Family diversity

What is a family?

A group of people related by ties of blood or marriage. This is a traditional definition and ignores family diversity.

What is family diversity?

Having a variety of family types in a society beyond just nuclear families.

Britain is an example of a society within family diversity.

What is marriage?

Legal recognition of two partners in a relationship

What is monogamy?

Being married to more than one person at a time

What is co-habitation?

Living together without being married.

What is the nuclear family?

The traditional family. 2 parents with at least 2 children.

Lone parent family

A family structure containing any number of children with just one parent.

Beanpole family

2 adults (mum and dad) and one child. Structure tends to be long and thin.

What is a reconstituted/blended family?

2 adults who come together, sometimes with children, after a marriage has ended, and get together to start a new family.

What is an extended family?

A family unit that extends beyond the immediate parents and children. Relatives, grandparents, aunties, uncles, either live in same household or nearby.

Same- sex family

Any family where partner are of the same sex. Not always with children.

What has happened to marriage in the last 50 years?

• Marriage rates have declined

• Remarriage and serial monogamy have become normalized.

• Same sex marriage legalised in 2013.

What has happened to divorce in the last 50 years?

• Divorce rates have increased - Divorce Reform Act 1969.

• However, rates were at their lowest in 2018. Its not just straight increasing.

What other changes have occured in family structure in the last 50 years?

• Women having fewer children since 1960s.

• Cohabitation has increased - fastest growing family type.

• Lone parent families and singlehood growing far more common.

What is the rate of extended families in asian households?

21%

What is the rate of extended families in black households?

8%

What is the rate of lone parent families in Asian households?

6% lone parents

What is the rate of lone parent families in black households?

19%

What is a big global difference in family forms?

Polygamy. Either polygyny (men with more than one partner)

Or polyandry (women with more than one partner)

What is arranged marriage?

Where a couple are chosen to be together by their parents.

A marriage between families of similar social status, not love.

Common in South Asian families.

What is the one-child policy?

In China, the government brought this in, in 1979 to slow population growth. Fine given to parents with more than one child.

Policy ended in 2015.