debates about family diversity

Divorce Act 1969 and how this might affect family life

• rapid increase in divorce

• subsequent increase in single person, single parent and step family households

Employment Protection Act 1975 and how this might affect family life

• increase in maternity pay should = increase in children

• larger family sizes

Child Benefits Act 1974 and how this might affect family life

• increase in family size

• increase in lone parent families

Change to child benefits 1998 and how this might affect family life

• abolition of 50p extra lone parents

• reduction in number of lone parents families

Child benefit means tested <£60k 2013 and how this might affect family life

• no child benefit for those over £60k

• possible reduction in larger families

15 hours free childcare for children from 9 months 2024 and how this might affect family life

• should men increase in gender equality as women are the main child carers

• might increase family size

debates about family diversity have mainly centred on two issues:

1) whether family diversity is a good thing

2) the extent to which families are actually diversifying

new right and concerns about diversity

• strongest concerns = new right - see diversity as destroying traditional family values

• call for social policies that strengthen marriage and encourage raising children in traditional nuclear families

• lone parent, reconstituted, cohabiting and same sex families do not function as effectively in socialising children and providing a stable family life

support for diversity - giddens - ‘democratisation of intimate relationships’

• individuals are not forced into relationships but only engage with them when they find them fulfilling, meaning that there is more equality between partners

support for diversity - feminism

• women can opt out of marriage, bring up children without a male partner or engage in lesbian relationships are all seen as extending socially acceptable lifestyles for women

persistence of patriarchy - Langford (feminist)

• love has the potential to be a liberating and transforming experience, but suggests that all too often women end up feeling alienated because they are the ones who invest emotionally in relationships and do not receive in return the deep emotional intimacy that supposedly characterises confluent love - links to giddens

persistence of patriarchy - Chambers (feminist)

• women who reject traditional family forms, such as single mothers and lesbians, often still face condemnation from more traditional sections of society and mass media

Gittins: Family ideology

• argues that consensus of nuclear family being the normal family type is only maintained because there is a powerful ideology of the nuclear family

• an ideology is a misleading view, based on value judgements, defining what is normal and desirable and, in this case, labelling alternative family forms as undesirable

• in the last 30 years, politicians have frequently attacked those who deviate from the conventional nuclear family

Leach - cereal packet family

• mass media tends to portray nuclear families as the norm, such as in advertising

• portrays happy smiling families, where mothers typically cook and perform domestic chores for husbands and children, in advertisements for everything from cornflakes to washing up liquid

• such families are not real but create an image of what family life should be like, to which everyone is encouraged to aspire

• the reality of family life may have changed, but the ideology that supports the nuclear family as normal is still very powerful

smart - personal life

• people now exist in a network of relationships: related by blood or marriage or friends

• individuals are still bonded into such networks and share things like family secrets, memories, homes and possessions

• who we think of as family may no longer just include the nuclear family or even the traditional extended family, but individuals are still embedded in networks of personal relationships that in many respects fulfil the functions of more traditional families

the conventional family

• traditional nuclear family with ‘segregated conjugal roles’ - male breadwinner and female homemaker

• declining

the neo-conventional family

• a dual-earner family in which both spouses go out to work-similar to the symmetrical family of young and wilmott

• the new norm

chester - the neo-conventional family

• recognises that there has been some increased family diversity in recent years

• unlike the new right, he does not regard this as very significant, nor does he see it in a negative light

• argues the only important change is a move from the dominance of the traditional conventional nuclear family, to what he describes as the ‘neo conventional’ family

• argues that most people are not choosing to live in alternatives to the nuclear family (such as lone parent families) on a long term basis and the nuclear family remains the ideal to which most people aspire

• he argues that many people living alone have been or one day will be a part of the nuclear family

• chester identifies a number of patterns that support his view:

-most children are still reared for most of their lives by their two national parents

-most marriages still continue until death

-cohabitation has increased, but for most couples it is a temporary phase before marrying

-some ethnic groups are very likely to live in nuclear family households- pakistani and bangladeshi especially