Individual Choice

Postmodernist sociologists argue that individual choice is now more important to people than their responsibilities to their family. As a result, people are choosing to live in a variety of different ways and the idea of family is more difficult to define. However, other sociologists argue that postmodernists overestimate the extent of change in family life.

Applying material from Item D and your knowledge, evaluate the view that individual choice in personal relationships has made family life less important in the United Kingdom today. [20 marks]

‘individual choice’

  • This creates family diversity

  • People less likely to settle for convenience meaning that family is not a priority that needs to be formed quickly

  • Giddens - pure relationship leads to less marriage

  • Beck - risk society - relationships are not stable because of this which leads to the zombie family

  • People more miserable due to instability and family is not really a thing anymore

  • C - Ignores positivity in nuclear families and is deterministic - people are likely more happier as they are not stuck in unhappy marriages

‘more important than their responsibilities’

  • Female emancipation means that women prefer to prioritise careers, which is bad as they must perform expressive role - disrupts division of labour within families and social order of society

  • Parsons

  • Could lead to poor socialisation of children

  • Also leads to ageing population which means that elders are not being properly taken care of

  • C - Duncombe and Marsden would argue that women still perform expressive role as well as paid work

‘difficult to define’

  • PLP argues that family can be anyone

  • Smart argues that sociologists should consider that pets and friends are sometimes considered part of the family

  • Acknowledges that families are complex and everyone has a different view on what it is

  • C - Needs to be a definitive idea of what family is to make general laws

Functionalist ‘postmodernists overestimate the extent of change’

  • Family is still important and exists

  • Chester argues that although nuclear is the ideal family type, people go through different types throughout their life course which were unpredictable (people don’t go into marriage thinking they are going to get divorced)

    • Most cohabiting people will marry and most divorcees will get remarried

    • Neo-conventional

    • Family diversity is too exaggerated

  • C - Rapoports argue that family diversity is much more complex with class, life course, organisational, generational, and cultural