Families & Households - Diversity

Empty-shell Marriage

"Husbands and wives stay together in name only, there is no longer any love or intimacy between them. This may be done for the sake of the children or religious reasons.

Marriage in Asian families (Muslim, Hindu, Sikh etc)

"Usually arranged, and there is little intermarriage with other religions and cultures.

Duncan + Phillips (2008)

1 in 10 adults are 'living apart together'

blended family

2 nuclear families that have split up merge (or blend) to form a new family (i.e. with step-parents and step-brothers or sisters). Aka reconstituted family

reconstituted family

2 partners living in one household sharing parental duties for one or more children, but only one of them is the biological parent. Aka blended family

Symmetrical Family

A family in which the roles of husbands and wives, although not identical are more similar. There are three elements: Both men and women do paid work, men and women both do houseworkand couples spend their leisure time together rather than separately. Young & Wilmott propose this as part of the March of Progress.

Concealed family

A family living in a multi family household, in addition to the primary family.

Matrifocal Household

A family structure in which mothers are the heads of household and fathers have less power and control in family life and the allocation of resources.

Beanpole family

A family with a long, thin structure. For example, there might be 4 generations alive, but each generation hasn't had many children. This is a 21st century example of an extended family, but its members are more likely to live apart than in the past.

Household

A group of people who live under the same roof, share bills and resources but are not related by blood or legal means.

Living apart together

A living apart together family is where a couple choose not to cohabitate (or are not currently cohabitating). This accounts for approximately 10% of UK adults.

Nuclear Family

A man and a woman and their dependent children, either their own or adopted.

Morgan (1996)

Cannot generlise the meaning of divorce for it is different for everyone

Chamberlin (1999)

Caribbean families in Britain - despite being dispersed geographically provided support through 'multiple nuclear families'

Boomerang family

Children who have left the family home have come back again. The cost and scarcity of housing has made this more common.

Reasons for the rise in cohabitation

Cost of weddings, using it as a pre-marriage test, rise in divorce

Separation

Couples agree to live apart after the breakdown of marriage , particularly in the past when divorce was difficult to obtain.

Feminist view of divorce

Desirable - women are breaking free from patriarchal oppression

Generational diversity (Rapoports)

Different generations have different attitudes to family life. Older generations tended to be more traditional (40 years ago), preferring the classic nuclear family while younger generations had different attitudes.

Increasing divorce - 5 reasons

Divorce reform Act, Secularisation, Less Stigma, Rise in expectations, changing role of women

Interactionist view of divorce

Divorce will mean different things to different people

The Family Law Act 1996

Encourages couples to seek mediation after a period of reflection

Ballard (1982)

Extended family ties provided an important source of support among Asian migrants during the 1950s and 60s

Divorce Reform Act of 1969

Extended the grounds of divorce to irretrievable breakdown ''making divorce possible even if only one partner wanted a divorce.

Organisational diversity (Rapoports)

Families are organised in a range of ways, in terms of the performance of roles. While some are traditional with segregated roles, others are symmetrical with joint roles and others perform roles in other ways (such as roles being segregated in a non-traditional way).

neo-conventional family

Families where there are two adults with children in a household but where it was not necessarily the case that the children were the biological offspring of both adults, that the adults were married, that they had not been married before, that a male was a breadwinner and a female an "expressive leader".

Extended family

Family beyond the traditional nuclear family, incorporating aunts, uncles, and grandparents. In the traditional extended family, members live in the same household, in more modern extended families

Social Class diversity (Rapoports)

Family structure and child-rearing practices are also influenced by social class. There are statistics that show that divorce is more common among those on lower incomes for example

Haskey (2002)

Fast growing group of female single parents made up of those who have never married or cohabited - middle-class career women electing to have children in their late 30s and early 40s and choosing to bring these children up alone.

Rapoport & Rapoport (1982): CLOGS

Five Types of Family Diversity: 1. Cultural Diversity 2. Life-stage Diversity 3. Organisational Diversity 4. Generational Diversity 5. Social Class Diversity . Therefore even in the nuclear family there is greater diversity between families that first suggested

polygamy

Illegal in the UK: you cannot be married to more than one person under UK law. However, there are people who live with more than one partner (not married) and also some people have other spouses in other countries (not recognised by UK law). In some cultures polygamy is seen as a better option than infidelity and is therefore encouraged.

Mitchell + Goody (1997)

Important change in the decline in stigma and attitudes towards divorce

1961 to 2000

Increase in remarraiages (number has doubled)

Never marrieds

Increasing numbers - 7% of women born between 1946 and 1950 = unmarried by 32 versus 28% of those born between 1961 and 1965 (England & Wales)

Allan + Crow (2001)

Love, personal commitment and intrinsic satisfaction are now seen as the cornerstones of marriage. The absence of these is seen as justification for ending the relationship. Also women are now less financially dependent on husband.

1949 legal aid for divorces

Made divorces affordable for females who may have been housewives and financially dependent on the man

step family

Made up of divorced or widowed people who have remarried, and their children from the previous marriage (or cohabitation). Such families are on the increase because of the rise in divorce. About 10 per cent of families are stepfamilies.

Burghes and Brown (1995)

Of the 31 young single mothers interviewed - the majority planned their pregnancy and wanted to stay at home with their children

Wilkinson

One consequence of genderquake is that women today no longer automatically see child-bearing as a priority.

The Essex study (2000)

Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities are more likely to live in old-fashioned nuclear families

Life stage diversity (Rapoports)

People find themselves in different types of families at different points in their lives

PLP view of divorce

Rather than seeing divorce as a major social problem it should be viewed as just 'one transition amongst others, in the life course'

Berthoud

South Asians are more traditional in their family values than Whites. Marriage is highly valued and there is little divorce. This could indicate empty-shell marriages.

De'Ath and Slater (1992)

Step families: Children may have tense relationships with their step-parents, and conflict may arise around the extent to which the step-parent and stepchild accept each other, especially with regard to whether the child accepts the newcomer as a 'mother' or 'father'. Strained relations between step-parents and children may test the loyalty of the natural parent and strain the new marriage. These families may be further complicated if the new couple decide to have children of their own, which may create the potential for envy and conflict among existing children. There is a greater risk of poverty among stepfamilies because there are often more children in this type of family and because the stepfather may also have to support children from previous marriage

Genderquake

The 'radical' difference in attitudes towards family life, child-bearing, education and careers between the generation of young women brought up from the 1980s on with previous generations of women

Same-sex marriage

The Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013, which allows same-sex marriage in England and Wales, was passed by the UK Parliament in July 2013 and came into force on 13 March 2014, with the first same-sex marriages taking place on 29 March 2014

Stonewall (2008)

The campaign for LGBTQ+ rights estimates that about 5-7% of the adult population today have same-sex relationships

Cereal packet family

The ideal family type seen in the media, usually two parents and two children.

Civil Partnership

The legally or formally recognised union of a man and a woman (or in some countries two people of the same sex) in a committed relationship.

Same sex families

The numbers of same-sex couple families have increased substantially in recent years, with an increase of 53.2% from 152,000 in 20151 to 232,000 in 2018. Same-sex cohabiting couple families remain the most common same-sex couple family.

Individualization

There is now more potential for antagonism between men and women because there is a natural clash of interest between the selfishness encouraged by individualization and the selfishness required by relationships, marriage and family life

Empty nest family

This term refers to a household where there is a couple who had children but they have now left the family home.

Single person household

This term refers to people living on their own. In the UK, 34% of households have one person living in them. The increase in separation and divorce has created more one personal household, especially amongst men under 65.

Co-habitation

Two people living together in the same household in an emotionally intimate, committed relationship without being officially married. Approximately 3% of families in the UK are cohabiting couples

New Right view of divorce

Undesirable, breaks up the traditional family, leaves boys without male role models, creates an underclass of lone female parent families dependent on the welfare system

Negotiated Families

Vary according to the wishes and expectations of their members, who decided what is best for them by discussion. Negotiated families are more equal than traditional nuclear families, but more unstable. This is the typical type of family in postmodern society. (Beck)

Serial Monogamy

Where an individual has a string of committed relationships, one after the other.

Child bearing changes

Women are having children later (this links with women getting married later and having careers) • Women are having fewer children • A higher proportion of women are choosing not to have children (approximately a quarter of women today will not have children) • More than 40% of children are born outside marriage (this links with increasing numbers of couples choosing to cohabit rather than get married) Currently it would appear that these trends will continue for the foreseeable future. While they mostly link to changes in marriage, they also relate to broad social change, such as: • Secularisation • Changing role of women in society

Sigle-Rushton (2007)

Working mothers are more likely to divorce than women with traditional divisons of labour

Robert Chester (1985)

coined the phrase 'neo-conventional' family

Berthoud

African Caribbean mothers choose to live alone because they rationally decide that the fathers of their children are economically unreliable and potentially a financial burden

Chamberlain & Goulborne (1999)

African-Caribbean single mothers are more likely to be supported by extended kinship in their upbringing of children, e.g. Aunts, cousins, neighbours and friends.

Cultural diversity (Rapoports)

As a result of the UK being a culturally diverse society, so so there is a diversity of family structures as a result. For example: African Caribbean families are more likely to be matrifocal + Some Asian households are more likely to include extended family members

Julia Brannen (2003)

Beanpole families may partly be the result of two demographic changes: Increased life expectancy (grandparents surviving longer) and Smaller family sizes (fewer siblings, therefore fewer horizontal ties)

Bell (1968)

Both working class and middle class families had emotional bonds with extended familiy and relied on them for support

Postmodern view of divorce

Give people the freedom to choose what they want - creates family diversity

Finch and Mason (1993)

Half of their sample had cared for a sick relative in their extended famliy. Many people still feel obligated to help their wider extended kin.

Functionalist view of divorce

High divorce rates do not show that marriage as an institution is under threat - just shows that people have high expectations. Remarriage rates back this up.

Fletcher (1966)

Higher expections people place on marriage today are a major cause in raising divorce rates

African-Caribbean families

Higher proportion of lone parent families than whites -50%+ are lone parent.

Heidi Safia Mirza (1997)

Higher rate of lone-parent families among blacks reflects the high value that black women place on independence.

Decreasing marriage - 5 reasons

Secularisation, Less Stigma, Changing role of women, Changing attitutes, Fear of divorce

Barnard (1997)

Sees the growing numbers of women petitioning for divorce as evidence that women are becoming more confident in rejecting patriarchal oppresion

1972 to 2000

Significant decline of marriages

Lone parent family

single parent family