Family Diversity: Modernist Views

• Family diversity involves how sociologists classify family types and understanding the causes and meanings behind increases in family diversity.

Modernism and the Nuclear Family

• Perspectives like functionalism and the New Right are described as 'modernist', and they view modern society as having a predictable structure.

Functionalism

• Talcott Parsons believed the nuclear family has a ‘functional fit’ within modern society.
• The nuclear family meets the needs of modern society by providing a geographically and socially mobile workforce.
• The nuclear family performs two 'irreducible functions': primary socialization of children and stabilization of adult personalities.
• The typical family is a nuclear family with a division of labor between husband and wife.
• Other family types are seen as abnormal or dysfunctional because they do not perform the family's required functions.

The New Right

• Firmly conservative, anti-feminist, and against family diversity.
• The conventional nuclear family is the only correct family type.
• Oppose changes in family patterns and argue increasing family diversity causes social problems.
• Lone-parent families are considered harmful to children because lone mothers can't discipline children properly, boys lack an adult male role model, and families are more likely to be poor and a burden on the welfare state and taxpayers.

Cohabitation vs Marriage

• The New Right claims lone-parent families mainly result from cohabitating relationship break downs.
• Harry Benson's 2006 data analysis on over 15,000 babies' parents found family breakdown within the first 3 years of a child's life was higher for cohabitating (20%) than married couples (6%).
• They believe that only married couples provide a stable environment for raising children.
• Divorce rates are lower than rates of cohabitation break-ups.
• Marriage requires commitment, whereas cohabitation allows couples to avoid commitment.
• The New Right and conservative politicians argue that family and society are broken, using this to promote traditional values to prevent social disintegration and damage to children.
• They see policies and laws like easy divorce, gay marriage, and welfare benefits as undermining the conventional family.

Criticisms of the New Right

• Feminists like Anna Oakley argue that male and female roles are not biologically fixed.
• Cross-cultural studies show varied roles between men and women within families.
• Feminists argue that the New Right favors the nuclear family to oppress women, preventing them from working and keeping them financially dependent on men.

Other Criticism

• There is no solid evidence that children of lone-parents are more delinquent than those raised by two parents within the same social class.
• Cohabitation rates are higher among lower social classes.
• Carol Smart argues that poverty, not marriage decisions, may cause social breakdowns.

Chester: The Neo-Conventional Family

• Robert Chester acknowledges increased family diversity but considers it insignificant.
• Chester sees the change from traditional nuclear family to the 'neo-conventional' family as important.
• The neo-conventional family is defined as a dual-earner family like the symmetrical family.
• Chester argues that there is a nuclear family cycle: most people, even those temporarily outside of it such as widows, the elderly or young people, have been or will be part of a nuclear family.
• Chester shows evidence that little has changed as most people live in households headed by married couples, most adults marry and have children, most marriages last until death, though divorces increased, most divorcees remarry, cohabitation increased, but is usually temporary, and births outside of marriage increased, but are jointly registered.
• Chester sees the nuclear family as dominant and believes family diversity has been exaggerated.

The Rapoports

• They argue that family diversity is central to understanding families today.
• They believe focus has moved away from the nuclear family being the dominant family type.
• They see diversity as individual freedom of choice and acceptance of different cultures/ways of life.

They identify 5 different types of family diversity

• Organizational: roles are organized differently.
• Cultural: differing cultural, religious, and ethnic groups have varied family structures.
• Social Class: differences in family income affect family structure.
• Life Stage: structures change depending on life cycle stage.
• Generational: different historical periods shape attitudes and experience.

Postmodernism and Family Diversity

• Postmodernists like David Cheal believe society no longer lives in a 'modern' society with predictable, orderly structures such as the nuclear family.
• In postmodern society, the nuclear family is not the dominant family type.
• Family structures have fragmented, leading to greater individual lifestyle choice.
• Greater diversity gives individuals freedom of choice and the risk of instability.

Stacey - Postmodern Families

• Greater freedom and choice benefits women because it enables freedom for patriarchal societal oppression.
• Used life history interviews led to the finding that women are the main agents of family changes/divorce.

The Individualist Thesis

• Giddens and Beck view the effects of increasing individual choice.
• States traditional social structures lost influence.
• Fixed roles and restrictions limited people's life courses, but individuals today have fewer certainties/roles to follow.
• People have more freedom for how to lead our lives - 'do-it-yourself biography'.

Giddens: Choice and Equality

• In recent decades, family and marriage have been transformed by greater choice and more equal relationships between men and women due to access to contraception, women's independence.
• Women's independence is due to feminism and better opportunities in education and work.
• Traditional family relationships were held together by external factors, but today, couples define their relationships instead of external factors.

The Pure Relationship

• Giddens claims intimate relationships today are based on individual choice and equality.
• Relationships aren't bound by traditional norms, but fulfill each partner's needs.
• Both partners are free to enter and leave the relationship, becoming less stable.

Same Sex Couples as Pioneers

• Giddens sees same-sex couples leading the way towards equal relationships.
• Homosexual couples are not as influenced by traditional norms as heterosexual couples.
• This enabled homosexual relationships to be actively creating new family structures that serve their needs.
• Weston found same-sex couples created supportive 'families of choice' through friends, former lovers, and biological kin.
• Weeks argues that friendship networks functioned as kinship networks for gay men and lesbians.

Beck: The Negotiated Family

• Tradition has less influence and people have more choice; there is now a greater level of risk.
• Patriarchal family has been undermined by two trends: greater gender equality where women expect quality, not just from work, but also in marriage and greater individualism where people do what benefits them over obligation.
• Negotiated Families do not conform to the traditional norm, they decide by themselves through negotiation.
• More equal but less stable, with individuals free to leave if needs are not met, creating lone-parent families.

The Zombie Family

• Describes the family as close to being ‘dead’.

The Personal Life Perspective

• Smart and May agree there is more family diversity, but disagree with Beck and Giddens explanations of it.

Criticisms of the Individualisation Thesis

• Exaggerates individual choice in relationships.
• Sees people as ‘free floating', ignoring the social context of relationship choices.
• Ignores structural limits like social class and gender hierarchy.

The Connectedness Thesis

• Smart argues we are social beings whose choices are always made in a 'web of connectedness'.
• Range of relationship choices is influenced by interconnected relationships and personal histories.

Finch and Masons Study of Extended Families

• Individuals are embedded within family connections.
• Obligations restrict freedom of choice.
• Divorced couples remain linked by their children, ‘when lives have become intertwined and embedded, it becomes impossible for relationships to simply end'.

Class and Gender Effects of Relationships

• After divorce, women commonly take custody of the children, limiting finding a new relationship, whereas men have more freedom.
• Men are generally better paid, increasing their freedom.
• Personal life perspective considers the importance of social structures on the freedoms of individuals.