continues to be a separate status.

Evaluation of Jenks

- Evidence comes from small, unrepresentative samples.
- Guilty of overgeneralising - makes statements that imply that all children are in the same position.

March of Progress View - Position of Children

- Argues that position of children in western societies has been steadily improving & today is better than it has ever been.
- Aries - argues that today's children are more valued.

Child-Centred Family

- Higher living standards & smaller family sizes - means that parents can afford for children's needs.
- March of progress sociologists - argue that it has become child-centred - focal point of the family.

Toxic Childhood

- Palmer - 'Toxic Childhood' - argues that rapid technological & cultural changes have damaged children's development e.g. intellectual.

Conflict View

- Argue that society is based on conflict between different social groups such as social classes or genders.
- Argue that march of progress view of modern childhood is based on a false & idealised image that ignores important inequalities.
- Inequalities among children / between children & adults.

Inequalities Among Children

- Gender Differences - Hillman (1993) - boys are more likely to go out after dark unaccompanied.
- Ethnic Differences - Brannen (1994) - Asian parents - more likely to be strict towards their daughters.
- Class Differences - Poor mothers - more likely to have low birth-weight babies - linked to delayed development.

Inequalities between Children & Adults

- March of progress - argue that adults use power for benefit of children.
- Firestone & Holt (1979) - argue that many things that march of progress see as care & protection are in fact just new forms of oppression & control - 'child liberationism'.

Neglect & Abuse

- 2013 - 43,000 children were subject to child protection plans - deemed at risk of significant harm from parents.
- 'Dark side' to family life of which children are victims.

Controls over Children's Space

- 1971 - 86% of primary school children were allowed to travel home from school alone. By 2010, this had fallen to 25%.

Controls over Children's Time

- Adults control children's daily routines & control the speed at which children 'grow up'.

Controls over Children's Bodies

- Adults exercise enormous control over children's bodies.
- Adults restrict ways in which children may touch their own bodies.

Control over Children's Access to Resources

- State pays child benefit - goes to parent not child.
- Pocket money given by parents - may depend on 'good behaviour'.

Age Patriarchy

- Gittins (1998) - describe inequalities between adults & children. Argues that there is age patriarchy of adult domination & child dependency.
- Child liberationist view - adult control over children's lives is justified on grounds that children cannot make rational decisions. (Critics - not as powerless).

'New Sociology of Childhood'

- Sees children as active agents in creating their childhood - not just as 'socialisation projects' for adults. This approach tries to see things from the child's point of view - favoured by child liberationists.

Child's Point of View

- Smart (2001) - study of divorce, found that children were actively involved in trying to make situation better for everyone.
- Use informal unstructured interviews - empowers children to express own views.

Functionalist Perspective on the Family

- See family as important sub-system - building block of society.
- Murdock (1949) - family performs four essential functions to meet the needs of society & its members.
- Stable satisfaction of sex drive.
- Reproduction of next generation.
- Socialisation of young - shared norms & values.
- Meeting its members' economic needs e.g. food.

Criticisms of Murdock

- Functions could be used in other family structures.
- Feminists - see family as serving needs of men & oppressing women.
- Marxists - meets needs of capitalism, not family members or society as a whole.

Parsons' 'Functional Fit' Theory

- Distinguishes between two kinds of family structure - nuclear family / extended family.
- There are two basic types of society - modern industrial & traditional pre-industrial society.
- Nuclear family fits needs of industrial society - extended family - pre-industrial society.
- Sees industrial society as having two essential needs - geographically / socially mobile workforce.

Geographically Mobile Workforce

- Modern society - industry always changing - people have to move to where jobs are.
- Parsons argues easier for NF to move, therefore NF more suited to modern industry.

Socially Mobile Workforce

- Modern society - science & technology always evolving - requires skilled workers - people gain status through own effort, not ascribed - makes social mobility possible.
- Parsons argues that NF is better equipped to meet needs of industrial society as it avoids tension - as a result of differences in statuses in generations in extended families.

Loss of Functions

- Parsons - when society industrialises, family lose many of its functions.
- Modern nuclear family specialises in two essential functions.
- Primary socialisation of children - begin to integrate them in society.
- Stabilisation of adult personalities - family can release tensions - functional for efficiency of economy.

Inheritance of Property

- Engels argues that in the primitive communism, there was no private property & there were no restrictions on sexual relationships which was called a promiscuous horde.
- As the capitalist system developed, father needed their legitimate heirs to pass down their wealth & their private property which has created the monogamous nuclear family.

Ideological Functions

- Argue that the family performs key ideological functions for capitalism.
- Does this by socialising children telling them that hierarchy & inequality are inevitable.
- Zaretsky (1976) argues that the family performs ideological functions by providing a 'haven' from the harsh & exploitative world of capitalism.
- Zaretsky argues that this is an illusion - family cannot meet its members' needs.

A Unit of Consumption

- Capitalism needs consumers to buy its products. The family is an important market for consumer goods & therefore enables capitalists to make profits.

Criticisms of the Marxist Perspective

- They ignore wide variety of family structures in society today.
- Feminists - argue that Marxists underestimate the importance of gender inequalities.
- Functionalists - Marxists ignore real benefits that family provides for its members.

Liberal Feminism

- Liberal feminists focus on striving for legal equality between the sexes.
- Liberal feminists argue that most of those battles for legal equality have been won, however there is clearly still inequality between the sexes (for example, in relation to domestic work).
- While families currently play a part in the oppression of women, they do not have to: it is possible to have family life & gender equality.

Marxist Feminism

- Argue that main cause of women's oppression is capitalism - perform several functions.
- Women reproduce labour force through unpaid domestic labour.
- Women absorb anger - Ansley (1972) - 'takers of shit' - explains male domestic violence against women.
- Women are reserve army of cheap labour when extra workers are needed.
- Argue that family must be abolished.

Radical Feminism

- Argue that all societies have been founded on patriarchy.
- Men are the enemy - source of women's oppression.
- Family & marriage are key institutions in patriarchal society.
- 'Political lesbianism' - heterosexual relationships are inevitably oppressive - involves sleeping with enemy.
- Sommerville (2000) - radical feminists fail to recognise that women's position has improved considerably.

Difference Feminism

- Argue that we cannot generalise about women's experiences - they have very different experiences of the family.
- E.G. white feminists neglect black women's experience of racial oppression.
- Other feminists argue that difference feminism neglects the fact that all women share many of same experiences.

Personal Life Perspective on Families

- Criticises all theories of family - Functionalist, Marxist & Feminist.
- They tend to assume that traditional nuclear family is dominant family type.
- They are all structural theories - families / members - passive puppets.
- Argue that we must focus on meanings its members give to relationships, rather than family's 'functions'.

Sociology of Personal Life

- Argue that to understand families, we must start from point of view of individuals concerned & meanings they give to relationships.
- 'Bottom up' approach of interactionism.

Beyond Ties of Blood & Marriage

- Personal life perspective - draws attention to other personal relationships though they may not be conventionally defined as 'family'.
- E.G. Relationships with friends like a sister, relationships with pets - Tipper (2011) - 'part of family'.

Donor-Conceived Children

- Nordqvist & Smart - some parents emphasised importance of social relationships over genetic ones in forming family bonds.

Evaluation of the Personal Life Perspective

- Nordqvist & Smart's study - helps us to understand how people themselves construct relationships as 'family'.
- Can be accused of taking too broad a view - ignore what is special about relationships based on blood or marriage.

What is the Birth Rate?

- The number of live births per thousand of population per year.

What is the Total Fertility Rate?

- The average number of children women will have during their fertile years.

Reasons for the Decline in the Birth Rate - Changes in Women's Position

- Easier access to divorce. Harper (2012) - education of women is most important reason for long-term fall in birth & fertility rates.

Reasons for the Decline in the Birth Rate - Decline in the Infant Mortality Rate

- Measures number of infants who die before their first birthday per year.
- Harper argues that a fall in IMR leads to fall in birth rate.
- Brass & Kabir (1978) - Argue that trend to smaller families began in urban areas where IMR remained higher for longer, not in rural areas where IMR first began to fall.

Reasons for the Decline in the Birth Rate - Children Are Now an Economic Liability

- Laws banning child labour, raising school leaving age - mean children remain economically dependent on parents for longer.
- Changing norms - what children have a right to expect from their parents in material terms - cost of bringing up children - risen.

Reasons for the Decline in the Birth Rate - Child Centredness

- Increasing child centredness - childhood is now socially constructed as important period.
- Encouraged a shift from 'quantity' to 'quality' - parents now have fewer children.

Future Trends in Birth Rates

- Slight increase in births since 2001.
- One reason - increase in immigration - mothers from outside UK have higher fertility rate than those born in UK.

Effects of Changes in Fertility - The Family

- Smaller families mean that women are more likely to be free to go out to work - creating dual earner couple.
- Only one factor as couples may be able to have larger families & still afford childcare - allows them both to work full-time.

The Dependency Ratio

- Relationship between size of working part of the population & size of non-working part of the population.
- Fall in number of children reduces 'burden of dependency' on working population.
- Falling fertility rates - fewer children - childhood may be lonelier experience but come to be more valued.

Public Services & Policies

- Lower birth rate - consequences for public services e.g. affects cost of maternity & paternity leave - many are political decisions.
- One reason that women are having fewer children is that average age of population is rising - more old people relative to young people.

What is the Death Rate?

- The number of deaths per thousand of the population per year.

Reasons for the Decline in the Death Rate

- Tranter (1996) - over three-quarters of the decline in the death rate from about 1850 to 1970 was due to a fall in number of deaths from infectious diseases e.g. measles.

Improved Nutrition

- McKeown (1972) - argues that improved nutrition accounted for up to half the reduction in death rates especially from tuberculosis.
- Does not explain why females lived longer than males, fails to explain why deaths from infectious diseases actually rose at a time of improving nutrition.

Medical Improvements

- Setting up of National Health Service in 1948.
- Improved medication - other developments reduced deaths from heart disease by one-third.

Smoking & Diet

- Harper - fall in death rates is from a reduction in number of people smoking.
- Obesity has replaced smoking as new lifestyle epidemic - 21st century - Harper - moving to 'American' health culture.

Public Health Measures

- Improvements in housing, purer drinking water.
- Clean Air Acts - reduced air pollution.

Other Social Changes

- Smaller families reduced rate of transmission of infection.
- Lifestyle changes e.g. smoking.

What is Life Expectancy?

- How long on average a person born in a given year can expect to live.

Reason for Lower Average Life Expectancy in 1900

- The fact that so many infants & children did not survive beyond early years of life.

Class, Gender & Regional Differences

- Women have a longer life expectancy than men.
• Gap between men & women have narrowed due to changes in employment & lifestyle.
• Walker (2011) argues that those living in poor areas die 7 years earlier than those in richest areas.
- W/C men - three times as likely to die before they are 65 compared to men in professional jobs.

The Ageing Population

- Caused by three factors - increasing life expectancy, declining infant mortality / fertility.
- Hirsch (2005) - traditional age 'pyramid' is disappearing.

Effects of an Ageing Population - Public Services

- Older people consume larger proportion of services such as health & social care - should beware of over-generalising.
- Ageing population may mean changes to policies & other services.

One-Person Pensioner Households

- One-person pensioner households now account for about 12.5% of all households.
- Over 75s, twice as many women as men - 'feminisation of later life'.

Effects of an Ageing Population - The Dependency Ratio

- Non-working old are economically dependent group - e.g. taxation to pay for pensions. Wrong to assume that 'old' equals 'economically dependent'.
- As number of retired people rises, increases dependency ratio & burden on working population.
- Increase in old people - raises dependency ratio - in ageing population - offset by declining number of dependent children.

Ageism, Modernity & Postmodernity

- Ageism - negative stereotyping of people on the basis of their age.
- Modernity - the old are dependent & worthless.
- Postmodernity - the old are consumers & want to rejuvenate themselves.

Modern Society & Old Age

- Modern society - identity is largely determined by role in production. Those excluded from production by compulsory retirement - stigmatised identity.
- Phillipson (1982) - Marxist, argues that old are of no use to capitalism - no longer productive.
- Modern society - life is structured into fixed series of stages - old - excluded from role in labour force - made dependent & powerless.

Postmodern Society & Old Age

- Argue that in postmodern society today, fixed stages of life course has broken down.
- Consumption, not production, becomes key to our identities - Hunt (2005) - we can choose an identity regardless of our age.
- Old becomes a market for range of 'rejuvenation' services to create their identities.
- Undermines old age as stigmatised life stage - centrality of media - positive image of elderly, emphasis on surface features - anti-ageing products.

Inequality Among the Old

- Pilcher (1995) - argues that inequalities such as class & gender remain important.
- Poorer old people have shorter life expectancy & suffer more infirmity - more difficult to maintain youthful self-identity.
- Women's lower earnings - lower pensions, subject to sexist / ageist stereotyping.
- Postmodernists understate importance of such inequalities - related to structure of wider society - restricting freedom of elderly to choose identity through consumption.

Policy Implications

- Hirsch (2005) - argues that number of important policies will need to tackle new problems posed by ageing population.
- Main problem - how to finance longer period of old age. Housing policy may need to change to encourage older people into smaller accommodation.
- Hirsch - policy changes also requires cultural change in attitudes towards old age - sees old age as social construct, not biological fact.

What is Migration?

- Movement of people from place to place.