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families and households - Coggle Diagram

- - - - most women today o are in paid work, the march of progress view argues that this is leading to a more equal division of domestic labour
        Sullivan (2000) found women now do less domestic work, men do more traditionally women’s tasks and more couples have an equal division of labour
    - - feminist, do not believe women working has led to greater equality. Women now carry a dual burden of paid work and domestic work. British Social Attitudes (2013) shows women do twice as much and couples still divide household tasks along traditional gender lines. There has been little change since the 1990s.
        Responsibility for children
        although fathers help with specific tasks, usually mothers take responsibility for children’s well-being
        
        Dex and Ward (2007) found the only one percent of fathers took the main responsibility for caring for a sick child
        
        Braun (2011) found most fathers were background fathers. They held a provider ideology: there role was breadwinner not primary carer
        Responsibility for ‘quality time’
        Women generally take responsibility for managing the families quality time. But in late modernity, the 24/7 society and flexible working means peoples time is more fragmented and deroutinised. Working mothers find themselves juggling competing demands on their time.
        The triple shift Duncombe and Marsden found that women were required, not only to carry a dual burden, but a triple shift: emotion work, domestic labour and paid work
    - - The cultural or ideological explanation: Patriarchal cultural norms shape gender roles. Women perform more domestic labour because this is what society expects and socialised them to do
        The evidence: Equality will be achieved only when attitudes, value and expectations, role models and socialisation change. There is some evidence of this:
        
        Kan (2001) found younger men do more domestic work
        
        Gershuny (1994) argues that couples are adapting to women working full-time, establishing a new norm of men doing more domestic work
        
        The material or economic explanation: women and less than men, so it is economically rational for them to do more domestic labour, while men spend more time earning money
        The evidence: if women and as much as their partners, we should see couples do more equal amounts of domestic work. There is some evidence of this:
        
        Arber and Ginn found better paid women to buy in products and services, rather than carrying out domestic tasks themselves
        
        Ramos (2003) found that where the woman is the full time breadwinner, and the man is unemployed, they do equal amounts of domestic labour
    - - radical feminists argue that heterosexual relationships are inevitably patriarchal an unequal - even when women in paid work. They contrast this with the same sex relationships. For example, Dunnes study of 37 lesbian couples with children, Fenimore, equal division of labour. Dunne uses the idea of ‘gender scripts’:
        
        Heterosexuals were socialised into gender, scripts that set out different, masculine and feminine roles and gender identities
        
        Lesbians did not link household tasks to gender scripts, so they were more open to negotiation and more equal
  - - - Parsons (1955) identifies to conjugal roles, the instrumental role of the male breadwinner and the expressive role of the female nurture
        Parsons argues that this division of labour among couples as functional for the family, its members and wider society, he sees this division is biologically based -women are naturally suited to nurturing, men to providing - so everybody benefits from the specialisation
        the new right agree with Parsons that this biologically, based gender division of labour is the best way of organising family life
    - - this piece is conjugal roles becoming more equal in modern society. Bott identify two types:
        
        Segregated conjugal roles are separate. There is a shop division of labour between male breadwinner and female homemaker. Husband-and-wife spend their leisure separately. Young and Willmott found segregated conjugal roles in working-class extended families in Bethnal Green in the 1950s.
        
        Joint conjugal roles involves couples sharing domestic tasks and leisure
        The symmetrical family Young and Willmott see a long-term trend towards joint conjugal roles and the symmetrical family were rolls more similar an equal:
        
        Most women now go out to work
        
        Men help with housework and childcare (the new man)
        
        Couple spend their leisure time together, men have become more home centred and the family more privatised
        Reasons the rise of the symmetrical families due to major social changes during the 20th century e.g higher living standards, laboursaving devices, better housing, women working and smaller families
    - - feminist reject the march of progress view. They see the family is patriarchal, not symmetrical or equal. Women still doing most of the housework and childcare.
        
        Oakley (1974) found no evidence of symmetry in domestic labour. She argues that Young and Willmott exaggerate men’s role: although husbands help, this could include just ironing their own shirt once a week
  - - - Kempson found that women in low income, families denied their own needs to make ends meet, but even in households with adequate income is resources are often shared equally leaving women in poverty.
        Unequal shares of resources are often the result of who controls the families income, and who makes the decisions about spending it - usually the men
    - - One reason mentate greater share of resources and demand a bigger say in decisions is because they earn more. This is supported by Paul and Vogler. They identify two types of control over family income:
        The allowance system, where men work, and give their nonworking wives an allowance, from which they budget to meet the families needs
        Pooling where partners work and have joint responsibility for spending
        there has been a big increase in pooling in the recent years. However, Vogler found that men still tended to make the major decisions reflecting their greater earnings.
    - - Edgells study of decision-making, among professional couples were both partners work, full time, also found inequalities. Very important decisions were taken either by the husband alone, or with him having the final say. Important decisions we usually taken jointly. Less important decisions were usually taken by the wife.
        Explanations:
        
        Material: men have more power in decision-making because they earn more. Women are economically dependent, so they have less say.
        
        Cultural: feminists argue that gender role socialisation in patriarchal society instills the idea that men are the decision-makers
    - - The personal life perspective focuses on the meanings couples give to who controls the money. The meaning is that money may have in relationships cannot be taken for granted.
        
        Nyman argues that different couples give money different meanings these meanings reflect the nature of the relationship
        
        Smart found that some same-sex couples did not see the control of money as meaning, either equality or inequality. This may be because they do not enter relationships with the same ‘ heterosexual baggage of cultural meanings’ that same money as a source of power.
        Hence, Smart argues that it is essential to start from the personal meanings of the actors involved in the situation
  - - - DV is too widespread to be just the behaviour of a few ‘disturbed’ individuals. The British Crime Survery estimated that there are 6.6 million assaults per year. However, assaults are not random - they are mainly by men against women
        According to the BCS, nearly 1 and four women is assaulted by her partner at sometime. However, police statistics underestimate, it’s extent because of under reporting and under recording:
        
        Under reporting: DV is the violent crime least likely to be reported to the police. The BCS, estimated that under a third of assaults are reported. Yearnshire found that on average, a woman suffers 35 assaults before reporting abuse.
        
        Under recording: please tell us another, willing to record, investigate and prosecute domestic violence, because they are reluctant to become involved in the private sphere of the family. They often take the view. The individuals are free to leave if unhappy. In fact, many women cannot leave because they and their children are financially dependent on their partners
    - - radical feminists see domestic violence as a result of patriarchy. In their view, all societies are patriarchal and the key division is between men and women.
        
        Men oppress women, mainly through the family where they benefit from women’s unpaid domestic labour and sexual services. Domestic violence enables meant to control women so it is inevitable in patriarchal society.
        
        Men also dominate the state and this explains why the police and courts fail to take domestic violence seriously
        Dobash and Dobash provide supporting evidence. They found violence was triggered when husbands felt their authority was being challenged. They concluded that marriage legitimates violence, by giving power to men
    - - this focuses on economic factors, such as inequalities in income and housing to explain why some groups more at risk:
        Women are not the only group at risk other victims are likely to include:
        
        Children and young people, the poor and lower classes, and alcohol and illegal drug users
        Lack of resources: Wilkinson and Pickett (2010) argued that these patterns are a result of stress on the family caused by social inequality. Families that lack resources e.g low income, poor housing suffer more stress, and this increases the risk of violence
        Marxist feminists also see inequality, producing domestic violence. Ansley argues that male workers exploited at work, take out their frustration on their wives
- - - - Sociologists see childhood not as a ‘natural’ category but as a social construct, defined and created by society. What is seen as childhood varies:
        
        between societies
        
        within societies
        
        historically, over time
    - - Benedict argues that children in simpler, no -industrial societies are treated differently from their modern western counterparts
        
        They have more responsibility at home and work
        
        Less value his place and obedience to adult authority
        
        Children’s sexual behaviour is often viewed differently
        Also, the behaviour expects of children and they expected of adults is less clearly separated
    - - unlike in simplest societies, the modern western nation of childhood has the following features:
        
        Childhood is seen as a special innocent time of life
        
        Children are seen as fundamentally different from adults - physically immature and not competent run their own lives
        
        As a result, they need a lengthy protected period of nurturing and socialisation
        
        Childhood is a distinct lifestage - child is a separate status from adult. According to Pilcher, the key feature of the modern idea of childhood is separateness
        
        According to Cunningham, children are seen as the opposite of adults with the right to happiness
        These differences illustrate the key sociological idea, but childhood is not fixed in the same form in all societies - different cultures constructed differently
  - - - The position of children also differs overtime. The modern western idea of childhood is a relatively recent invention. According to Aries (1960) in mediaeval Europe, the idea of childhood did not exist.
        
        Children or not seen as having different nature from adults
        
        Work began from an early age
        
        Children with mini adults with the same rights, duties and skills as adults
        According to Shorter, parental attitudes towards children were very different
        The modern notion of childhood began to emerge from the 13th century:
        
        Schools began to specialise only in the education of the young
        
        The church increasingly saw children as fragile creatures of God, needing discipline protection from worldly evils
        
        There was a growing distinction between children’s and adults clothing settings children apart from adults
        Aries argue that this resulted in the emergence of the modern cult of childhood. The 20th century was the century of the child.
    - - Lower infant mortality rates and smaller families
        
        specialist knowledge about children’s health
        
        Laws, banning, child, labour
        
        Compulsory schooling
        
        Child, protection and welfare laws
        
        The idea of children’s rights, the children act (1989) saw parents having responsibilities towards their children rather than rights
        
        Laws about social behaviour
        Industrialisation was the underlying cause e.g. modern industry needs an educated workforce, so compulsory education is needed. higher standards of living, resulting from industrialisation lead to lower infant mortality rates.
  - - - Jenks argues, the modern society created childhood to repair the individual to become a productive future adult. To chief this, the vulnerable undeveloped child needed to be nurtured and protected.
        
        In postmodernit’s, adults relationships become more unstable. Relationships with their children become adults last refuge from insecurity. They become even more fearful for their children safety, leading to greater regulation of children’s lives.
    - - postman argues that childhood as we know it is disappearing, and that children are becoming more like adults, gaining similar writes an acting in similar ways
        For postman, this is the result of television culture, replacing print culture:
        
        In print culture children lacks the literacy skills needed to access information so adults could keep knowledge about sex, money, violence, illness, death, another adult matter, secret from them
        
        Television culture makes information available to adults and children are like the boundary between adult hood and childhood has broken down and adult authority weakened
        However, Opie believes childhood is not disappearing. Others argue that western norms of what childhood should be. I’ll be exported globally. Western childhood, it’s not disappearing, but spreading
  - - - Aries, Shorter and others argue that children’s position has been steadily improving, and today is better than it ever has been. Family and society have become child-centred:
        
        Children are better cared for in terms of their educational and psychological and medical needs
        
        Most babies now survive: the infant mortality rate in 1900 was 154; it is now 4
        
        Higher living standards and smaller families sizes mean parents can’t afford to provide children’s needs
        
        Children are protected from harm and exploitation, by laws against child, abuse and child labour
    - - Palmer argues that rapid technological and cultural changes are damaging children’s development e.g. Junkfood, computer games, intensive marketing to children and testing in education. As a result, children are deprived of a genuine childhood.
        
        UK youth are at or near the top of international league tables for obesity, self harm, drug and alcohol abuse violence and teenage pregnancies
        
        UNICEF (2007) ring is the UK 21st out of 25 for children’s well-being
    - - conflict theorists e.g. Marxists and feminists, argue that the march of progress view is an overgeneralised, an idealised image. It ignores inequalities among children and between children and adults.
        inequalities among children: Third world children have different life chances from those in the west. In western societies, there are:
        
        Gender, differences
        
        Ethnic differences
        
        Class inequalities
        Inequalities between children and adults: child, liberationists, such as Firestone argue that extensive care and protection are just knew forms of oppression
    - - Seeing childhood as socially constructed by processes, such as industrialisation, although useful, means we risk seeing children as passive objects - may socialisation projects for adults to shape and develop
        
        Active agents: instead, the new sociology of childhoods children, as playing an important part in creating their own childhoods. For example, Smarts study of divorce, found that far from being passive victims, children were actively involved in trying to make the situation better
        
        Multiple childhood: this approach 6 to explore the mini diverse childhoods that exist in society by taking the childs viewpoint. It is an approach favoured by child liberationists, because it was attention to the fact that children often lack power in relation to adults.
- - - - functionalists, see society as being like a biological organism(such as the human body):
        
        The body is a system made up of different parts that function together to meet its needs and maintain it
        
        Society is a system made up of different, but interdependent parts of a sub system, such as institutions, like the education system, that economy, religion, and the state
        
        The function of any part is the contribution it makes to maintaining the social system as a whole
        The functions of the family: for functionalists, the family plays a vital role in maintaining the social system as a whole, as well as meeting the needs of others sub systems, such as the economy. Functionalist take a positive view of the family, seeing it as performing beneficial functions, both for wider society, and for all its individual members. However, they disagree to some extent about what these functions are
    - - Murdock argues that the nuclear family performs for essential functions for society, and for its members:
        
        Stable satisfaction of the sex drive with the same marital partner, this prevents the social disruption that would be caused by a sexual free for all
        
        reproduction of the next generation, without which society would cease to exist
        
        socialisation of the young into societies, norms and values enables new members to integrate into society
        
        Satisfaction of members economic needs
        Practicality and universality: by performing these functions, the nuclear family helps you maintain social stability. For Murdock, the sheer practicality of the nuclear family as a way of meeting these needs, explains why it is universal.
    - - Parsons argues that the kinds and range of functions that the family performs depend on the type of society in which it is found. This also determines what kind of structure of the family will have. Parsons identified two types of family structure:
        
        The three generational extended family found in preindustrial society
        
        The two generational nuclear family found in modern industrial society
        The extended family what is multifunctional - it was a unit both of production and consumption e.g. All members worked the land together, and it often performed welfare, military, religious and other functions
        The nuclear family fits the two key needs of modern industrial society
        
        geographical mobility: industries constantly spring up and decline in different places. It is easier for the compact to generational nuclear family to move to where the jobs are
        
        Social mobility: because status in industrial society is achieves, not ascribed, adult sons canal achieve a higher status than their fathers, breaking away to set up their own nuclear family unit removes the status conflict that would result if they stayed.
      - Two irreducible functions: the nuclear family is now left with only two irreducible or essential functions:
        
        Primary socialisation of the young equipping, the next generation with basic skills and societies values
        
        stabilisation of adult personalities, enabling adults to relax and release tension, so they can return to the workplace and perform their roles efficiently
        Segregated conjugal roles: Parsons distinguishes between the mail, instrumental role and the female expressive role. He sees the gender division of labour within the family as biologically based. For example, women give birth and this is why they are suited to the expressive role.
  - - - this is a political, rather than a sociological perspective, which has had considerable influence on government policies in Britain and elsewhere. It is a conservative view of the family based on the following assumptions:
        
        A biologically based division of labour: like functionalists, the new, right, see the division of labour in the family, between a male breadwinner, and a female homemaker as natural and biologically determined. Similarly, they believe that a nuclear family with segregated conjugal roles is the best place in which to socialise children
        
        Family should be self reliant: reliance on state welfare leads to a dependency culture, undermined, traditional gender roles, and produce family, breakdown and loan, parent families. Lack of a male role model for boys result in social problems and delinquency
  - - - marxism is a conflict view of society. It sees modern capitalism society as divided into two classes:
        
        The capitalist class who own the means of production
        
        The working-class who own only their labour which they are forced to sell to the capitalist in return for wages, this enables the capitalist employer to export the working class in order to produce a profit
        
        The functions of the family: Marxists see all institutions in capitalist society as contributing to the maintenance of exploitation. The family is seen as an oppressive institution that perform several important functions for capitalism:
        
        Passing on wealth: Engles argues that as private property became more important, men who controlled it needed to ensure that they could pass it to their sons, and this led to monogamous marriage. But it is also meant the women they come in the private property of her husband, who controlled her sexuality to ensure he was the father of her children
        
        ideological functions: Zaretsky argues that there is a cult of private life. The belief that we can only gain fulfilment from family life, and this is trucks attention from exploitation.
        
        Unit of consumption: capitalism needs consumers to buy its products. The family is an important market for consumer goods and therefore enables capitalists to make profit.
  - - - this argues that not all women share the same experiences of oppression women of different ethnicities, class, backgrounds, et cetera may have different experiences of the family. For example, by regarding the family solely as a form of oppression, white feminist, neglect, black women experience of racism. Many black feminists receive the black family positively as a source of support in racist society.
    - - they argue that gender inequality is gradually being over, come through legal reforms and policy changes, challenging stereotypes and changing peoples attitudes and socialisation. This is a march of progress view.
    - - they argue that capitalism is the main cause of women’s oppression in the family, and this perform several functions of capitalism:
        
        Reproducing the labour force
        
        Absorbing men’s anger
        
        A reserve army of cheap labour
        Marxist feminists argue that women’s oppression in the family is linked to exploitation of the working class, therefore, the family must be abolished at the same time is capitalism
    - - they argue that patriarchy is the main cause of women’s oppression. The family and marriage are key patriarchal institutions.
        
        Men benefit from women’s unpaid domestic labour and sexual services
        
        Men dominate women through violence, or the threat of it
        Radical feminist, a patriarchal system must be overturned and the family abolished. Some radical feminists believe in political lesbianism and complete separatism for men.
  - - - these relationships, raise questions about what counts as family from the viewpoint of the individuals involved
        Nordqvist and Smarts research on Jonah conceive children found the parents of an emphasise the importance of social relationships over genetic ones in defining family:
        
        Where couples knew they don’t know, they had to resolve questions about whether he or she counted as family
        
        Lesbian couples were concerned the sperm donor may be treated as the real second parent
    - - PLP takes a bottom up approach: to understand families, we must look at the meanings individual family members give to their relationships. This contrast with functionalism Marxism and feminism which take a top down structural approach.
        By focusing on peoples meanings, PLP draws attention to a range of other personal relationships that are important to people, even though they may not be conventionally defined as family
        These include all kinds of relationships that individual see as significant, and that give them a sense of relatedness, such as relationships with same-sex chosen families, fictive, kin, friends, dead, relatives, even pets
- - - - there are two measures of births - the birth rate and total fertility rate
        The birth rate is the number of live births per 1000 of the population per year
        
        There has been a long time decline in the birth rate. In 1900, it was almost 29. By 2014. It had fallen by more than 60% to 12.2
        
        But there have been fluctuations. There were three baby booms: after the two world wars and in the 1960s. The rate fell sharply in the 1970s rose during the 1980s and early 90s and then fell until the recent increase in 2001.
        The total fertility rate is the average number of children a woman will have during her fertile years. In the 1960s, baby boom reach an average of 2.95 children per woman, declining to an all-time low of 1.63 in 2001, before rising slightly to 1.83 in 2014. The total fertility rate obviously effects family and household size more children woman has the bigger the family.
        Two important trends:
        
        More women are remaining childless nowadays
        
        Women are having children later. The average age is now over 30.
  - - - increased educational opportunities
        
        More women working
        
        Changes in attitudes of family life and women’s role
        
        Easy access to divorce
        
        Access to abortion and contraception
    - - The infant mortality rate is the number of infant to die before their first birthday per thousand babies, born alive per year. The IMR has fallen greatly in the last century. In 1900 it was 154; by 2016, it was 4. A fall in the IMR may cause a fall in the birth rate: if infant survive, parents will have fewer of them
        Reasons for the fall: in the IMR include improved housing, sanitation nutrition, including that of mothers knowledge of hygiene and child, health and health services for mothers and children. Medical factors did not play much part until the 1950s when the IMR began to fall due to mass immunisation antibiotics and improved midwifery and obstetrics
    - - until the late 19th century, children were an economic asset because they went to work from an early age now they are an economic liability:
        
        Laws banning child labour and introducing compulsory schooling mean they remain economically dependent for longer
        
        changing norms about children’s right to a high standard of living raises their cost
        As an adult parents may be unable to afford to have a large family
    - - childhood is now socially constructed as uniquely important period and this has led to a shift from quantity quality: parents, now I have fewer children and lavish more attention and resources on these few
    - - Lower birth rates and fertility rates have several effects on the family and society, having fewer children means women are free to go out to work, creating a dual earner couple
        The dependency ratio is there a relationship between the size of the working population and the size of the non-working population
        
        The working populations earnings and taxes support the dependent population
        
        Children or a large part of the dependent population, so fewer children reduces the burden of dependency on the working population
        Public Services if you are schools and child health services may be needed and less needs to be spent on maternity and paternity leave. However, these are political decisions.
  - - - The number of deaths has been fairly stable since 1900, but there have been fluctuations due to the two world wars and the 1918, flu epidemic
        
        The death rate is the number of deaths per thousand of the population per year. It has halved from 19 in 1900 down to 8.9 by 2012.
        The death rate began falling from about 1870, continuing until 1930. In rose slightly during the 1930s and 1940s, due to economic depression and World War II. Since the 1950s, it has declined slightly
    - - up to 1970 about 3/4 of the decline was due to a fall in deaths from infectious diseases, such as TB, measles, smallpox, diarrhoea, and typhoid. This to climb is largely brought about by changing social factors, including:
        
        Improve nutrition, According to McKeown better diet accounted for half the reduction in death rate by increasing peoples resistance to infection
        
        Medical improvements, such as vaccinations antibiotics, blood transfusions, better maternity services in the creation of the NHS in 1949
        
        Public health improvements, better housing, pure drinking water and clean air
        
        Other social changes that reduce the death rate include: the decline of more dangerous occupations e.g mining, smaller families, reduce the transmission infections, greater public knowledge of the causes of illness and higher incomes
    - - Life expectancy refers to how long on average a person born in a given you can expect to live. Life expectancy has greatly increased since 1900:
        
        For babies, born in 1900 it was 50 years for males and 57 years for females
        
        For babies, born in 2013 it was 90.7 years for males and 94 for females.
        Falling infant mortality: low life expectancy in 1900 was largely due to the high IMR pulling down the average life expectancy of the whole population. As the IMR fell, life expectancy rose
  - - - an aging population has several social and economic affects:
        
        Public services, older people consume more health and social care services
        
        More one person pensioner households, these now account for one in every seven households
        
        The rising dependency ratio, the nonworking old need to be provided for by those of working age. As the number of retired people rises, the dependency ratio increases.
        
        Ageism, age, statuses are socially constructed, old-age is constructed as a problem, negatively stereotyping often portrays the old as incompetent and a burden
        policy implications: Hirsch (2005) argues that we will need new policies to finance a longer old age. This could be done by either pay more in taxes, or by raising the retirement age or both
    - - UK population is ageing. In 1971. The average age was 34 years. It is now nearly 40. By 2031, it will reach 42.6. The number of over 65s equal to the number of under 15s for the first time ever in 2014. There are three main reasons for this ageing:
        
        Increase life expectancy
        
        Lower infant mortality
        
        Declining fertility
  - - - migration is the movement of people, it can be internal or international. Migration affect the size and age structure of the population. Until the 1980s, more people left the UK then entered it.
    - - from the nineteen hundreds to the 1940s, the largest immigrant groups in the UK were the Irish European Jews and people of British descent from Canada and the USA. Very few immigrants were non-white.
        White and nonwhite immigrants: during the nineteen fifties to seventies, nonwhite immigrants began to come from the Caribbean Africa and south Asia. By 2011, minority ethnic groups accounted for 14% of the population. However, most immigrants to the UK were white irish and Europeans.
        Despite this immigration and nationality act from 1962 to 1990 placed severe restrictions on nonwhite immigration. By the 1980s nonwhites accounted for barely a quarter of immigrants, mainly white countries of the European Union became the chief source of immigrants..
    - - since 1900s, most emigrants have gone to the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The main reason for emigrating have been economic:
        
        Push factors, unemployment and economic recession
        
        Pull factors, higher wages, or better opportunities
  - - - there are many types of migrant: permanent settlers, temporary workers, spouses, refugees and asylum seekers. Some may have legal entitlement while others enter without permission.
        Super diversity: before the 1990s, UK immigrants mainly came from a few British ex-colonies. However, migrants now come from many more countries with different legal statuses. A given ethnic group may also be divided by culture or religion.
        There are also class differences among migrants, Cohen distinguishes:
        
        Citizens have full rights
        
        Denizens are privileged foreign nationals
        
        Helots are disposable leave a power found an unskilled poorly paid work. They include illegally traffic to workers.
    - - almost half of all global migrants and our female, this has resulted in the globalisation of a gender division of labour: female migrants are given stereotyped roles as carers or providers of sexual services
    - - migrants may develop hybrid identity is from two or more different sources. They may find the others accused them of not fitting in.
        Transnational identities: Eriksen notes that globalisation creates back and forth movement of people through networks, rather than permanent settlement in another country. Rather than seeing themselves as belonging to one country, migrants may develop transnational identities. Modern technology makes it possible to sustain global ties without having to travel.
    - - States have policies to control immigration and deal with cultural diversity. Immigration policies have also become linked to national security and antiterrorism policies.
        Assimilationism: as a policy aims to encourage immigrants to adopt the language, values and customs of host culture
        Multiculturalism: except that migrants may wish to retain a separate cultural identity. But in practice this acceptance may be limited to superficial differences, such as food, rather than more fundamental one such as veiling of women.
        Castles (2000) argues that assimilationist policies are counter-productive because they mark out minority groups as other. Minorities and respond by emphasising the difference. This increases the hosts suspicion of them, making assimilation less likely
        A divided working class: assimilationist ideas may encourage workers to blame migrants for problems, such as unemployment benefits capitalism, by dividing the working class
- - - - in the 19th century, divorce was almost impossible in the 20th century. Legal changes made divorce easier equalise in the grounds between the sexes 1923; widening the grounds, and cheaper divorce 1949 legal aid was introduced
    - - stigma is a negative label in the past divorce with stigmatised. Most churches condemned it. However, since the 1960s, the stigma has declined rapidly. This is made divorce more acceptable so couples are more willing to divorce to solve their problems also because divorces are more common, it normalises it, further reducing the stigma.
    - - secularisation is the decline in the influence of religion in society. According to Wilson, religious institutions and ideas are losing influence, church attendance, and weddings have been declining steadily
    - - functionalist such as Fletcher (1966) argue that higher expectations of marriage today, a leading to higher divorce rates. This is linked to the ideology of romantic love: marriage is now purely based on love, not duty or economic factors, as it was in the past. If love dies, there is no longer any reason to stay together. In the past individuals had little choice about marriage, the family was the unit of production, so marriages took place for economic reasons. People had low expectations and were not dissatisfied by the absence of love so divorce was less common.
        Functionalists optimistic. They argue that the high rate of remarriage shows divorces have rejected marriage as such
    - - more women are now paid in work and lone parent welfare benefits are available. This makes women less economically dependent on their husbands and more able to afford divorce.
    - - Women becoming wage earners also creates a new source of marital conflict at work. Women are increasingly likely to be treated equally, whereas at the home they’re expected to perform the triple shift the resulting awareness of patriarchal oppression which may result in divorce and explain why 70% of divorce petition is come from women.
    - - Beck and Giddens argue that in late modernity, traditional norms lose their hold. Individuals become free to pursue their own self interest. This results in more divorce because they become unwilling to say married of the marriage fails to deliver personal fulfilment.
        Modernity encourages both sexes to pursue the career ambitions, and to adopt a free-market consumerist identity based on self interest. This causes conflict of interest that pull couples are part.
  - - - There are now fewer first marriages, due to several reasons:
        
        changing attitudes
        
        alternatives
        
        womens ecomonic independence
        
        the impact of feminism
        
        rising divorce rates
        Other trends in marriage include:
        
        more re-marriages
        
        later marriages
        
        fewer church weddings
        Cohabitation: 1.5m couples in England and Wales cohabit. This is due to less stigma attaching to sex outisde marrige, and womens improved economic position - they dont need the financial security of marriage. Cohabitation may be:
        
        trial marriage, cohabitation before marriage is now the norm
        
        an alternative to marriage
        Gay marriage and same-sex relationships: There is nore a greater acceptance, moves towards legal equality and policies treating all couples equally. Weeks argues that acceptance is leading to more stable relationships among gay people
  - - - these account for a quarter of all families numbers of tripled since the 1970s, due to increased divorce and the decline in stigma of births outside marriage. However, the new right blame generous welfare benefits for encouraging the increase and creating a dependency culture. Over 90% of female-headed due to the belief that women are suited to the expressive role and courts giving mothers custody
      - reconstituted or step families are increasing due to divorce and re-marriage. They now account for 8% of all families w children
    - - The main ethnic difference in family patterns are:
        
        More black lone parents, 49% of families. This may be the result of high male unemployment or black women valuing independence more highly
        
        Larger Asian households, due to the cultural importance of the extended family in need for support while migrating
  - - - Many people still feel obligation to their wider extended kin. Finch and Mason (1993) found that half their sample had cared for a sick relative. Reciprocity is important - people felt that help recieved should be returned
        More is expected of daughters than sons. But not all daughters play an equal part; much depends on what other responsibilties they have.
        The ectended family continues to perform important functions e.g. financial and domestic help. However, this is very different from Parsons classic extended family, whose members lived together and were bound by strong mutual obligations.
    - - Changing family patterns are leading to greater family diversity - a wider range of family types rather than just the dominance of nuclear family. There are different perspectives on the extent and importance of family diversity
  - - - These ideas have influenced the individualisation thesis of Giddens and Beck, who claim that individual self-interest now governs our actions. In the past, peoples lives were defined by traditional gender and family structures, with fixed roles that prevented them chooisng their own life course. They were expected to marry and play conventional gender roles in a traditional patriarchal family. Although oppressive, this family provided stability by defining each members role
        Today, the patriarchal family has been undermined by individualism. We have become 'disembedded' from tradiitonal family structures, leaving us free to choose how we lead our lives. Giddens argues that one reason for this is greater gender equality.
        Giddens argues that these changes have brought about the pure relationship. Rather than a relationship defined by law or tradition, or as for producing children, it exists solely to satisfy each partners needs. This means it lasts only as long as it continues to meet their needs.
        The negotiated family: Beck argues that equality and individualism have created the negotiated family, which is not fixed but varies accoridng to its members wishes. Although more equal than the patriarchal family, it is less stable, because there is more emphasis on the needs of individuals, rather than those of the family, and individuals are free to leave if these are not met.
    - - From a personal lfe perspective, Smart proposes the connectedness thesis as an alternative to the individualisation thesis:
        
        Traditional patriarchal norms and structural inequalities still limit peoples choices about relationships, idneities and families
        
        We are not disembedded individuals. We make decisions abbout realtionships within a social conetxt or 'web of connectedness'. This challenges the pure relationship
- - - - Most European Union countries are now moving towards individualistic gender regimes.However, there is no inevitable 'march of progress' towards gender equality.Since the global recession began in 2008, cutbacks in government spending throughout Europe have led to pressure on women to take more responsibility for caring for family members.There has also been a trend towards neoliberal welfare policies, in which individuals are encouraged to use the market rather than the state to meet their needs, for example through private care of the elderly.