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Family Topic 2, Cohabitation, LATs - Coggle Diagram
Family Topic 2
Parenting
Child Bearing
- Changed over past 100 years in Britain (smaller families, low birth and delay in having children)
- Changing role of women
- Couples choose to not have children (Cost of family life - Hirsch children cost an average of £154,000 until age of 18) - Greater acceptance of childfree life (Beck G - Growing individualisation in contemporary life (more space for personal action and choice)
- Might not want to trade choice of future - Growth of birth out of marriage (47% in 2013) out of marriage in Eng/Wales civil partners - 5x more than 1971
- Nearly 9/10 births in 2011 were inside jointly by parents, both 3/4 gave the same address (cohabiting)
- Reduced social stigma of birth out of marriage
Single Parents
- Lone Parenthood has tripled since 1971
- 1/4 families = lone patents
- Most lone parents = women (awarded custody of children, suggests they are her responsibility - cultural norms)
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New Right
- They blame the generosity of the Welfare State for the growth of lone parenthood
- Murray - WS encourages women to have children so they can't afford to support (decline in conventional family)
- Lone-Never-Married couples media portrayed by media + new right as 'promiscuous parasites' (decline in family importance = crime - Bad education = breakdown of society) Boys having lack of male role leads to inadequate socialisation
- Child Support Agencies 1993 - Designed to encourage absent fathers to take financial responsibility of children (reducing benefit costs to the state)
- Childcare Tax Credit 1997 - helps cost of childcare (along with national childcare to ensure affordable one)
- Minimum wage helps prevent exploitation of lone parents (unsculptured employers - 2013 = 60% = employed)
Evaluation
- 18% of fathers never married or lived with their children
- Less than 2% of teenagers - little evidence of 'jumping the queue' for social housing
- No link between lone parenthood and crime, only link with crime and single parents = poverty
Reconstituted Family
- 1/3 marriages are remarriages
- Allen et al - RF can be complexed because:
1) Children having loyalty towards 1 parent
2) Conflict between step children
(1 identifying with their natural parents)
3) Divisions surrounding who deals with discipline, childcare, etc
Cereal Packet Family
- Stereotype promoted by advertising
- The 'ideal family'
The Myth:
- Image of 'typical family' is misleading due to change in family patterns and a wide range of family types in a contemporary society
- 2013 - only 36% lived in such a household
Classic Extended Family
- Functionalist writers - classic extended has disappeared in contemporary society (Parsons) - Travellers, Working Class, Asians
- Now there's a modified extended family
Singlehood
- Rise in Divorce
- Decline in Marriage
- Choosing LAT's
- Increased life expectancy (want different partners)
- Growing individualization
- Welfare State
Cultural Diversity
Differences between family structure and lifestyle between ethnic and religious groups largely arising from immigration into the UK and ...
Caribbean Families - Berthoud
- Modern individualism (individual choice, based on quality of relationship)
1) Low rates of marriage
2) High levels of lone parenthood
- Mixed partnerships are common (mixed marriages are widely accepted among Caribbean)
- Lone parenthood = higher among Caribbean women than other ethnic groups (over 1/2 of these mothers are never married (1 in 10 are white)
- Reflects a cultural tradition
South Asian Families - Ballard
- Found extended family relationship more common minority ethnic group
(Pakistan, Bangladesh)
- Patriarchal structure (highest rate of marriage in South Asia 3/4 (B and P) women are married by 25, 2/3 Indian and 1/2 white woman
- Family size = larger (B and P = 4+ children)
- 'Cereal packet - Working man and Housewife
- Low divorce rates = social disapproval, wide network of kin
Bethoud
- South Asian communities are 'old fashioned' (commitment to marriage, tight knit families, family loyalty, birth within marriage, arranged marriages, different authorities)
- This custom = source of conflict between young and parents (rising expectations of young)
Adult Kids, Kippers, 'Clipped wing' generation families of choice
Heath
- Young people are else likely to follow traditional route of living at home, leaving school, getting a job, higher education, then 'settling down in own homes'
- 2013 - 1/3 men, 1 in 5 women (20-34) still live with their parents
- Young women more likely to leave home earlier than men because:
1) YW - More likely to be a lone parent, living away from parents home
2) YW - More likely to be in a married / cohabiting relationship
3) YW - more likely to move away for higher education
- Shelter (home charity) say adult kids (finished education and in work but still at home) are the 'clipped wing generation' (unable to fly the family nest (can't form independent adult identity)
- Can be through choice
- Kippers (Kids in parent pockets)
- Cheaper and easier and ore comfortable
(Early 30's 1 in 10 men, 1 in 20 women are still living with parents)
- People who left home = adopt wider range of living arrangement
Divorce
- In western countries - increase in divorce
1961 - 27,000, 1993 - 180,000, 2012 - 130,000
- Past few years = less divorce but less marriages
1974 - 1 in 4 = divorced
2012 = 2 in 4 (less marriages
- in Britain 1 in 4 children will have divorced parents by 16
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Increase suggests there's easier legal proceeding to getting a divorce - terminating 'empty shell' marriages
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Life Course and Love
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Critics
Smart - IT is exaggerated (people haven't 'cut free' from social rules and pressures - peoples lives and family ties are still involved with social and emotional bonds - the extent of family decline is exaggerated)
Chambers - Not all components of tradition have declined 'cereal packet' family may have declined but it doesn't mean people live however they want - most people are still committed to values surrounding conduct of life passed on by culture and history
Both - suggests IT only fits the experiences of a small section of 'white heterosexual middle class' some 'same sex couples' and ignores social differences
Cohabitation and LATS
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Rise in Cohabitation
Rising Divorce Rate
- Theres a risk of marriage not lasting
- High numbers of remarriage for 1 or both partners (people want to try again)
Reduced Family Functions
- Functionalists - functions are shared or transferred with other institutions making marriage less of a necessity
Reducing Risk
- Beck = Risky society
- Less controlled by traditional structures and institutions like family
- Less loyalty and commitment demanded by norms
- In nuclear family - individuals face higher risk of constantly reflecting lives, weighing up choices and decisions (get married)
- People are choosing to avoid this risk of long term commitment
Cohabitation Meaning
Alternative Substitute of Marriage
- Long term commitment to partnership (no legality)
- Feminists : no patriarchal dimensions
- Deviant Catholics : Leave relationship without divorce (sin)
As Prep For or Trail Marriage
- Young women (Daily Mail) "'Membership of a club of gym' , you try it out for a bit and if it's a hit, you become a lifelong member"
- Cohabiting - trial run - 80% of marriages have a cohabiting period
Fairly Temporary, Informal Arrangement
- Living together unmarried
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