Changing Patterns of Family Life - Extended Families

What are vertically extended families?

• Families with 3 or more generations living under one roof- e.g. children, parents, grandparents

• Beanpole families- a multi-generational family with fewer children

What are horizontally-extended families?

They are close relationships with siblings, cousins, aunts and uncles- one generation of family will spread wider across in contrast to privatised nuclear families

What are extended families?

• Less common in contemporary society, however recently the number of multi-family households has significantly increased according to ONS

• Increase of 75% to 297,000 multi-family households in 2019 (1.1% of all households)

• This number includes multi-generational - such as couples living with their child and their child’s partner and elderly parents living with their children and their grandchildren

What are reasons for changes in extended families?

• Geographical and social mobility

• Ethnic diversity in family structures

• State policies and welfare

What is geographical and social mobility?

• The decline in extended families because of the need for geographical mobility in the globalised workforce

• Internal migration and international migration for employment result in the nuclear family often leaving close relatives to gain employment

• This can result in upward social mobility for some families- through higher education, higher status positions and changing lifestyles

What did Berthoud (2000) say about ethnic diversity in family structures?

He found relatively high rates of children and their partners living in parental homes after marriage among British South Asian families

What did Reynolds (2002) say about ethnic diversity in family structures?

He found Jamaican families more likely to have a matrifocal family, often headed by a grandmother or having male involvement as part of a visiting relationship

What did the 2011 census say about ethnic diversity in familes?

21% of Asian families fell into other family types which included multi-generation families- the highest of any ethnic group

What are state policies and welfare?

• A decrease in social care funding has led to more parents moving in with grown children and their families for support

• Austerity measures have seen a rise in the number of people forming multi-family households

• Increase in benefits for lone parents and working families have meant less reliance upon extended family networks for shelter

What are the evaluations of extended families?

• Extended families may have reduced in living under the same roof over time, however, kinship networks remain

• Grandparents are increasingly becoming involved in providing childcare for parents and financial support for their children well into adulthood

• The family has become extended through technology with virtual links to the family that have migrated- modified extended family