Family Institution PDF

FAMILY INSTITUTION Dr. Gbenga Adejare  Introduction Family is core to individual and collective survival in Canada and beyond Most people throughout history have spent at least some part of their lives in a family or a family setting. Significant others are of...

FAMILY INSTITUTION Dr. Gbenga Adejare  Introduction Family is core to individual and collective survival in Canada and beyond Most people throughout history have spent at least some part of their lives in a family or a family setting. Significant others are often drawn among family members. The connection between societal and familial changes is intricate Families have always played a central role in social formation, political and economic systems, and culture Families have always been, and remain, important to our individual, social, and national identities  Introduction Alterations in lived family experiences often engender discontent These sometimes breed social problems, disappearance, emotional and psychological stresses, assimilation and/absorption, et cetera. Stories around families are important reminders of cultural values learned or inherited over time Families exist in many forms  Introduction Different models of Canadian families had always existed in its history Stem/extended families, Euro-Canadian nuclear families, heterogeneous New forms of families have evolved over time, and these are in a continuum. Typical successful families… Provide emotional support for family members Take care of elders Raise the next generation Are inclusive  Family Is Diverse! Nuclear family: a parent or parents and children Extended family: includes parents, children, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins Simple households: unrelated adults with or without children Complex households: two or more adults who are related but not married to each other and hence could reasonably be expected to live separately What does the "average" Canadian family look like? (Full Episode) | CBC  Highlights on Changing Canadian Families Decreasing marriage rate Vs rising cohabitation rate The age of first marriage is rising. Overall increase in divorces, but the rate is falling. More women are having children in their thirties. Drop in the number of children per family below the “replacement rate.” There are nearly as many couples without children as with. Children are leaving home at a later age. There are more lone-parent families. There are more people living alone.  Family in Quebec Statistically, Quebec families are distinct from families in other parts of Canada Quebec has been the province with: Highest cohabitation rate: 37% Lowest marriage rate: 2.9 per 100,000 Highest divorce rate: 69.2 per cent per 100 marriages The highest number of divorces among couples married less than 30 years: 61 per 100 marriages In 2011 Quebec had the greatest number of births to single mothers Greatest percentage of births to divorce women Greatest support for same-sex marriages  Conjugal Roles Conjugal (or marital) roles: The distinctive roles of the husband and wife that result from the division of labour within the family Bott hypothesis: Elizabeth Bott (1957) characterized conjugal roles as Segregated: tasks, interests, and activities are clearly different Joint: many tasks, interests, and activities are shared Earning and Caring: Changes in Conjugal Roles Beaujot (2000) argues we moved from complementary to companionate relationships Complementary roles (Bott’s segregated roles) cast men primarily as earners or breadwinners and women involved primarily in the unpaid work of childcare and housework Companionate roles (Bott’s joint roles) breadwinning and caretaking roles overlap Earning and Caring: Changes in Conjugal Roles, cont’d What is the real value of unpaid work? By UN Women However, the move to companionate relationships is not complete Married women, especially those with young children, still do more unpaid work at home than married men This has created an imbalance in conjugal roles, where women take on what some sociologists have called a “double burden” or “second shift” The double ghetto describes the marginalization of working women experience inside and outside the home Earning and Caring: Changes in Conjugal Roles, cont’d According to Nakhaie (1995), the key to correcting gender imbalances is what Arlie Hochschild called gender strategy: Plan of action through which a person tried to solve problems at hand, given cultural notions of gender at play Childcare responsibilities encourage occupational segregation: Women choose occupations that have greatest flexibility in terms of childcare-related work interruptions (e.g. care for a sick child, care for a newborn child)  The Ethnic Factor in Conjugal Roles Segregated conjugal roles dominate: Recent immigrants in some ethnic groups adhered more to segregated conjugal roles (e.g., South Asian immigrants) However, immigrants often slowly assimilate and adopt Western approach Ethnic factor still must be considered in any study of gender roles in the Canadian family.  Marrying “In” and Marrying “Out” Endogamy: refers to marrying someone of the same ethnic, religious, or cultural group as oneself Exogamy: marrying outside one’s group There is a strong tradition among some ethnic groups to practice endogamy (South Asians, Chinese) However, Canadians are becoming increasingly more comfortable with inter-ethnic marriages (Japanese)  Family and Ethnicity There is a history in Canada of the federal government creating policies designed to deprive racialized minorities of family Expensive head tax levied on immigrants from China and South Asia (19th and 20th century) The treatment of domestic workers (Guadeloupe, Jamaica)  Attacks on the Indigenous Family During the early 20th century, Indian Agents withheld food rations to enforce monogamy Residential schools: created to keep Indigenous children away from the (assumed harmful) influence of their parents and communities Children endured physical, emotional and sexual abused at the hand of school officials Indigenous peoples, esp. women, were subject to forced sterilization Under the Alberta’s Sexual Sterilization Act (1928–1972), the province sterilized 2,832 people, most of them women, 25% of whom were First Nations and Métis Attacks on the Indigenous Family, cont’d Act reflected 20th century belief in eugenics, a form of scientific racism that sought to prevent those deemed inferior to pass on their genes Form of genocide (destroy a people by preventing births) The Sixties Scoop: removal of large numbers of Indigenous children from their families by government-affiliated agencies in the 1960s Conclusion Over the years families have changed because of: - Industrialization - Rise of digital technology - Demographic changes - Ideological differences - Change in the status of women - Changing relationship between private sphere of the family and public - Government interest - Societal recognition of different family forms  Conclusion cont’d The history of Canadian families consists of varied stories of diverse families and functional changes. The history of Canadian families for the past 200 years reveals the importance of families to individuals and the society. 18