AQA Sociology - Family and Households

Question	Answer
Instrumental Role	The husband has this role, geared towards achieving success at work so that he can provide for the family financially. He is the breadwinner.
Expressive Role	The wife has the expressive role, geared towards primary socialisation of the children and meeting the family's emotional needs. She is the homemaker, a full-time housewife rather than a wage earner.
Seperated Conjugal Roles	W
Segregated conjugal roles	f
March of Progress	Like Young and Willmot, some sociologists take the 'march of progress' view on the evolution of the family. They argue that women going out to work is leading to a more equal division of labour at home. In this march of progress view, men are becoming more involved in housework and childcare just as women are becoming more involved in paid work outside the home.
Symmetrical Family	Young and Willmott take the 'march of progress' view of the history of the family. They see family life as gradually improving for all its members, becoming more equal and democratic. They argue that there has been a long-term trend away from segregated conjugal roles and towards joint conjugal roles and the 'symmetrical family'.
Patriarchal	f
Dual Burden	Women have to carry the tasks of paid work as well as all the domestic work. - This is a feminist view
Triple Shift	Jean Duncombe and Dennis Marsden (1995) argue that women have to perform a 'triple shift' of housework, paid work and emotion work.
Division of Labour	The cultural or ideological explanation of inequality - In this view, the division of labour is determined by patriarchal norms and values that shape the gender roles in our culture. Women perform more domestic labour simply because that is what society expects them to do and has socialised them to do. The material or economic explanation of inequality - In this view, the fact that women generally earn less than men means it is economically rational for women to do more of the housework and childcare while men spend more of their time earning money.
Cultural explanation	Gershuny (1994) found that couples whose parents had an equal relationship are more likely to share housework equally themselves. This suggests parental role models are important. He argues that social values are gradually adapting to the fact that women are now working full-time, establishing a new norm that men should do more domestic work.
Material explanation	Kan - found that for every £10,000 a year more a woman earns, she does two hours less housework per week.
Gender scripts	Dunne believes that heterosexuals are under pressure to conform to deeply ingrained masculine or feminine 'gender scripts' by performing different kinds of domestic takes that confirm their gender identities, By contrast, lesbian relationships household tasks are not linked to particular gender scripts. This allows lesbian couples to create an equal relationship.
The Allowance System	Where men give their wives an allowance out of which they have to budget to meet the family's needs, with the man retaining any surplus income for himself.
Pooling	Where both partners have access to income and joint responsibility for expenditure; for example, a joint bank account.
Personal life perspective	The personal life perspective focuses on the meanings couples give to who controls the money. From this perspective, the meanings that money may have in relationships cannot be taken for granted.. For example, while we assume that one partner controlling the money is a sign of inequality in the relationship, for some couples it may not have this meaning.
Social construct	f
Cross-cultural differences	A good way to illustrate the social construction of childhood is to take a comparative approach - that is, to look at how children are seen and treated in other times and places than our own. - They take responsibility at an early age - Less value is placed on children showing obedience to adult authority - Children's sexual behaviour is often viewed differently.
Child protection and welfare	- Laws restricting child labour and excluding children from paid work - The introduction of compulsory schooling - Child protection and welfare legislation - The growth of the idea of children's rights - Declining family size and lower infant mortality rates - Children's development became the subject of medical knowledge - Laws and policies that apply specifically to children.
Toxic childhood	As against the view that the position of children now is better than it has ever been, some writer suggests that children in the UK today are experiencing what Sue Palmer calls 'toxic childhood'.
Age Patriarchy	Inequalities between adults and children.
New Sociology of childhood	The views we have examined so far see childhood as socially constructed; that is, shaped by social processes such as industrialisation, laws and government policies, and institutions such as the family and education system.
Functional fit	Parsons' 'functional fit' theory Apart from the functions identified by Murdock, the family may meet other needs too. For example, it may perform welfare, military, political or religious functions. In the view of Talcott Parsons, the functions that the family performs will depend on the kind of society in which it is found.
Primary socialisation	Takes place in the early years of life occurs largely within the family, where we learn language, basic skills and norms.
Stabilisation of adult personalities	- Stable satisfaction of the sex drive - Reproduction of the next generation -Socialisation of the young - Meeting its members' economic needs
The 'warm bath' theory	Parsons believes that the family unquestionably benefits individuals and society. He uses the idea of the 'warm bath' to represent the home and family. The husband worries about competition, money, job insecurities and takes these strains.
Ideological functions	Marxists argue that the family today also performs key ideological functions for capitalism. By 'ideology', Marxists mean a set of ideas or beliefs that justify inequality and maintain the capitalist system by persuading people to accept it as fair, natural or unchangeable.
Unit of consumption	Capitalism exploits the labour of the workers, making a profit by selling the products of their labour for more than it pays them to produce these commodities.
Liberal feminists	Liberal feminists are concerned with campaigning against sex discrimination and for equal rights and opportunities for women. - They argue that women's oppression is being gradually overcome through changing people's attitudes and through changes in the law such as the Sex Discrimination Act, which outlaws discrimination in employment.
Marxist feminists	Marxist feminists argue that the main cause of women's oppression in the family is not men, but capitalism. Women's oppression performs several functions for capitalism: - Women reproduce the labour force - Women absorb anger - Women are a reserve army of cheap labour
Radical feminists	Argue that all societies have been founded on patriarchy - rule by men. - Men are the enemy - The family and marriage are the key institutions
Difference feminists	The feminist approaches we have considered so far all tend to assume that most women live in conventional nuclear families and that why to share a similar experience of family life.
Demography	The study of populations and their characteristics is called demography. These characteristics include: - Size - Age Structure - Births - Deaths - Immigration - Emigration
Child-centredness	The increasing child-centredness both of the family and of society as a while means that childhood is now socially constructed as a uniquely important period in the individual's life.
Dependency Ratio	The dependency ratio is the relationship between the size of the working or productive part of the population and the size of the non-working or dependent part of the population. Vanishing children - Falling fertility rates mean fewer children. As a result, childhood may become lonelier experiences as a fewer children will have siblings, and more childless adults may mean fewer voices speaking up in support of children's interests.
Public services	A lower birth rate has consequences for public services. For example, fewer schools and maternity and child health services may be needed.
Death rate	- Improved nutrition - Medical improvements - Smoking and diet - Public health measures - Other social changes
Life expectancy	Life expectancy refers to how long on average a person born in a given can expect to live. As death rates have fallen, so life expectancy has increased. For example: - Males born in England in1900 could expect on average to live until they were 50 - Males born in England in 2013 can expect to live for 90.7 years
Infant mortality	The IMR measures the number of infants who die before their first birthday, per thousand babies born alive, per year.
Ageing population	The average age of the UK population is rising. In 1971, it was 34. By 2013, it stood at 40.3. By 2037, it is projected to reach 42.8.
Ageism	One consequence of the ageing population in modern society is the growth of ageism - the negative stereotyping and unequal treatment of people on the basis of their age.
Migration	In addition to natural change, the other factor affecting the size and age of the population is migration.
Net Migration	Is the difference between the numbers of immigrants and the numbers of emigrants, and is expressed as a net increase or a net decrease due to migration.
Immigration	From 1900 until the Second World War, the largest immigration group were the Irish, mainly for economic reasons, followed by Eastern and Central European Jews, who were often refugees fleeing persecution, and people of British descent from Canada and the USA. Very few immigrants were non-white
Emigration	From as early as the mid-16th century until the 1980s, the UK was almost always a net exporter of people: more emigrated to live elsewhere have gone to the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. - Push factors - Pull factors
Feminisation of migration	In the past, most migrants were men. Today, however, almost half of all global migrants are female. This has been called the globalisation of the gender division of labour, where female migrants find that they are fitted into patriarchal stereotypes about women's roles as career or providers of sexual services.
Hybrid identities	Migrants may develop hybrid identities made up to two or more different sources. John Eade found that second generation Bangladeshi Muslim in Britain created hierarchal identities: they saw themselves as Muslim first, then Bengali, then British.
Transitional identities	According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen, globalisation has created more diverse migration patterns, with back-and-forth movements of people through networks rather than permanent settlement in another country.
Assimilation	Was the first state policy approach to immigration. It aimed to encourage immigrants to adopt the language, values and customs of the host culture to make them 'like us'.
Multi-culturalism	Accepts the migrants may wish to retain a separate cultural identity. However, in practice, this acceptance may be limited to more superficial aspects of cultural diversity. - Shallow Diversity - Deep Diversity
Divorce	We look first at divorce because divorce is a major cause of changing the family pattern and greater family diversity. Since then, numbers have fallen somewhat but still stood at 118,000 in 2012 - about six times higher than 1961.
Secularisation	Refers to the decline in the influence of religion in society. Many sociologists argue that religious institutions and ideas are losing their influence and society is becoming more secular.
Marriage	Fewer people are marrying: marriage rates are at their lowest since the 1920s. In 2012, there were 175,000 first marriages for both partners - less than half the numbers for 1970.
Cohabitation	Cohabitations involves an unmarried couple in a sexual relationship living together. While the number of marriages has been falling, the number of couples cohabiting continues to increase: - cohabiting couples with children are a fast-growing family type.
Same-sex relationships	Stonewall (2012), the campaign for lesbian, gay and bisexual rights, estimates that about 5 to 7% of the adult population today have same-sex relationships.
Lone-parent families	Lone-parent families now make up 22% of all families with children. One child in four lives in a lone-parent family. - Over 90% of these families are headed by lone mothers.
Extended families	The existence of the extended family among minority ethnic groups raises the question of how widespread or important this kind of family is in the UK today.
The 'beanpole' family	Bell's findings suggest the importance of the so-called 'beanpole' family. The beanpole family is a particular type of extended family, which Julia Brannen describes as 'long and thin'.
The 'neo-conventional' family	Robert Chester recognises that there has been some increased family diversity in recent years. However, unlike the New Right, he does not regard this as very significant, nor does he see it in a negative light.
The individualisation thesis	While not accepting everything postmodernism says about the nature of society today, sociologists such as Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck have been influenced by postmodernist ideas about today's society and have applied some of these to understanding family life.
The pure family	According to Giddens, what holds relationships together today is no longer law, religion, social norms or traditional institutions. Instead, intimate relationships nowadays are on individual choice and equality.
The connectedness thesis	Reflecting these criticisms, sociologists from the personal life perspective propse an alternative to the indidvualisation thesis. Smart calls this the 'connectedness thesis'.
Familistic gender regimes	Where policies are based on a traditional gender division between male breadwinner and female housewife and carer. In Greece, for example, there is little state welfare or publicly funded childcare. Women have to rely heavily on support from their extended kin and there is a traditional division of labour.
Individualistic gender regimes	Where policies are based on the belief that husbands and wives should be treated the same. Wives are not assumed to be financially dependent on their husbands, so each partner has a separate entitlement to state benefits.
Postmodernism	As we have seen, modernist perspectives such as functionalism emphasise the dominance of one family type in modern society, namely the nuclear family.

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