SOC 411 Final Exam

Adults' Happiness

A British study suggests that divorce outcomes for adults show lower levels of stress after the divorce is final.

Stepsibiling (Stepbrother or Stepsister)

The child (son or daughter) of one's stepparent

Stepchild

The child of one's spouse or committed partner

Social Diversity

The condition of difference in experiences or characteristics of people in a population

Types of Work

- Market Work - Housework - Care Work

Modern Identities

- Diversity and Choices - Evaluating and Reflecting - Live and Let Live?

Family Violence: An Institutional Perspective

- Family violence often involves secrecy and isolation. - Many family members feel as if they are alone in their experience. - Family violence is often invisible to outsiders. - Not just an individual problem but a systemic one

Total Fertility Rate (TFR)

- The number of children born to the average woman in her lifetime. - 2.1 is a replacement fertility rate - Above 2.1, the population usually grows - Below 2.1, the population usually shrinks - Around 2.1, the population remains the same - U.S. has a TFR around 1.9

Who remarries?

1/3 of all Americans are likely to be remarried

Annulment of Marriage

A legal or religious determination that the marriage was never valid

Conservative: The Singular Ideal

- Conservative attitudes toward family diversity have mainly focused on promoting traditional family values. - The policies are not very successful in curtailing diversity in the family and in fact, can be harmful because of the stigma they promote and encourage.

Protective Factors for Children

- Coping Skills, Interpersonal Skills, and Self-Confidence - Economic, Educational, or Other Resources That Help Families Buffer Children - Attentive Parenting from Mothers and Fathers Improve Children's Happiness and Well-Being, Diminished Conflict, and Continued Involvement of Both Parents After the Divorce

Cohabitation and Engagement

- Couples who cohabitate and are engaged are less likely to divorce compared to non-engaged couples who cohabitate. - Whether or not couples cohabitated before marriage did not affect the probability of divorce.

Marital Rape

Rape within marriage

Incest

Sex between close relatives

Parenting

The activity of raising a child

Intensive Motherhood

- Cultural pressure on women to devote more time, energy, and money to raising their children - This is from Sharon Hays' book The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood - From the 1960s to the 1990s, it was a period where women's employment grew rapidly - the time spent with their children actually increased - This is because mothers now have less leisure time and sleep

Aging and Fertility

- Demographic transition: the historical change from a society with low life expectancy and high birth rates to one with high life expectancy and low birth rates - The demographic transition results into increased longevity of the old and need to support them.

Parent

An adult intimately responsible for the care and rearing of a child.

Independence Effect

An employed woman is likely to leave marriage if she is unhappy

Services for Domestic Violence Victims

- The feminist movement has created a variety of services to help women prevent or cope with family violence. - These include hotlines, shelters, legal counseling, and so on (Dugan, Naginb & Rosenfeld, 2003).

Blended Family

Any family that includes stepparents, stepsiblings, or half-siblings

Work-Family Conflict

The conflict that occurs when the time demands, strains, or obligations of work or family roles make it difficult to fulfill obligations in either role

Early Childhood Care

The cost of child care and the time required to manage it are a major impediment to parents' careers in the early years of parenthood.

Marital Dissolution

The end of a marriage through permanent separation or divorce

Race and Ethnicity (Unmarried Parents)

- American Indian, African-American, and Puerto Rican families are more likely to include single-parent households. - Latino have high TFR because of reasons including immigration, young adult demographics, and religion.

Involved Father Ideal

The father as an emotional, nurturing companion who bonds with his children as well as providing for them

Inequality (Between Families)

- Among those with less education, they are less likely to get married and more likely to divorce. - Low income families have more children than high income families. - Health - Time - Social Acceptance

Religion (Diversity)

- At birth - At Marriage - As Parents - End of Life

Separation

The formal or informal separation of married spouses into different households

Most common of Divorce

- Blacks and American Indians have the higher rates of divorce. - Those who have been married three or more times are more likely to divorce. - The probability of divorce is highest in the first four years of marriage.

Child Abuse and Neglect

- Child abuse and neglect include a range of behaviors. - Includes both deliberate acts and failure to protect or provide for children (neglect) - This is a problem that is a systemic feature of American families. - It is not universal, however. - Not just an individual experience - The act or failure to act on the part of a parent or caretaker that results in (or puts children at imminent risk for) physical or emotional harm, sexual abuse, or exploitation - Neglect can include parents not providing adequate food and shelter for their children. Neglect also includes parenting failure to take their child to school consistently

The Divorce Revolution

- 1960-1980 - Marriage considered voluntary contract and divorce can happen for any reason - Generation with highest divorce rate on record is the Baby Boomers

Inequality

- African American children are more likely to live single-mother households - Single-mother families have fewer resources and lower incomes, contributing to inequality between family types. - Single-parents have more disruptions in living arrangements

Economic Status

- After a divorce, women's income, on average, decreases. - The likelihood of women and children to live in poverty is called the "the feminization of poverty."

Consequences of Family Violence

- Despite the declines in family violence, it still exists and is pervasive. - Its consequences are serious and can be deadly. - Family violence is usually intimate or sexual and may be repeated in patterns over a long period of time. - It is also often initiated in childhood. - Family violence can contribute to shame and stigma in addition to physical injury. - The effects of abuse are often first observed through an individual's behavior (Woodruff & Lee). - Children of abuse are at risk for later behavioral problems and difficulties. - Consequences can include (but are not limited to) drug abuse, depression, weight or sleep problems, and so on (S. P. Thomas & Hall, 2008). - In general, family violence can contribute to long-term mental health consequences for everyone in the family. - Future Intimate Relationships

Government Action (What Gives?)

- Family Leave - Working Time

What is Family Violence?

- Family violence and abuse include several kinds of harm caused by family members against other family members. - Includes both indirect and direct violence - Indirect violence and abuse may include threats of force or intimidation and neglect. - Violence and abuse can be different but are not always mutually exclusive (for example, sexual assault is both violent and abusive). - Family violence can be defined by the relationship between victims and perpetrators.

Future Intimate Relationships (Consequences of Family Violence)

- Family violence can create a cycle of continued violence, suffering, and unhappiness. - The experience of abuse has an impact on future relationships. - Survivors of abuse have a higher rate of risky sexual behavior and reduced likelihood of establishing healthy, long-lasting relationships. - Sexual abuse survivors are less likely to marry and more likely to cohabitate. - However, women are now more likely to end abusive relationships than in the past. - There is an increasing acceptance of divorce. - Families are a source of both pain and suffering, but also a source of strength and resilience.

Diversity

- Fifty years ago, the dominant household arrangement for children is two married parents. - Now, it is more diverse.

Reason for not getting a divorce

- For the children's sake - Church and state

Diversity in American family life

- Household Types - Racial-Ethnic Identity - Age at First Marriage (Men Only) - Religious Preference

Feminist Perspectives

- How is it possible that violence and abuse are so prevalent in the institution of the family when the family unit is so glorified and respected? - Why is there so must systemic suffering? - Feminist explanations for family violence and abuse emphasize the overlapping institutional arenas and male domination.

Decisions Modern Families Must Face

- How to divide the housework and care work within the family - When to pay for household services instead of doing the housework themselves - When to take care of children at home versus using child-care services

Time Use Studies

- In 1965, women performed four times as much in child care and housework compared to men. - In 2010, women performed two times as much as men, cutting by half. - Men, from 1965 to 2010, performed twice as much child care and housework.

Social Change (Gender Balance)

- In a labor market where men usually earn more than women, that encourages couples to decide that wives should stay home with the children - A relatively low-wage and low-cost service economy permits women who have their own earnings to avoid housework that their husbands are unwilling to do - A variety of government policies that affect employment, such as offering paid leave or subsidized child care, which can also affect how couples divide their labor - A pattern of gender socialization that affects how men and women feel about the division of labor within their families, their ambitions, and their ideals for family life

Work

- In recent decades, the most sociological change to family is the movement of women's work from their families to the paid labor force. - The exertion of effort to produce or accomplish something

Domestic Violence Courts

- In recent times, special domestic violence courts have been created in an attempt to prevent domestic violence. - These courts employ specially trained staff, including judges. - They advocate a problem-solving approach, as opposed to a punitive one (Mirchandani, 2005).

Violence in Lesbian and Gay Relationships

- Intimate partner violence is similar for homosexuals and heterosexuals. - Both lesbian and straight women are both more likely to experience violence than either gay or straight men. - However, legal protections and social services may not be as widely available to homosexual victims as they are to heterosexual victims.

The Context of Violence (4 principle patterns)

- Johnson and Ferraro (2000) identified four principal patterns (next four slides): 1. common couple violence 2. intimate terrorism 3. violent resistance 4. mutual violent control

Divorce Stressors for Children

- Less Parental Time and Energy - Losing Contact with One - Parent for Periods of Time - Witnessing or Being Part of Conflicts - Residential Moves, Job and School Transitions, and Economic Hardship

Interventions

- Local and state governments have created and tried a wide variety of criminal justice approaches to the problem of domestic violence (Koss, 2000.) - Even though the level of family violence has declined, researchers are uncertain as to the causes of this decline and cannot say that progress is a result of any of the following approaches.

Court-Ordered Treatment

- Many courts require perpetrators to undergo court-ordered psychological counseling or other treatment as part of or in addition to their punishment. - These programs are often low quality and have a low success rate.

Patterns of Abuse and Neglect

- More cases of child abuse are perpetuated by mothers than any other group. - Those who live with parents who have their own mental health problems, poor impulse control and low self-esteem, or a history of violence - Those who live with parents who have their own mental health problems, poor impulse control and low self-esteem, or a history of violence - Those in households where domestic violence occurs between adults - Those in poor families or poor neighborhoods Those in families with weak support networks

Childbearing Trends

- Most U.S. families have one to three children; two is the average. - In the past few decades, the most important change is the number of parents who have children outside of marriage. - This trend is tied to the decline in marriage. - There is also a trend toward single motherhood. - About a third of unmarried parents are actually living together (cohabiting) at the time of the birth. - While fewer parents are married now than in the past, many children are involved with more than two parents. - The number of women reaching age 45 without having any children has doubled since the 1980s.

Systematic Abuse

- Not all men commit rape and not all women are victims, but the experience is common enough that is part of structural male domination - Abuse is often underreported and undercounted - Women may be considered "damaged goods." - A common feature with male-female relationships is that men often act with threats or mild violence instead of extreme violence. - Women do not report rape because they may think it is their fault or no one will believe them.

The Meaning of Childhood

- Parents have fewer children than the past and invest more in those fewer children - Viviana Zelizer says that are children viewed more for their emotional worth than economic worth - Raising children is often expected to give emotional and symbolic rewards

Competition and Insecurity

- Parents have increasing anxiety about the job they are doing and the quality of their parenting. - Their anxiety is exacerbated by the growing perception of economic insecurity and the increased necessity of higher education.

Mandatory Arrest or Pro-Arrest Rules

- Police often leave the scene of a domestic violence incident without making an arrest - Mandatory arrest and pro-arrest rules require law enforcement to separate couples, convince the victim to press charges or make an arrest.

Work (What Gives?)

- Reduce Worker Hours - Make Worker Hours More Flexible - Establish Family Supports By Employers

Intimate Partner Violence

- Researchers have started grouping various types of violence between adults together. - Since family relationships have grown increasingly diverse and complex, there are a few different terms used in this area. - Domestic violence has been used a long time to refer to any violence within families. That term is less common now. - Feminists use the term violence against women to refer to domestic partner violence committed by men against women. - Cohen uses the term intimate partner violence.

Common Outcomes for Children

- Short-term Emotional or Behavioral Reactions or School Problems - Permanent Emotional Changes - New Roles and Identities in the Family or Social Environment

Religious Authority

- Some feminists argue that the experience of sexual violence is common enough that it constitutes a structural part of male domination. - The sexual abuse scandals in the Catholic Church revealed that individual priests committed crimes against boys and young men, while the religious institution covered up the crimes to protect its own interests.

Violent Resistance

- Sometimes when an intimate partner is the victim of violence or a pattern of violence, she or he may lash out in response. - It may involve self-defense, but it also may not meet the legal definition of self-defense (which requires an immediate threat).

Aging and Fertility - Addressing the results of the demographic transition

- The Rising Labor Force Participation of Women - Longer, Healthy Life

Declining Violence

- The United States has experienced sharp decreases in violent crimes since the 1990s. - Family violence has seen a similar decreased - The reasons for this are not clear but it is a dramatic decreased - The increase of shelters and hotlines for abused women and children and in domestic violence legal services may have made it easier for women to gain protection or distance from their abusive partners - Women's increased economic independence and the greater acceptance of divorce have made it easier for many women to leave abusive relationships, which could reduce the risk of violence - A decline in the number of married or cohabitating adults may have reduced violence simply by reducing the number of people exposed to potentially violent partners

Gender Division of Labor

- The allocation of work between men and women in society. - Currently, women do more housework and care work than men and women are concentrated in certain paid occupation areas.

Diversity Index

- The condition of difference in experiences or characteristics of people in a population - Index is from 0 (no diversity) to 1 (everyone is different).

Infertility

- The failure of a couple to have a successful pregnancy despite deliberately having sex without contraception - Demographers us a time period of 12 months of sex without contraception - World rate is 9%; U.S. rate is 7%.

Male Provider Ideal (Fatherhood)

- The father as an economic provider and authority figure for his children - Until the 1960s, this was the dominant conception of what a father should be

The Context of Violence

- The meaning behind intimate partner violence statistics are difficult to interpret because they reflect diverse types of relationships and different kinds of violence. - Some findings indicate that men are much more likely to perpetrate violence within their relationships. - Women are more likely to be seriously killed or injured than men. - Michael Johnson (2006) created a framework that puts acts of violence into a broader pattern within the relationship (whether violence occurs at random, occurs frequently, etc.)

Elder Abuse

- The physical, sexual, or emotional abuse of old people by someone with whom they share an intimate or caring relationship with - The most common form of elder abuse is neglect - Most elderly who report abuse are abused by other family members

Unmarried Parents

- The rise in the number of unmarried parents is closely related to the decline of marriage. - Since the 1980s, marriage has declined more than childbearing. - This has caused an increase in the number of unmarried parents. - Young adults, with children, who are not ready or willing to marry - Single older women who decide to have children - Divorced adults with children - Gay and lesbian couples, with children, who are not married

Children

- This category includes: biological children, stepchildren, foster children, and adopted children. - Any child who relies on an adult for intimate care, generally in the home

Elders

- This category includes: older family members, usually parents or in-laws. - These family members may or may not rely on their children for support.

Intimate Terrorism

- This is a less common pattern. - Violence is a part of a campaign for control or domination within a relationship. - This is more likely to involve escalating violence and serious injury. - It also is likely to involve psychological abuse and fears from partners.

Common Couple Violence

- This is the most common form of violence (as indicated in the name). It results from specific arguments within a couple. - It does not involve a pattern of escalating violence over time. - For the most part, it does not involve frequent attacks or severe injuries. Involves pushing and shoving between couples during arguments.

Mutual Violent Control

- This type of intimate partner violence is rare. - It involves both partners fighting (usually violently) for control and domination of the relationship.

Living without Children

- Those who experience infertility are childless. - Those who choose not to have children are childfree. Though those experience infertility may start to label themselves as childfree.

What is Family Violence?

- Two elements are usually present in the relationship between victims of violence and perpetrators of violence: - Intimacy - A care relationship

Civil Protection Orders

- Under certain conditions (usually very strict), after a spouse or partner is physically abused by the other partner, she or he may be able to obtain a legal order from a judge prohibiting contact between the abused and the abuser or imposing harsher sentences if more violence occurs - Research has shown that these measures need to be adequately applied and enforced if they are to be effective (Klein, 2009).

Gay and Lesbian Parents

- Very small number - less than 1 percent of children are actually part of same-sex couple families. - In part because of legal, technological, and financial obstacles, GL parents are unusually committed to parenting.

Who is at greatest risk?

- Women are at much greater risk of rape and of violence that causes serious injury - Women with less income and education report experiencing greater levels of violence - Relationships that involve drug or alcohol abuse are more likely to be violent - Women in cohabitating relationships are more likely to experience violence than those who are married - For serious violence, women face higher risks shortly after they have left their abusers

Housework

- Work to maintain a household's functions - Second shift is the care work and housework women tend to do in addition to the paid labor force work. - Care work and housework is increasingly performed as unpaid work.

Families in the Face of Inequality

- Young Adults Living with Their Parents - Grandchildren Living with Their Grandparents - Lower class grandparents more likely to take care of grandchildren - Grandparents take care of grandchildren out of family loyalty

Couples are more likely to divorce when:

- they describe themselves as unhappy in their marriages. - they spend less time alone with each other. - they disagree frequently about household tasks, money, time together, sex, and in-laws. - they have heated arguments, shout at, or hit each other.

Care Relationship

A relationship in which one person is responsible for another's care

Intimacy

A type of relationship in which people love or at least know each other very well and interact in private

Intersectionality

Black women are most likely to experience abuse, and are less able on average to protect themselves because of access to resources that are more readily available in wealthier communities.

Experience of divorce as a child

Children of divorced parents are more likely than average to divorce

Income Effect

Decreases the likelihood of divorce as income increases

Social Change

Diversity and increased inequality show broader social change.

Least Common of Divorce

Divorce is least common among those with college or advanced degrees.

Refined Divorce Rate

Divorce rate among married couples

Crude Divorce Rate

Divorce rate in the whole population

Rape

Forced vaginal, anal, or oral penetration or attempted penetration of a person without his or her consent

Unintended Pregnancies

Half of all pregnancies considered "unintended" with large proportion in lower class.

System of Care

How a society accomplishes the necessary care work and housework

Abortion

Low-income women are most likely to have an abortion.

Likelihood of Divorce

Marriages in younger age groups are more likely to end in divorce compared to marriages in older age groups.

Occupational Gender Segregation

Men and women having jobs in separate occupations

Transitions

Moving into a new family social structure like moving in with grandparents because of financial strains.

Liberal: Tolerance of Diversity

Not necessarily against the traditional form of the family, but also are accepting of diversity

Challenges for Blended Families

One of out of Six Children live in Blended Families

Adoptive Parents

People who are parents to a child they did not produce biologically.

Biological Parents

The adults whose bodies - including the father's sperm and the mother's egg - produce a child.

Divorce-Marriage Ratio

Probability that a married couple get divorced, around 41-50 percent

Three broad categories of skills and resources parents give to their children:

Socialization Social Bonds Social Networks

Half-Sibling (Half-brother or Half-Sister)

The biological child of one's parent and another person

Divorce

The legal dissolution of marriage according to the laws of the state

Fertility

The number of children born in a society or among a particular group.

Family Paths and Types (Diversity)

The peak of American family conformity occurred at the end of the 1950s.

Opportunity Cost

The price one pays for "choosing" the less lucrative of available options.

Age Structure

The relative number of people of each age in a population

Boundary Ambiguity

The situation in which family members do not know or do not agree on who is in the family and what role each person plays

Stepparent

The spouse or committed partner of one's biological or adoptive parent

Intimate Partners

This category includes: spouses, cohabitating partners, romantic or sexual partners, former partners after a breakup, and so on.

Male Domination

Through beliefs or actions, men are expected to have power over women within families

Sexual Assault

Unwanted penetration or touch by force or threat of force, without consent

Intimate Partner Violence (Definition)

Violence between partners who are (or were) involved in a sexual or romantic relationship

The Motherhood Penalty

Women earn less when they have children.

Education (Unmarried Parents)

Women with lower levels of education have more children.

Market Work

Work done by employees for pay

Care Work

Work performed face-to-face for the purpose of enhancing the capabilities of another person

Defamilialization

to free people from family dependency and make family relationships more voluntary