changing family patterns-

changing family patterns-

1. divorce

   • changes in the position of women
     • less financially dependent, paid better (similar to men), equal pay and anti discrimination laws help narrow the pay gap. girls' greater success in education.
   • secularisation
     • the decline in the influence of region in society. sociologists argue that religious institutions and ideas are losing their influence. as a result churches carry less weight in society and people are less likely to be influenced.
   • declining stigma and changing attitudes
     • stigma refers to the negative label, social disaproval or shame attatched to a person, action or relationship. in the past divorce and divorcees have been stigmatised.
   • rising expectations of marriage
     • functionalist sociologist such as fletcher argue that the high expectations placed on marriage today are a major cause of rising divorce rates.
   • changes in the law
     • equalising the grounds for divorce between the sexes, widening the grounds for divorce and making divorce cheaper

2. partnerships

   • marriage
     • fewer people are marrying. marriage rates at their lowest since the 1920's. however there are more remarriages, people are marrying later, and church/religious weddings are less common at 35% compared to 60% in 1981.
   • cohabitation
     • it's an unmarried couple in a sexual relationship living together. over 2 million cohabitating couples in Britain. the number of cohabiting couples is expected to double again in 2021
   • same-sex relationships
     • about 5-7% of the adult population have same-sex relationships. increase social acceptance of same-sex relationships in recent years.
   • one-person households
     • big rise in the number of people living alone-2006 3/10 households contained only one person nearly 3x the figure for 1961. half of all one person households are people of pensionable age.

3. parents and children

   • childbearing
     • over 4 in every 10 children are now born outside marriage, women are having children later, women are having fewer children than in the 20th century and more women are remaning childless.
   • lone-parent families
     • lone-parent families now make up 24% of all families, 1 child in 4 lives in a lone-parent family, over 90% of these families are headed by lone mothers and a child living with a lone-parent is more likely to be in poverty than those living with 2 parents.
   • stepfamilies
     • stepfamilies account over 10% of all families with dependent children in Britain, in 86% of stepfamilies at least one child is from the womens previous relationship and 11% from the mans previous relationship and 3% from both partners.
       • Ferri and Smith found that stepfamilies are very similar to first families in all major respects.

4. ethnic differences in family patterns

   • black families
     • black caribbean and black african people have a higher proportion of lone parent households
   • asian families
     • bangladeshi, pakistani and indian households tend to be larger than those of other ethnic groups. at 4.5,4.1 and 3.3 persons per housholds respectively compared with 2.3 for both black caribbean and white british housholds and 2.4 for the population as a whole.

5. the extended family today

   • charles study of swansea found that classic three generation family all living together under one roof is now "all but extinct"
   • however while the extended family may have declined it has not entirely disappeared. Wilmott argues it continues to exist as a 'dispersed extended family' where relatives are geographically separated but maintain contact through visits and phonecalls.