sociology ( family) 🧑‍🧑‍🧒‍🧒

What is a family?

A married/ cohabiting couple generally seen as being related via blood or marriage

What is household

A group or an individual who live in the same address.

Traditional nuclear family

A married couple with their own children.

Husband goes to work and the wife loooks after kids and domestic work.

Known as the ‘ traditional family’

Symmetrical family

Willmott and Young.

Families became more symmetrical in the late twentieth century.

Women going out to work while men do the domestic roles

Nuclear family with ‘ new man’

Postmodern society

Female adult is breadwinner

Husband does most domestic work

Vertical extended family

Multiple generations living together

Vertical on family tree

Ageing population

Horizontal extended family

Household made of aunts, uncles and cousins

family extends horizontally across the same generations

Beanpole family

Vertical extended family with no/few "branches"

fall in fertility rate with ageing population

Matrifocal single parent family

Most common single-parent family (90%)

single parent is mother of children

Patrifocal single parent family

Less common single parent family

Family headed by a single father

Reconstituted family

2 nuclear families split and merge to form a new family.

increased divorce rate and lower marriage rate contribute to this

Same sex couples

Multiple forms of same-sex family structures with or without children

biologically related children of one member of couple or adopted

Living apart together

Couple who choose not to cohabit (or are not currently)

10% of UK adults

grandparenting

Children brought up by grandparents

more formal, permanent or semi-permanent arrangement than just grandparents who assist with childcare

Singledom

People living on their own; common in contemporary Britain

Flatmates/ housemates

Multiple occupancy; the people may or may not know one another prior to moving in

Empty nest family

Couple have had children who have now left the family home

more empty nests with rising life expectancy

Boomerang family

Children who have left home come back; e.g. graduating university and returning home

more common in today's housing market

Polygamy

Illegal in UK (i.e. being married to more than one person)

some still live with 1 partner; some have spouses in other countries (not recognised by UK law); in some cultures, seen as better than infidelity