Sociology of Family

Defining family can be difficult as we tend to base our idea of the family on our own experiences and expectations of our families (or lack thereof). Therefore, Allan and Crow argued that sociologists must first specify what they mean by "family" when researching and writing about the topic.

A general definition of family is that it is a union of a couple and their dependent children living in the same household.

However, this definition doesn't cover the increasing family diversity that exists in the world now.

There are many structures and compositions of family in modern Western society. Some of the most common family forms in the UK are:

• The fertility rate has been declining in Western countries in the past decades due to several factors, including the declining stigma around contraception and abortion and women’s increasing participation in paid labour.

• Previously, many children were unable to attend school due to poverty. Many of them worked either in real or in household employment. Since the 1918 Education Act, it is now mandatory for all children to attend school until the age of 14.

• Sociologists argue that children are seen as important members of contemporary society and have more individual freedom than before. Childrearing is no longer restricted and dominated by economic factors, and parent-children relationships tend to be much more child-centred now.

Sociologists argue that children today have more individual freedom than in past centuries, pixabay.com

• Due to increasing geographical mobility, people tend to be less connected to their extended families than before. At the same time, longer life expectancy has resulted in more households consisting of two, three or even more generations.

• A relatively new phenomenon is the generation of boomerang children. These are young adults who leave home to study or work and then return during a financial, housing or employment crisis.

The Rapoports (1982) distinguished between 5 types of family diversity:

Sociologists have noted that there are certain patterns of family formation and family life regarding specific to social class and ethnicity in the UK. For example, women of African-Caribbean heritage often work in full-time employment even with children, while Asian mothers tend to become full-time homemakers when they have children.

Some sociologists claim that working-class households are more male-dominated than the more egalitarian and equal middle-class households. However, others have criticised this statement, pointing to research that shows that working-class fathers are more involved with childrearing than middle and upper-class fathers.

Functionalists believe that the nuclear family is the building block of society because of the functions it carries out. G. P. Murdock (1949) defined the four main functions the nuclear family fulfils in society as follows:

Talcott Parsons (1956) argued that the nuclear family has lost some of its functions. For instance, the economic and educational functions are taken care of by other social institutions. However, this does not mean that the nuclear family is unimportant.

Parsons believes that personalities are not born but made during the primary socialisation or upbringing of children when they are taught social norms and values. This primary socialisation happens in the family, so according to Parsons, the most significant role of the nuclear family in society is to form human personalities.

Marxists are critical of the ideal of the nuclear family. They argue that the nuclear family serves the capitalist system rather than the individuals in it. Families reinforce social inequalities by socialising their children according to the ‘values and rules’ of their social class, not preparing them for any kind of social mobility.

Eli Zaretsky (1976) claimed that the nuclear family serves capitalism in three key ways:

Zaretsky believed that only a society without social classes (socialism) could end the separation of private and public spheres and ensure that all individuals find personal fulfilment in society.

Feminist sociologists are usually critical of the traditional family form.

Ann Oakley was one of the first to raise attention to the ways traditional gender roles, created through the patriarchal nuclear family, contribute to the oppression of women in society. She pointed out that as early as childhood, girls and boys are taught different things to prepare them for different roles (homemaker and breadwinner) they will have to perform later in life. She also talked a lot about the repetitive and boring nature of domestic work which left many, if not most, women unfulfilled.

Researchers Christine Delphy and Diana Leonard also studied housework and found that husbands systematically exploit their wives by leaving all the unpaid domestic labour to them. As they are often financially dependent on their husbands, women cannot challenge the status quo. In some families, women also suffer from domestic abuse, making them even more powerless.

As a result, Delphy and Leonard argue that families contribute to maintaining male domination and patriarchal control in society.

Conjugal roles are the domestic roles and responsibilities of married or cohabiting partners. Elizabeth Bott identified two types of households: one with segregated conjugal roles and the other with joint conjugal roles.

Segregated conjugal roles meant that the tasks and responsibilities of the husband and wife were distinctly different. Usually, this meant that the wife was the homemaker and carer for the children, while the husband had a job outside of the home and was the breadwinner. In joint conjugal role households, the domestic duties and tasks are shared relatively equally between the partners.

Young and Willmott (1973) created the term ‘symmetrical family’ referring to a dual-earner family in which the partners share the roles and responsibilities both in and outside of the household. These types of families are much more equal than traditional nuclear families. The move to a more symmetrical family structure was accelerated by numerous factors:

In the West, marriage is based on monogamy, which means being married to one person at a time. If someone’s partner dies or gets a divorce, they are legally allowed to get married again. This is called serial monogamy. Marrying someone while already being married to another person is called bigamy and is a criminal offence in the Western world.

Statistics show that there has been a decline in the number of marriages in the Western world, and people tend to get married later than before.

Since 2005, same-sex partners have been able to enter civil partnerships, which granted them the same rights as marriage except for the title. Since the 2014 Marriage Act, same-sex couples can now marry as well.

More and more people now decide to cohabit without getting married, and there has been an increase in children born out of marriage.

There has been a rise in the number of divorces in the West. Sociologists have collected many factors playing a role in the changing divorce rates:

Some sociologists have claimed that the three most important social issues regarding children and families are: