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changing family patterns, gender roles and power in family - Coggle Diagram

- - - - declining stigma attached to alternatives to marriage
        
        cohabitation previously deemed sinful
      - changes in position of women
        
        no longer feel their role is to be a life
      - secularisation
        
        society is less religious (now only 30% marriages in church), so less ideal of marriage promoted
      - fear of divorce
        
        40% marriages end in divorce so marriage is seen as undesirable
      - changing attitudes
        
        no longer considered essential to get married, cohabitation seen as trial marriage
    - - in 2012 34% of marriages were remarriages
    - - average age of marriage in 2012
        
        36.5 men
        
        34 women
  - - - women have jobs, so don't need to rely on men financially
      - secularisation- decrease of religious influence
      - younger generations more accepting of it
      - HOWEVER
        
        many see cohabitation as a trial marriage, decision to have kids often leads to marriage
  - - - law changes have also contributed:
        
        1967 decriminalised
        
        2002 gay cohabitation
        
        2014 gay marriage
  - - - decrease in marriage means more remaining single
      - there are more older people left alone after one dead partner
      - increase in divorce, children typically left with mother leaving the father living alone
      - 10% living alone in relationships
        LAT- living apart together
- - - - decline of the influence of religion, church attendance rates continue to decline
        
        church's harsh anti-divorce views are less influential, or more relaxed
    - - 1971 53% women worked
        2024 72% women work
      - welfare benefits also mean single mothers don't have to remarry to financially depend on a man
      - ALLAN AND CROW marriage is less embedded within the economic system, fewer family firms, and family no longer a unit of production
    - - in past there was social shame around divorces MITCHELL + GOODY (1997) recognise less stigma
    - - functionalist FLETCHER (1966) argue that people have higher expectations, and are less likely to tolerate an unhappy marriage
        
        now more choice over leaving a relationship if love has gone rather than marriage for just economic reasons etc.
        
        nowadays see marriage not as a binding contract, but as a relationship in which individuals seek personal fulfilment, and encourages couples to divorce if they don't have this
        
        ALLAN AND CROW (2001) "love, personal commitment and intrinsic satisfaction are now seen as the cornerstones for marriage
    - - gradual changes in the law since 19th century made divorce easier
        
        widening grounds of divorce
        
        making divorce cheaper
        
        equal grounds of divorce between sexes
    - - married women take on a dual burden, paid work and emotional work/domestic labour, feminists say this causes a new source of conflict between husbands and wives
      - they argue that although in every other aspect of life, we have seen rapid progress for women, in the family this progress has been limited and slow
      - HOCHSCHILD (1997) argues that for women, the home compares unfavourably with work. at work women feel valued and at home, men's continuous resistance to housework is a source of frustration
      - SIGLE-RUSHTON (2007) mothers with traditional roles are less likely to divorce than mothers with a dual burden
        
        when husband is involved in housework, divorce rate the same as traditional mothers
        
        COOKE AND GASHE (2010) found no evidence that working women divorce more, they argue that this is because working is now the expected norm for married women
      - BERNANRD (1976) radical feminist, many women growing dissatisfied with patriarchal marriage, the rising divorce rate and the fact 7/10 divorce applications come from women is evidence of this
- - - - CHESTER 1985 neo-conventional
        
        has been famild diveristy in recent years
        
        doesn't regard as significant or negative
        
        conventional fam is nuclear fam
        
        neo-conventional fam is the dual earner, LP is not something people choose or aspire to
    - - BENSON 2006
        
        cohab more likely to collapse than marriage
        
        data from parents of 15000 babies, over the first 3 yrs of baby life relationship breakdown was 20% cohabiting fams and 6% married fams
        
        marriage is more stable
      - evaluation
        
        weakness
        
        OAKLEY 1997
        
        argues wrongly assumes that women and men have biological roles
        
        cross-cultural studies show great variation within roles
        
        NR is lit just anti-feminist
        
        conventional nuclear family just based on patriarchal oppression
        
        fundamental way of controlling women
        
        prevents women from freedom and working
        
        SMART 2011
        
        may be poverty that breaks down relationships rather than decision not to marry because higher rate of cohab in wc families
    - - RAPOPORTS
        
        we have moved away from nuclear fam
        
        fam diversity important in understanding family life
        
        fam diversity positive response to peoples needs and wishes
  - - - GIDDENS 1992
        
        choice and equality between men and women
        
        contraception allowed so intimacy without reproduction becoming main reason for relationship
        
        women gained independence
        
        couples have freedom to define relationships- previously done by the law
      - BECK 1992
        
        now live in a risk society where tradition has less influence and people have more choice
        
        contrasts with an earlier time when people's roles were more fixed by tradition and rigid social norms dictated by how they behave
  - - - instead of seeing us as disembedded, Smart argues we are fundamentally social beings whose choices are always made with a WEB OF CONNECTEDNESS
        FINCH AND MASON 1993
        
        study of extended families
        
        found individuals can negotiate the relationships they want to some extent, but are embedded within fam connections and obligations that restrict us
- - - - husbands more likely to share childcare, but only more pleasurable aspects, meant mothers lost rewards of childcare such as playing tg.
- - - - FERRI AND SMITH 1996
        
        fathers responsible for children in only 4% fams
        DEX AND WARD 2007
        
        78% fathers would play w child
        
        1% care for them when sick
        BRAUN VINCENT AND BALL 2011
        
        3/70 families studied had father as main carer
  - - - GERSHUNY 1994
        
        women working full time leads to increased division of labour
        SULLIVAN 2000
        
        trend towards women doing less and men doing more since 1975
- - - - BRITISH HOUSEHOLD SURVEY 2023 found otherwise