Family Theories and Diversity Notes

Functionalist View of the Family

Social Institutions: Structures in society influencing behavior (family, education, media, religion).
Universal Nuclear Family (Murdock):
- Two generations: parents and children.
- Murdock believed this family type exists worldwide and is the best.
Functionalist Perspective: The family is a cornerstone of society, performing essential functions that support:
- Social stability
- Social cohesion

Functions of the Family (Murdock)

Sexual: Controls adult sexual relationships within socially acceptable, stable, monogamous, and heterosexual relationships.
Reproduction: Biological reproduction of the next generation for societal continuation.
Socialization: Teaching basic norms and values for the next generation's integration into society and maintenance of social order.
Economic: Meeting members' economic needs (e.g., producing food and shelter).

Functions of the Family (Parsons)

Socialization: Agrees with Murdock on the family's essential role in primary socialization to ensure societal norms are passed to each generation.
Stabilization of Adult Personalities:
- Emotional security achieved within marital relationships.
- Parsons' Warm Bath Theory: Working life in industrial society is stressful; family is a haven where a working man can be destressed by his wife, reducing societal conflict.
- Stabilization is achieved through biologically determined roles:
  - Expressive (emotional support)
  - Instrumental (practical tasks)

Evaluation of Functionalist View

Downplays Conflict: Ignores oppression of women and domestic violence within families.
Outdated: Women's roles have evolved beyond biological roles; they now participate in the workforce.
Deterministic: Assumes automatic adoption of norms and values by family members.
Ignores Family Diversity: Assumes the nuclear family is the best, disregarding the diverse family structures that fulfill the same functions.

Parsons: Internal Criticisms

Best Fit Theory:
- Family structure changes according to societal needs.
- Pre-industrial: Extended families (multiple generations living together).
- Post-industrial: Geographically mobile, isolated nuclear families.
Structural Differentiation: Some functions traditionally performed by the family have shifted to other institutions (e.g., economic function to the welfare state and NHS).

Marxist Views of the Family

Economic Base: Forces and relations of production for necessities and amenities.
Superstructure: Culture, institutions, political power structures, roles, rituals, and state.
Cushioning Effect: Family as a haven from capitalist oppression (similar to Parson’s Warm Bath Theory).
Ideological State Apparatus: Social institutions (education, churches, family, media, trade unions, law) transmit state values.
Marxist View: The family is a tool of capitalism, maintaining capitalism and reinforcing social inequalities.

Functions of the Family (Marxism)

Inheritance of Wealth (Engels):
- The isolated nuclear family allows men to confirm paternity and ensure wealth stays within the family through private inheritance.
- Maintains capitalism by keeping wealth within the private family rather than distributing it amongst the community.
Cushioning Effect (Zaretsky):
- Family acts as comfort from societal stresses.
- Family allows men to feel in control, preventing the proletariat from recognizing oppression and starting a revolution.
Unit of Consumption (Zaretsky):
- Families generate profit for the bourgeoisie.
- Workers are paid less than the value of their products.
- Advertisers target families, urging them to "keep up with the Joneses", with children using "Pester Power" to buy the latest products to avoid bullying.
Socialization (Althusser):
- Family socializes the next generation into the ruling class ideology and the unequal social hierarchy.
- Maintains capitalism by ensuring the next generation accepts the ruling ideology as normal.

Evaluation of Marxist View

Other Functions: Creating the next generation of workers, reserve labor force (women).
Ignores Family Diversity: Focuses solely on the nuclear family, ignoring other family types.
Deterministic: Overemphasizes the family's role in maintaining capitalism, ignoring other inequalities like patriarchy.
Negative View: Ignores positive effects the family can have for its members.
Positives:
- Discusses the nuclear family as a social construct.
- Explains the "dark side of the family."

Feminist Views of the Family

Triple Shift: Three roles women are expected to perform:
1. Emotional support.
2. Domestic labor.
3. Paid work.
Dual Burden: Two traditional roles women are expected to play:
1. Emotional support.
2. Domestic labor.
Patriarchy: Male dominance over women in most societal areas.
Malestream Sociology: Applying research data collected about men to women's lives despite different experiences.
Feminist View: Critical of the family as a tool of female oppression, with the nuclear family serving men's needs more than women's through unequal division of domestic labor and domestic violence.
Gender inequality is a social construction.

Types of Feminism

Liberal Feminism:
- Families are slowly becoming more equal through changes in law and social attitudes.
- Parents are now socializing children in more gender-neutral ways.
Radical Feminism:
- Men are the enemy; marriage and family perpetuate patriarchy.
- Advocates abolishing the family and instituting separatism and political lesbianism.
- Greer: Matrilocal households (all-female households with shared parental responsibility).
Marxist Feminism:
- Capitalism, not men, oppresses women.
- The family oppresses women while supporting capitalism:
  1. Women reproduce the workforce and socialize them into social hierarchy.
  2. Women absorb the anger of men frustrated by alienation and exploitation (Ansley – Women are takers of shit).
  3. Women are a reserve army of cheap labor (e.g., WWII).
Intersectional Feminism:
- Other feminist beliefs focus on nuclear families, but not all families are nuclear.
- Experiences of family life vary among women.
- Black women may find family a refuge from societal racism.

Evaluation of Feminist Views

Liberal Feminism:
- Overstates progress; women still experience the triple shift.
- Fails to challenge the underlying causes of women's oppression.
- Changing the law is not enough; social structures need reform.
Radical Feminism:
- Sommerville argues that radical feminists fail to see that women now have better access to divorce and control over their fertility.
  Separatism is unobtainable due to heterosexual attraction.
Marxist Feminism:
- Women are no longer a reserve labor force due to equal rights at work.
Intersectional Feminism:
- Neglects the shared experiences of women across ethnicity or social class.

Postmodernism and Sociology of Personal Life

Sociology of Personal Life (PLP):
- Key Thinkers: Carol Smart & Petra Nordqvist
- Definition: Extends the definition of family beyond blood and marriage ties.
- Focuses on the meanings behind relationships.
- Individuals choose families based on past experiences rather than open choice.
- Donor-conceived children studies show social relationships are more important than genetic relationships.
- Mothers define motherhood more by raising the child than the cell that started the process.
Other Significant Relationships:
- Friendships (closeness, "like a sister/brother").
- Fictive Kin (close friends treated as relatives).
- Chosen Families (LGBTQ supportive networks).
- Relationships With Dead Relatives (shape identities and actions).
- Relationships With Pets (Tripper: children see pets as part of the family).

Evaluation of Personal Life Perspective

Criticism: Too broad a view may overlook the special nature of relationships based on blood or marriage.
Strength: Helps understand how people construct and define "family" relationships.

Postmodernist View of the Family

Giddens & Beck (Individualization Thesis): Traditional social structures have lost influence over people's actions and decisions.
People used to be defined by ascribed roles (class, gender, religion).
Now, individuals are freed/disembedded from traditional roles and can choose family types to meet their needs.
Giddens: Contraception and female independence caused this transformation and changed couple relationships to "Pure Relationships".
Stacey: Greater freedom and choice have benefitted women, enabling them to break away from patriarchal oppression.
Divorce-Extended Family: Includes ex-in-laws, ex-partners, and new partners, who may still provide financial and domestic support.

Evaluation

Critique (Personal Life Perspective): Exaggerates choice in family matters; traditional structures still influence choices.
People are not entirely disembedded; social context (personal experiences, media) impacts decisions.
Vanessa May: Beck and Giddens idealize white middle-class men.
Carol Smart (Connectedness Thesis): People are social beings in networks of relationships and personal histories that influence choices.

Social Policy and the Family

Social Policies: Laws made by the government to improve society or address social problems.

Views on Social Policies

Ronald Fletcher: Health, education, and housing policies have led to the welfare state, which supports the family in completing its functions.

Types of Social Policy

Material Support: Cash benefits through tax credits and child benefits.
Balancing Work and Family Life: Maternity pay, early years childcare, child protection laws.

Timeline of Social Policies

1980s-1990s (Conservative Policies):
- Aim: Strengthen the traditional nuclear family; emphasize self-help and reliance.
- Reduced welfare payments.
- Examples:
  - Established Child Support Agency (1993).
  - Illegitimate children given the same rights as those born to wedded parents.
  - Children's Act 1989.
  - Married Men’s Tax Allowance.
  - Section 28.
  - Back to Basic.
1997-2010 (New Labour Policies):
- Aim: Favored dual-earning families but also emphasized the heterosexual nuclear family and parental responsibility.
- Some support for alternative family types.
- Examples:
  - Parenting Orders.
  - Longer Maternity Leave.
  - Working families tax credit.
  - The New Deal.
  - Civil Partnerships.
  - Unmarried Couples adoption.
  - Sexuality Discrimination Laws.
2010 Onwards (Coalition Policies):
- Aim: Inconsistent policies due to conflict between modernists and traditionalists.
- Examples:
  - Removed Couples penalty.
  - Shared Parental Leave.
  - Equal Marriage Act.

Other Important Policies

Beverage Report 1942:
- Outline: Introduced Welfare state including housing benefit and the NHS.
- Impact: Shifted some functions from the family to the welfare state.
Divorce Reform Act 1969:
- Outline: Made divorce easier to obtain as Women could file for divorce without proving adultery, abuse or abandonment.
- Impact: Increased family diversity, women's independence, especially single-parent and reconstituted families.
Legalisation of Contraceptive Pill 1967:
- Outline: Made it legal for unmarried women to obtain the contraceptive pill.
- Impact: Women gained control over their bodies and fertility, leading to a decline in the birth rate.

Perspectives on Family Policy

New Right: Social policies have negatively influenced society by promoting family diversity and disintegration.
Feminism: Policies assume a 'normal' patriarchal nuclear family, ensuring its maintenance (e.g., childcare policies, care for the elderly).
Marxism: Family policy is a way for the ruling class to maintain capitalist control and ensure the family continues to support capitalism.

Family Diversity

Family Diversity: Differences between families in terms of structure, organization, and roles.

Rappaports' 5 Types of Family Diversity

Cultural Diversity (C): Cultural differences in family structures (e.g., Asian extended families, Afro-Caribbean matrifocal families).
Life Course Analysis (L): Family structures change throughout life (Hareven).
Organisational Diversity (O): Family structure in terms of members and power structures (e.g., lone parent, empty-nest, nuclear).
Generational Diversity (G): Shared historical experiences shape family structure (e.g., contraceptive pill, WWII).
Social Class Diversity (S): Inequalities impact housing, financial stability, room size, holidays.

Causes of Family Diversity

Changes in Law: Divorce Reform Act, legalisation of contraception, civil partnership act.
Changes in Social Attitudes: Greater acceptance of diverse family structures.
Changing Role of Women: Feminism and equality increased women's independence, leading to more symmetrical families.
Secularisation: Decline in church influence.
Globalisation / Immigration: Rise of dispersed extended families and new family types.
Material Factors: Greater affluence, mobility, women's economic independence, increased lifespan.

Theories of Family Diversity

Theorist	Type	View of Diversity	Explanation
Murdock		Doesn't believe in family diversity	Nuclear family is natural and universal.
Parsons	Functionalism	Functional fit theory – changing structures to meet needs.	Family structure is constantly changing and adapting to meet the needs of society at the present time.
Murray	New Right	Diversity causes societal breakdown.	Only one correct family type – the patriarchal, nuclear family with a clear-cut division of labor between husband and wife (instrumental and expressive).
Stacey	Feminism	Growing diversity is positive for women.	Has allowed women to break away from traditional roles and create family arrangements which meet their needs
Chester	Neo Conventional Family.	Stats are misleading regarding the extent of diversity. Family still plays a central role but is more flexible to meet needs.	The neo-conventional family is becoming more common, which is a nuclear family but with far more equality and symmetry in the division of labor.
Wilmott	Exaggerated	Wilmott believes that family diversity has been exaggerated but family structure has changed to a dispersed extended family.
Brannon		believes that family structures have changed and the new family type is the beanpole family.
Michael Anderson	Anderson argues	that family diversity has always been present.	not just in structure but in terms of power, roles and relationships
Giddens & Beck	Postmodernism	Increasing due to globalisation and choice.	Society has become for individualised due to development of medicine, technology and female equality. Relationships are now based on confluent love or ‘pure relationships’

Cohabitation, Marriage and Divorce

Cohabitation: Two people living together in an intimate romantic relationship.
Marriage: Legally or formally recognized union of two people as partners.
Divorce: Legal dissolution of a marriage.
LAT (Living Apart Together): Couples in a committed relationship or marriage living at separate addresses.

Trends

Cohabitation: Rising, particularly in the 25-34 age range.
Marriage: Generally declining, though there are blips during baby boom eras; the Number of remarriages is rising; the Age of first marriage is also rising.
Divorce: Declining overall but increasing in the over 60s.

Causes of Trends

Changing role of women: Women are independent and delaying getting married financial security so are putting off till later preferring to cohabit first to check compatibility. Women no longer feel trapped in a marriage of not working.
Secularisation: Religious influence has declined.
Social Changes: Expectations of marriage have changed.
Legal Changes: Divorce Reform Act; Same Sex marriage in 2015 are now included in the statistics which could explain the slight rise..
Economic Reasons: Women are economically independent and don't need to marry for security; rising house prices are mean that people will cohabit in order to buy a house before marriage
Postmodern Reasons: The Pure Relationship (Giddens) lead to The quest for the perfect relationships could put people off marriage.
Changes in the family: The roles within the family are becoming more equal

Impact of the Trends

Negative Impacts:
- Wilson and Stuchbury 2010. Cohabitation is less stable than marriage.
- Murphy Children of cohabiting parents are disadvantaged.
- New Right : Divorce erodes society.
Positive Impacts:
- Feminists . Divorce Laws have helped women to gain freedom, independence and social equality.
- Feminists. Cohabitation is a pre- marriage test.
- Cohabitation causes decrease in divorce by 5th anniversary.
- Jon Bernardes (1997). Divorce is less damaging on children then a negative marriage.

Childbearing

Total fertility rate: The number of children who would be born per woman (or per 1,000 women) if she/they were to pass through the childbearing years bearing children according to a current schedule of age-specific fertility rates.

General fertility rate means the total number of live births per 1,000 women of reproductive age (ages 15 to 49 years) in a population per year.

Birth rate means the number of live births per thousand of population per year.
Average family size is defined in terms of the number of children in the household.
Average household size is defined by the number of people residing in a single residence.

Trends and Changes (Stats)

	1900	2012
TFR	4.3	1.83
GFR	115:1000	64:1000
Birth Rate	28:1000	12:1000
Family Size	6	1.7
Household Size	4.6	2.4

Since the advent of safer, legal and effective methods of contraception become available
it has allowed women and couples to control the number of children they have and when
they decide to have them.

Economically Active Women Mothers:

With women going out to work more, men need to h around
the house more in order for chores to get done.
Since the introduction of compulsory education children have gone from being an
economic asset to an economic burden.

Average Family Size is continuing to fall and the average Family contains only 1.7 people,
*Many people now want to have a career of their own rather than care for a large family, compared to before when women’s role was to do so. Also by putting her career first a woman will leave having children till later in life, the average age of first child is currently 30 years old, meaning they have less time to have more children.

Less people die in their childhood than ever before, this means that fewer families are
*compensating by having more children in the hope that 1 or 2 will survive infancy. In 1900 22.5% of live births would die before their 5th birthday where as in 2015 it was 0.5%
Fewer people die in their childhood than ever before, this means that fewer families are
compensating by having more children in the hope that 1 or 2 will survive infancy.

Geographic Mobility :

The modern labour force needs to be very mobile.
*This is an incentive for smaller families because it
makes it easier to just pack up and move
elsewhere
*Modern Couples Are Voluntarily Childless:

Parenthood is a lifelong, stressful commitment,
many couples are now deciding that they do not
want children, whereas before this would have
been a bad thing, it is now accepted in society
The economic Conditions has also Influence couples in
choosing to only have 1 child:

The cost of raising a child is rising every year with
the current estimate at around £235,000 form birth
to 18 and rising to £271,000 if going to 21 and
including university education.

Impact of changing fertility rates Reduction in labour force. Vanishing Children –
Children become more precious
With less people being born gaps are starting to
show in the labour force, meaning that there are
not the people to fill the gaps left by those retiring

Decrease in Full time mothers as there are many childcare
options available including nurseries, grandparents
and breakfast and after-school clubs.

Dependency Ratio :

The dependency ratio is an age-population
ratio of those typically not in the labour force and
those typically in the labour force. With fewer
children being born the ratio becomes
unbalanced due to aging populations

Immigration becomes more important for:
Economic Reasons (Labour)

Economic reasons, immigration becomes more important with
declining birth rates as this will fill gaps in the labour
market
Growth of Bean pole family
Family Policy Studies Centre found that in 2000 1 in 5
women aged 40 had chosen not to have children
compared to 1 in 10 in 1980.

Julia Brannon – the growth of the Beanpole Family Beanpole family into one of the more dominate family types. as
generations are living longer but have fewer
members in each generation

Domestic Division of labour

Instrumental Role:
the rational male role
that is the breadwinner of the family and the
disciplinarian of the family.
Expressive Role:
the emotional and caring
role that is usual carried out by the female in
the family. It includes child care and most of
the domestic labour.
Traditional Views of Domestic Division of labour.

Traditional Views of Domestic Division of labour.
Traditionally couples use to live in separate conjugal roles
with set jobs and routines to complete in and around
the house.
Decision Making in the family refers to the
ways that families determine how
decisions are made in the family.
This can include financial decisions as well
as day to day decisions and life changing
ones.
Families are becoming more equal and democratic
.There is a move away from the separate
conjugal roles of Talcott Parsons and move towards more joint conjugal roles.

March of Progress View: Wilmott and Young.

| Factor | Explanation
|
| ------------------------------- | --------------------------------------
|
|
Economically Active Women /Mothers | With women going out to work more, men need to h around the house more in order for chores to get done.
Decline in the extended family | With fewer family members around to help with things like child care the couple need to be more equal.
Weakening Gender Identities | With the rise of gender neutrality in terms of roles and jobs there is less pressure to conform to traditional roles.
Technology and living standards | New technology such as washing machines and dishwashers as well as smart homes means that some of the jobs that used to be done no longer need to be.
Commercialisation of domestic labour. | As the family has become duel earning, there has been a growth in the domestic labour industry as more families pay for certain tasks to be completed or hire in Au pairs and nannies.

To what extent has the level of change in domestic division of labor been exaggerated?
Yes Duel burden and Triple Shift.
No Wilmott and Young.
Rise of the Symmetrical Family. Acceptance of the interchangeability of role.
Why are Roles Changing
7 out of 10 women of working age now have jobs.
Half of mothers with children aged under five are in work.
36% of couples say that the man is the main carer.
Found even in dual career families women had major responsibility for domestic tasks.
Women do 1/3 more housework than men
due to the partnership penalty and marriage penalty.
British Social Attitudes Survey (1992) – certain household tasks have become more equal than others.
Rapoport and Rapoport (1970) - career women were still viewed as wives and mothers
Ann Oakley Jointly, this does not mean equally, Men participating in domestic tasks are doing so to help their wives.

Decision Making in the family: Money:
Women in low income families will often go without in favour of making sure ends meet as they see money as family money.
Men do not think this way.
Women tend to see their free/Leisure time as time when they are away from both paid work and family commitments.

Consequences of Inequality
Domestic abuse is any incident or series of incidents of physical, psychological or sexual abuse by a current or previous partner
Tthe feminist idea that women have to take on not only paid work outside the home but also the majority of the domestic labour and emotional support of the family.
Impact of family life on career and job prospects

Impact of Triple shift on women:
Radical Feminist
Dobash and Dobash – Domestic violence is evidence of patriarchy
and caused by challenges to male authority.
Radical Feminist
Dobash and Dobash – Domestic violence is evidence of patriarchy
and caused by challenges to male authority.
Marxist Feminist
Wilkinson & Pickett - Domestic violence is the result of stress
on family members caused by social inequality.
Having less resources then others can lead to stress
and violence out of frustration. Lack of time and money can reduce the social
circule and people for support.

The Statistics:

1 incident of domestic violence is reported to the police every minute
On average, 2 women a week are killed by a current or former male partner.
Nearly 1 in 4 women have been assaulted by a partner at some time in their life, and 1 in 8 repeatedly so
Yearshire found that on average a woman suffers 35 assaults before making a report.
state agencies (like police) are reluctant to get involved
in the family because they assume that the family is private, good
The Triple Shift refers to

Childhood

Childhood as a Social Construction. A Child is a difficult term to define, legally it is someone below the age of majority, biologically it is someone before they hit puberty
Childhood is the period of time that a person is considered to be a child.
Explanation / Evidence:
Intra Cultural Differences- In particular Intra Cultural Differences- In particular
class differences.
Inter Cultural Differences – Responsibilities and freedoms
Industrial Era The start of the modern Industrial Era The start of the modern
concept of childhood, but children still concept of childhood, but children still
worked in the factories, were treated worked in the factories, were treated
the same as adults in the CJS.
The same as adults in the CJS. We start to see
we start to see
the development of child protection laws the development of child protection laws
at this time. at this time.
The Future of Childhood The Future that rapid technological change and culture- The Future of Childhood The information hierarchy rapid technological change and culture- The information hierarchymeans
means means. Childhoods is is dissapearing .
The Social Action View of Childhood is the Social Action View of Childhood is

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