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Family diversity and the Life course
Is family diversity good for society?
LO: when you have studied this topic you should:
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Know a range of different sociological views of family diversity
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Understand the difference between modernist and post-modernist approaches to family diversity
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Be able to analyse and evaluate sociological explanations of family diversity
We looked at the range of family types earlier in the course.
•
Take two minutes to write down as many names for different types of families that you can
remember. Explain what each of them mean:
Type of family
definition
Nuclear Family
Diversity
•
There are now fewer households containing a nuclear family and more lone parent families
and one person households than there were in the 1970s. Families have become more
diverse; they vary in structure more than ever before
Our first learning objective is to know a range of different sociological views of family diversity, the
modernist and post modernist views
Modernism or Post-Modernism?
Modernism:
Post Modernism:
What do you think? Which perspective do
you agree with and why?
Write your ideas down here:
The perspective I agree with is:
Because:
A Modernist Perspective
Modernists argue that modern society has a fixed structure and the ‘best’ family type slots into
this structure, helping to maintain it by performing certain essential functions.
According to the Functionalists and the New Right, the best family type is the nuclear family.
Talcott Parsons says there is a ‘functional fit’ between the nuclear family and modern society as
it meets the needs of modern society by being geographically and socially mobile, whilst
socialising children and stabilising adult personalities.
Other family types are seen as abnormal, inadequate, or even deviant as they are less able to
perform the functions required of the family.
The New Right are a group of politicians (John Redwood; Margaret Thatcher) and Sociologists
who see the family as being under threat from government policies. They support traditional
"family values", which can be summarised as
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Two-parent, heterosexual couples are the "natural" or ideal way to raise children and the
only way to provide a stable environment in which to bring up children. Lone parent families
are unnatural and harmful, especially to children.
Traditional patterns of power and division of labour within the family are best for family
members and society. The man should be in charge, and be the breadwinner, whereas the
woman should be the child-rearer and home-maker.
Families should not be reliant on the government for welfare; they should "look after their
own".
A commitment to traditional, often religious morality, especially in matters of sexuality and
reproduction. No sex outside marriage, no gays & lesbians, no single parents!
“Quite frankly, I don’t think that mothers have the same right to go out to work as
fathers do. If the good Lord had intended us to have equal rights to go out to work, he
would not have created men and women. These are biological facts”
Conservative MP Pat Jenkins
Answer the following questions using P71 of the clock book:
1. What did Benson (2006) find out about family breakdown?
2. Amato (2000) supports the idea that family breakdown increases the risks to children. What
evidence does he have?
3. What do conservative politicians and New right thinkers mean by ‘traditional values’?
4. Now read the bottom of page 71 and the top of page 72; What is their opinion of those on
benefits?
5. What name has the current Conservative government given to people who are on benefits
and what do they call those who go out to work?
6. Read the newspaper article below,
a. to what extent do you agree that those on benefits are shirkers?
b. What about those families who have a mixture of paid income and benefits, where
do they fit? Are they shirkers or strivers? Are they undermining traditional values or
supporting them? Where does your family fit?
George Osborne's strivers have a shock in store
The Guardian, Thursday 11 October 2012 19.30 BST
George Osborne announces £10bn further welfare cuts. The strivers who the party is courting will be hit,
too, not just the shirkers. Photograph: Ray Tang/Rex Features
Beware politicians serving up easy distinctions to please and appease their party faithful. This week at the
Conservative conference, the favoured divide was between "strivers and shirkers", a refinement of one of the
oldest tropes in politics – the deserving and undeserving poor.
Devices like these generally work far better in the conference hall than they do in messy real life. But this
particular distinction matters, and not just because it serves to reinforce the prevailing sentiment that
spending on benefits is too generous – it also obscures the real nature of the coming welfare cuts.
Hard attitudes on benefits are expected to soften during economic downturns, but so far this has not
happened. It may be that when the public is confronted with ever more uncomfortable examples of hardship
arising from cuts, then opinion may shift – although I wouldn't bet on that happening anytime soon. What
we can be sure of, however, is that the claim that those who rely on welfare inhabit a
different world to everyone else just doesn't stand up to scrutiny.
Leave to one side the fact that roughly half of what is termed "welfare" goes to the elderly,
largely exempt from any cuts. Zoom in on the working-age population and we see that, even in our era of
high, long-term unemployment, it remains the case that there is great turnover between those moving in and
out of work: seven out of ten of those returning to work had been unemployed for less than six months.
Or consider the lazy conflation of welfare spending with benefits going to those out of work. Threequarters of the six million families receiving tax credits have someone in work. Over the
last few years new housing benefit claims have increasingly come from those in work, not
out of it, as wages have fallen behind rents. And next year's cut in council tax benefit is likely to
be a major blow to the working poor and jobless alike.
All of this means that a working family struggling on a low income – the "strivers" being courted this week
– who've heard the message that George Osborne's proposed £10bn of new "welfare cuts" will be paid for by
the workshy – should prepare themselves for a nasty shock: they'll be paying too.
There is, after all, form on this. The coalition's first welfare cuts were targeted at childcare
support for working parents. Last autumn, working tax credits were frozen even while
inflation soared. Tax-credits for those working part-time were next in line.
Given this pattern, it is remarkable how pliant much of the media have been in conveying the notion that
further cuts will be focused on the workless, when the reality is likely to be more complex. No one should be
surprised if, come the autumn budget statement, we are presented with a headline-grabbing cut
that hurts a relatively small group and yields modest sums – like ending housing benefit
for the childless under-25s – accompanied by a stealthier measure affecting millions of
people and saving billions, such as uprating working-age benefits by less than inflation.
Step back from this week's rhetoric and we see that, in some ways, the fate of the unemployed and
the working poor are becoming more closely bound together. Overall, child poverty has fallen
markedly over the last decade, but the share of working poverty has grown. And higher unemployment has a
powerful chilling effect on wages, far more so now than in the 1980s and 1990s – indeed, the rise in
unemployment since its low point in the mid-2000s is estimated to have reduced the
annual pay of the typical worker by more than £2000. The moral of this story? Securing rising
wages for working people is more dependent than ever on achieving low levels of unemployment – and the
prerequisite for this is stronger demand.
This changed context doesn't, of course, mean that there aren't households with deep
social problems and little or no attachment to the world of work. But let's not elide that
pressing but specific problem, which people across the political spectrum want to address, with the cliched
claim that billions of savings can readily be realised by reining in welfare largesse.
Indeed, given this week's rhetoric, it is a curious and commendable feature of the coalition's troubled
universal credit policy that it unites support for those in and out of work, and in so doing makes it trickier for
future governments to distinguish different categories of claimant.
Being candid about the large swath of people in Britain who rely on some aspect of state support to get by
doesn't make for easy sloganeering or play well in focus groups of swing voters. Rest assured,
however, that when further welfare cuts bite, they will hurt a far bigger chunk of the
country – working as well as workless, south as well as north, supporters of all parties –
than anyone let on this week.
Applying New Right Perspective today
In pairs brainstorm on separate sheets of paper
What would the New Right say about the
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C.S.A.?
About Child Benefit?
About cohabitation now being more popular than marriage?
How would they argue against the Marxists on Domestic Violence,
or the Feminists on Gender Socialisation
or Working Women
There are critics of this view (phew!!)
Oakley –There is great variation in the roles of men and women in families, with evidence from
studies across cultures. She claims that the New Right view of the family is a backlash against
feminist campaigns for women’s equality.
Feminists also argue that this promotion of the nuclear family by the New Right is based on the
patriarchal oppression of women and causes gender inequalities. The nuclear family prevents
women working, making them financially dependent on men and denies them equal say in
decision making.
There is little or no evidence of lone parents being part of the ‘dependency culture’, or that children
brought up in lone parent families are more likely to be delinquent than those brought up in a two
parent family of the same social class.
Chester: Neo-conventional family
Diversity is not as great or as much as a problem that the New Right claim. The traditional or
conventional family is no longer dominant, and now we have the neo-conventional family where
both the man and woman go out to work.
In what way is this similar to the symmetrical family described by Wilmot and Young?
According to Chester, during our lifecycle we live in many different types of families
What happens if you collect data on family types, why do you not get a true picture of people’s
lifecycles?
List the 5 patterns of how people live in their lifecycle identified by Chester
Rapport: five types of family diversity
Rhona and Robert Rapport argue that diversity is of central importance in understanding family life
today. According to them we have moved away from the nuclear family towards a range of family
types which has given us greater freedom of choice and opened us up to different cultures and
ways of life. These differences are not deviant but a response to people’s different needs. They
identify 5 types of family diversity.
Match the family type with their definition. Use p73 to help you.
Family type
Definition
Cultural diversity
Older and younger generations have
different experiences depending on the
historical period in which they have lived.
Organisational diversity
Family structures differ according to the
life stage reached
Generational diversity
Family roles are organised differently
within these families.
Social class diversity
Different cultural, religious and ethnic
groups have a different family structure.
Life-stage diversity
Differences in family structure are due in
part to the income differences between
different classes
A Postmodern Perspective
Postmodernists argue that society has entered a new historical period. In traditional society or
what is called modernity there was a clear order and pattern to social life. For example, the
identity a person had was determined by their social class and gender.
However, in a postmodern society individuals have become much freer to choose the lifestyle
that meets their needs. Faced with many choices families have become more diverse but
relationships have become more unstable.
1. Beck
Ulrich Beck (1992) argues that a new type of family has replaced the traditional nuclear
family. Beck calls this new type the ‘negotiated family’.
Negotiated families do not conform to the traditional family norm, but
decide what is best for themselves by negotiation. They enter the
relationship on an equal basis and are free to leave if their needs are not
meet.
For example, people were expected to marry. Once married, men were
expected to play the role of breadwinner, whilst women took responsibility
for the housework and childcare.
Extract from Webb et al ‘AS Level Sociology’ (2008) p76
Thinking Point 1
Identify three ways in which ‘negotiated families’ differ from ‘traditional nuclear families’.
Modernity (1800 -1950)
Postmodernity (post-1960)
Traditional families
Negotiated families
1. Marriage for life
a.
2. Separate gender roles within
the family
b.
3. Heterosexual relationships
c.
2. Stacey
Judith Stacey argues that economic, technological and social changes have enabled
women to free themselves from the traditional nuclear family.
Many of the women she interviewed in Silicon Valley, California had
rejected the traditional housewife-mother role. They had worked, returned
to education as adults, improved their job prospects, divorced and
remarried. These women had often created new types of family that better
suited their needs.
Extract from Webb et al ‘AS Level Sociology’ (2008) p77
Thinking Point 2
Identify three changes that have enabled women to “free themselves from the narrow limits of the
traditional nuclear family”.
a.
b.
c.
3. Hareven
Tamara Hareven (1978) uses the concept of the life course to argue that family diversity is the
result of the freedom of choice individuals have about how to change their living arrangements
over the span of their lives. As Hareven argues;
“there is flexibility and variation in people’s family lives – in the choices
and decisions they make, and in the timing and sequence of the events
and turning points in their lives.”
Extract from Webb et al ‘AS Level Sociology’ (2008) p74
Thinking Point 3
Identify three ‘branching points’ where during the course of your lifetime you have to make a
decision about the type of family life that best suits your needs.
a.
b.
c.