sociology families and households

• MURDOCK

 4 FUNCTIONS – RESS
 Nuclear is universal

• Parsons

 2 functions – PS (Primary socialisation/ Stabilisation of adult personalities )
 Warm bath theory – instrumental role / expressive role – relax at home
 Geographical and social mobility – people moving for jobs – can achieve higher status and better jobs
 Loss of functions – no longer does educate and provide healthcare – performs functions better now

• Bell and vogel

 Emotional scapegoats – children take on parents' frustration – keeps anger within the family keeping everything private

• Critiques of functionalism

 Feminist – reinforces patriarchy
 Marxists – capitalist society – work place is stressful – warm bath is not good – reinforces exploitation
 Personal life perspective – suggest that functionalism ignore new family types i.e. lone parent families
 Lang – plp – can lead to schizophrenia to escape the conflict of the family
 Leach – plp – overload in circuit – everything being overloading for the children

Marxism

Serves capitalism: sucs
 S – socialisation
 U- unpaid domestic work – women
 C- consumption – buying things
 Safety valve -allows workers to come home and relax after work

• Engels

 ‘primitive communism’ big communities’ – no nuclear family
 After industrialisation monogamous nuclear family – ‘primogeniture’ – older son inherits the wealth – social reproduction of wealth – keep rich rich keep poor poor.

• Zaretsky

 Family is a haven against alienation gain ‘identity’ but not enough – false class consciousness
 Family is a prop from capitalism (sucs)

• Althusser

 Family is about ideological state apparatus – maintains capitalism through ruling class ideologies being shared. – parents control kids illustrates boss controlling workers.

• Critiques of marxism

 Ignores gender inequality
 Functionalism sees this as a positive thing to maintain social order

• 4 types of feminists (LRBM)

 Liberal
 Radical
 Marxist
 Black/difference

• Liberal feminism

 Women’s oppression is overcome through changes in law and policy and changing attitudes.
 March of progress view – sex discrimination act 1975 – equal pay act

• Wollstonecraft – L

 Should be equal with partner – should be entitled to education
 Women exist in a ‘bird cage’ – can’t escape patriarchal society

• Marxist feminist

 Women’s oppression serves capitalism – a reserve army of cheap labour

• Oakley

 Dual burden – economically dependent of men
 Due to this men have control – women lose control over freedom and may be victim to abuse
 Women lose their identity when married – economic status is crucial to their oppression

• Beechey

 Women economically dependent
 Workforce forces them to be economically dependent due to the pay gap – lower wages not enough to live off.

• Breugal

 Women are a reserve army of labour
 Easy to hire and fire
 Women’s unemployment is easily disguised by their duty of housework.

• Benston

 2 workers for the price of 1
 Don’t need to pay for services at home as women do them i.e. cooking/cleaning this means the profit for capitalism is not reduced.

• Ansley

 ‘takers of shit’ – take on husbands frustration from work – product of alienation and exploitation.
 Explains domestic violence.

• Radical feminism

 All societies are patriarchal.
 Men are the ‘enemy’
 Family and marriage always control women. – benefit from unpaid labour
 Controlled through domestic violence
 Solution – men and women should live separate lives – political lesbianism.

• Millet

 Men benefit personally from the exploitation of women.

• Rich

 Compulsory sexuality
 Lesbianism is regarded as deviant or abnormal
 Keeps men in power and being depended on

• Firestone

 Childbearing is a burden
 New reproductive technology allows women to no longer depend on men

• Delphy and Leonard

 ’57 varieties of unpaid service’ – cooking cleaning etc
 Women contribute more work to family
 Women sometimes try and resist their partner but economical and social factors stop them from escaping the patriarchal system

• Difference feminism

 We cannot generalise women’s experiences because each are difference e.g LGBTQ+ , black women etc

• Amos and Parmar

 Black women have different experiences
 Not only deal with sexism but racism too
 A black women’s family may be a source of comfort and support

Personal life perspective

Micro perspective – individual experiences – looks at interaction – looks at meanings, individuals, thoughts and feelings

• Stacey

 Divorce- extended family – stays in contact with ex’s family
 ‘Fictive kin’ – close friends treated as relatives

• Clarke

 Focus on how people feel about relationships
 Looks at how it feels to be married
 Marriage is different for different people
 Focus on interactions, roles and meanings

• Nordqvist and smart

 Donor-conceived children
 Some parents emphasised the importance of social relationships over genetic ones in forming bonds.
 Comments made about physical attributes can cause issues with feelings
 Questions about donor and whether or not they have a role in parenting the child.
 Issues could arise as donors are treated as ‘real’ parents.

• Leach

 Nuclear family has become overloaded – family members expect too much of each other
 The family is too isolated leading to conflict – privatisation leads to conflict.

• Laing

 Emotional distress – caused by constant demand for attention
 If parents are fighting and child becomes distress could use schizophrenia to cope with the stress – entering a dream world .

• Fertility rate

 Total fertility rate is the average number of children women will have during their fertile years
 Has risen but is lower than in the past
 More women are remaining childless and having children later in life.
 Influence on feminism – no need for children/ families

• Births

 Number of live births per 1000 of the population per year
 Long term decline since the 1900s however there were exceptions for example the baby boom after the war

Reasons for the decline in birth
rates

 Changes in women’s position
 Legal equality with men
 Increased educational opportunities
 More women in paid employment
 Changes in attitudes to family life and women’s role
 Access to abortion and reliable contraception gives women more control over their bodies and fertility.
 Harper – education of women is the most important reason as to why there is a decline in birth rates – led to changes in mindset as they have been able to get an education and chose what path in life they would like to go down – family planning.

 Decline in infant mortality rate

 Historically people had more children because they knew their children had less of a chance of life – high infant mortality rate.
 Harper – due to decline in infant mortality rate there is also a decline in birth rates as people are having less children.

 Infant mortality rate declines due to?

o Improved housing and better sanitation
o Better nutrition
o Better knowledge of hygiene, child health n=and welfare
o Fall in number of married women working improving their health and their child’s
o Improved services for mothers and children.

 Children are now an economic liability

 Until late 19th century children were economic assets to their parents because they could be sent out to work.
 Laws banning child labour and introducing schooling
 Changing norms as people began to realise that children also have rights
 As a result to new financial pressures many people aren’t so keen to have children or a larger family.

 Child centeredness

 Children have become a priority in the family and society
 Encouraged a shift in family size from quantity to quality
 Parents now have fewer children so can give more attention and resources on their few kids.

• Death rates

 Has declined
 Tranter – this is due to the fall in infectious diseases, and increase in better health care.
 Introduction of the NHS – raised living standards
 McKeown – improved nutrition accounted for up to half the reduction in death rates.
 Lifestyle changes – smoking less , health education, poverty declining , less overcrowded accommodation.
 Cleaner water and a rise in standard living
 The decline in manual occupations e.g. mining
 Smaller families – less infection
 Higher incomes

 Life expectancy

 The average age of population is rising – fewer young people more older people
 However it is important to remember that there are factors which does affect this for example: age , gender and class. E.g. – people in Scotland live less that those in the south , women live longer than men.

• The aging population

 This is due to the increase in life expectancy and the decline in infant mortality rate and declining fertility.

 Affects of the ageing population

o Pressure on public services
o More one person pensioner households
o The dependency ratio
o The social construction of ageing as a problem – ageism
o Policy implications – pensions needing funding
o Ageism – negative view of older people – discrimination in employment – unequal treatment in healthcare
o Ways of thinking about older people is socially constructed
o Structure dependency – excluded from work – no value to capitalism - marxism
o Pilcher – inequalities among the old remain
Women have a lower pension
Sexist ageist stereotyping
Emphasis on working class
o Hirsch – social polices need to change in order to tackle new problems
Financing a new period of old age
Housing policies change
Cultural change in attitudes
Elderly make up majority of the vote (grey vote) – good for political parties if they help them

• Population

 General trends increase
 Due to natural increase not immigration
 Until 1980s more were emigrating
 During the 1950s Irish made up majority of settlers but acts put severe restrictions on non-white immigrants.

• Emigration

 Until 1980s more people were emigrating
 Push factors – leave country
 Pull factor – move country
 Economic reasons – push factor – not good employment , pull factor – better opportunities
 Labour shortages
 Assisted passage schemes – paying for costs of migration

• Internal migration

 Movement within the same country
 Industrial revolution – people moves north
 20th century people moved south due to increase in motorcar and electric industries
 More recent people have moved to London and south east

• Immigration between 1994 – 2004

o Expansion of the EU to include 10 new states
o For study or work
o Emigrants from uk were older – retirement – Spain

• Dependency ratio

 Migrants are mainly working age – help easing dependency ratio
 Immigrant women tend to have higher fertility rate – means more children , more dependency
 The longer the immigrant group settle the closer the fertility rates settle to national average.

• Effects of immigration

 Size of population increases
 Age of population decreases
 Dependency ratio – working lowers dependency – more children leads to dependency.

• Globalisation

 Increases interconnectedness of society (media, travel etc)
 Acceleration of migration – led to increase
 Differentiation – increases in diversity in types of migrants – permanent, temporary, spouses, refugees, students etc.
 Vertovec – super diversity – due to the different types of people from all around the world has led to a super diversity

• Feminisation of migration

 Ehrenreich and Hochschild – globalisation of the gendered division of labour -women are migrating more
 Increased number of poor women

• Migrant identities

 Migrants may develop hybrid identities
 Erikson – continual movement means some migrants do not belong completely to one culture of country. Leads to development of transnational “neither/nor” identities and loyalties

• Policies of migration

 Assimilation – first state policy and main aim to encourage migrants to speak the language and adopt the values and culture.
 Castles: this policy isn’t great as it sees minority cultures as backwards and reject host cultures creating marginalisation (possibly terrorism)
 Multiculturalism – accepts that migrants may wish to retain their separate culture identity
 Eriksen – the government accepts only superficial aspects of diversity
- Shallow diversity – for example foods
- Deep diversity – accepting other aspects like veiling of women.

social policies

includes: any government interventions and laws

• drew

 discussed gender regimes
 feministic gender regimes – policies based on traditional roles
 individualistic gender regimes – policies promoting idea that husbands and wives should be treated the same.

• Feminism and social policy

• Assumes social policies favour patriarchal families
• Policies assume males are breadwinners
• Courts assume women should have custody of children
• Firestone assumes policies are patriarchal
• Policies reinforce patriarchy - Leonard
• Example social policies:
 Tax and benefits policy – needs to be access though male not wife
 Childcare – school timetables don’t allow for both parents to work
 Care for sick and elderly – women have to take time off work to care

• Marxism and social policy

• Maintains capitalism
• Appear good but not – Althusser
• E.g – low level of state pension – keep rich, rich and poor, poor
• E.g - Free health care and pensions – not as good as it seems – given due to class struggles

• Functionalism and social policies

• Policies are positive as the family can focus on own roles not education and health care any more
• Fletcher – introduction of NHS led to welfare state which aids the family in how it runs and perform its functions better.
• Donxelot – critiques functionalism – policies are a form of state power and control over families.

• New right – thinkers who influence the conservatives – neo-liberal

• Want the family to have little influence in the family
• New right don’t like policies like:
• Increase in lone parent families
• Increase in divorce rates
• Increase in homosexual couples
• Concerned as children are missing out on role models
• - divorce act – undermines the idea of marriage as a lifelong commitment
• Introduction of civil partnership and gay marriages as it undermines the nuclear family and changes the way of raising children. • 1993 child support agency
• Enforces maintenance payments for children by absent parents
• Reinforces the idea that new right want men in the family institution
• Marriage tax breaks – taxes favour married people

• Charles Murray

 Believes in the underclass as people rely on benefits and don’t bother to work – acts as a reward system.
 If fathers see that the government will support their children they are more likely abandon their responsibilities
 Encourages teenage pregnancies
 Growth of lone parents – boys grow up without a role model
 Dependency culture relying on the government to help you instead of helping yourself.

• New labour

• Agree that the nuclear family is the best – but appreciate and support other diversities
• Introduced new deal – helping single parents return to employment
• Introduced civil partnerships – same sex family rights
• Increased maternity leave – reinforces idea women’s role in childcare
• Introduced paternity leave
• Giving unmarried couples the right to adopt
• Outlawing discrimination on grounds of sexuality