Changing family patterns

Marriage

• Fewer people are marrying

• More re-marriages

• People marry at a later age

• Less likely to marry in a church

Reasons for decline in marriage

• Changing attitudes = Less pressure to marry, more freedom to choose type of relationship as an individual

• Secularisation = Church influence is declining, people feel freer not to marry, but cohabit instead

• Decline in stigma = e.g. cohabitation seen as often

• Changes in position of women = Women less economically dependent on men, impact of feminism, better career options and educational prospects, more free to be single

• Fear of divorce: Divorce has increased, puts people of marrying

Cohabitation

• An unmarried couple in a sexual relationship living together

• Increased

• As of 2020, 3.5 million cohabiting couples in the UK

Reasons for increase in cohabitation

• Decline in stigma = less pressure to marry, young people more accepting

• Increased career opportunities for women = less need for financial security of marriage for women

• Secularisation = 2001 Census, young people with no religion are more likely to cohabit

• A step/stage before marriage = Chester: Cohabitation is a ‘trial’ marriage done before a couple get married, just a temporary phase before marriage

Same-sex relationships

• 5-7% now in same-sex relationships

• Very difficult to say if this has increased or not due to stigma and illegality of it in the past

• Now increased social acceptance, age of consent risen and equalised between homosexual and heterosexual couples, rights to adopt

One-person households

• Increased, 3 in 10 live alone

• 40% of one person households over 65 by 2033

• Predicted that over 30% adult population will be single in 2033

• Creative singlehood - Positive view of singlehood whereby people choose to stay single as a lifestyle option, change in expectations, careers/education/travel/independence/individualisation thesis

• Increase in separation and divorce

• Decline in marriage

Living Apart Together

• Being in a relationship but not married or cohabiting

• Increased, 1/10 adults now LATs

• Can’t afford to live together/move out

• Want to keep own home and independence

• Trend towards families of choice/less formalised relationships

Childbearing

• 4/10 chn born outside marriage, women have children later, fewer children and women choose to remain childless

• Declining stigma and increased ohabitation

• Declining IMR

• Children are economic liabilities

• Increasing availability of contraception

• Women have more options than just motherhood

Lone-parent families

• Increased, make up 22% of all families with children

• ¼ children live in a lone parents family

• Over 90% of lone parents families headed by lone mothers

• Increase in divorce and never-married women

• Courts give mothers custody of children in divorce cases

• Benefits - Over-generous welfare state provides a perverse incentive for unmarried mothers and their children

Step-families

• Increased, over 10% of all families with dependent children, greater risk of poverty

• Increase in divorce
  Chn more likely to stay with mother after divorce

• More children to look after = risk of poverty

Ethnic differences

• Black families = higher proportion of female-headed lone-parent families, high value black women place on independence

• Asian families = larger and sometimes 3+ generations, value placed on extended family and younger age profile of British Asians

Divorce

• Divorce increased, doubling between 1961-1969, doubling again by 1972

• 7/10 divorce petitions from women

Reasons for increase in divorce

• Changes in law e.g. legal aid made divorce cheaper, divorce reform act 1969

• Declining stigma and changing attitudes = Cockett & Tripp: Divorce has been normalised

• Secularisation = Decline in the influence of religion, traditional opposition from religious organisations to divorce is carrying less influence

• Rising expectations = Fletcher: People place higher value on marriage, so when this is not fulfilled, people get a divorce. More concentration on love and emotions rather than tradition

• Changes in women’s position = Women can now go out to work, so feel they can divorce - Equal pay act