Family Diversity

1
Family Diversity

• Blended or reconstituted families
• Lone parent
• Same sex
• Ethnic diversity
• Cohabitation
• Singlehood

2
Reconstituted or Blended Families

• One form of family diversity which moves away
  from traditional notions of the family is the
  step-family now more commonly known as
  the reconstituted or blended family.
• Allan Crow (2001) research found seven out of
  ten families with dependent children may be
  described as married-couple families these do not
  all conform to the stereotype of the normal
  family as some are step-families or reconstituted
  families. Step-families with dependent children
  account for 7 of all families and there is
  evidence of an increase in the proportion of
  step-families in recent years (p289).

3
Reconstituted or Blended Families

• Carol Smart, co-author of  The Changing
  Experience of Childhood, has conducted research
  with many children whose families have broken up
• Smart found, it was impossible for the
  step-parent to become a substitute mother or
  father. They tended to assume instead a
  non-authoritarian, non-disciplinarian,
  companionship role. A new etiquette is emerging

4
Reconstituted or Blended Families

• Dorit Braun of Parentline Plus says that blended
  families often take 10 years to bed down.
• But its certainly true that the step role
  sometimes a sort of uncle, father, big brother
  is shifting and uncertain with discipline being
  the most fraught and visible example of the
  unease.
• As one of the interviewees said, Its all tied
  up with will they like you or not? The advice
  (for what its worth, when children are being
  really infuriating) is to let the biological
  parent do the disciplining and, if shes not
  there, to say, I dont think your mother would
  like you to do that.

5
Reconstituted or Blended Families

• Bedell 2002 also found there are plenty of other
  difficulties that intact families dont have
• How do you handle birthdays?
• What do you all do at Christmas?
• When there are competing rituals at Christmas
  stockings or pillowcases whose do you jettison?
• How is everyone going to react when theres a new
  baby arrives, who really is a child of this
  family?

6
Reconstituted or Blended Families

• Fact file on blended/reconstituted familys
• 10 of all British children lives with one birth
  parent and a step parent
• Over 50 of children who live in two different
  households take a positive view of their divided
  lives
• 6 of all families with children are step
  families
• Two fifths of all marriages are re-marriages
• 25 of children have experienced their parents
  divorce. Over 50 of them will find themselves
  members of a stepfamily when their mothers and
  fathers go on to find new partners.

7
Lone parent families

• One-parent families only appeared in official
  documentation in the 1960s.
• Of course, arrangements whereby one parent brings
  up a child have always existed but historically
  it was a phenomenon known by different
  stigmatised names
• e.g. unmarried mother, fatherless family and
  regarded from different perspectives (e.g. as
  pathological).

8
Lone parent families

• Due to this social-shift an official definition
  of a lone-parent family exists to offset any
  social stigma
• A mother or father living without a partner
  (either married or cohabiting), with their
  dependent children. The child must be under 19
  and in full-time education.

9
Lone parent families

• However, the experience of lone parenthood
  remains full of ambiguities
• Hardey Crows research found lone parenting is
  associated with tough economic circumstances and
  social marginalisation
• For example single parent households are the most
  likely to be in arrears on one or more household
  bills, mortgage or nonmortgage borrowing
  commitment 31 (Gingerbread, 2013).

10
Lone parent families

• Nevertheless the following official statistics
  (January 2012, Office for National Statistics)
  show the extent to which Britains seen an
  increasing rise in the number of single-parent
  families
• In 1971 just 8 per cent of families with children
  were single parent families
• In 1998 24 per cent of families with children
  were single parent families
• In 2011 26 per cent of families with children
  were single parent families

11
Lone parent families

• For New Right politicians lone parents remain a
  problem
• Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP in 2004 blamed the
  rise of lone parent families
• He said In the fourth largest economy in the
  world, too many people lived in dysfunctional
  homes, trapped on benefits. Too many children
  were leaving school with no qualifications or
  skills to enable them to work and prosper.

12
Lone parent families

• The reasons for the increase in lone-parenthood
  are varied.
• Allan and Crow (2001) have identified three
  factors
• 1. is an increase in marital breakdown.
• 2. a rise in births to unmarried mothers
• 3. societys acceptance of family diversity.

13
Lone parent families

• Other sociologists have identified other causes
  of lone parenthood by separating the different
  causes between married and non-married
  individuals.
• For married couples the causes of lone parenthood
  tends to fall into three main categories
• 1 - divorce 2 separation 3 - death of a
  spouse
• While the cause of lone parenthood for
  individuals who have never been married tends to
  be due to
• 1 - may have been living with the parent of the
  child when the child was born, but then their
  relationship terminated
• 2 - a relationship was formed after the birth of
  the child, but the relationship terminated a
  period of time later

14
Same Sex Families

• There has been a relatively small but gradually
  increasing number of children brought up in same
  sex families (gay and lesbian families). However
  the number of children brought up in same sex
  families is very small. 
• The Office of National Statistics noted that less
  than 1 of dependent children lived in civil
  partnership or same sex cohabiting couple
  families in 2012

15
Same Sex Families

• In 2009 Stonewalls research found
• Many children of gay parents see their families
  as special and different because all families are
  special and different, though some feel that
  their families are a lot closer than other
  peoples families
• Some children feel that their family is a bit
  different if they have lesbian or gay parents but
  this is something to celebrate, not worry about
• Other children do recognise that children with
  gay parents are less common than other sorts of
  families, but dont feel this means that their
  families are any different to other peoples
  families because of it.

16
Same Sex Families

• Macionis and Plummer show how new reproductive
  technologies have helped to extend the variety of
  family relationships. Its worth noting
  reproductive technologies are used by
  heterosexual couples as well as single and older
  women
• Stacey (1996) argues that gay and lesbian
  families represent an ideal model of postmodern
  kinship because their conscious efforts to devise
  intimate relationships are freed from the
  constraints and the benefits of traditional
  patterns of family life

17
Ethnicity

• Ethnically diverse family structures
• Asian most Asian households are built on the
  nuclear model though they do tend to encourage
  extended family forms. Cohabitation is rare, and
  marrying young is normal though sometimes
  arranged
• African-Caribbean single parenthood is very
  high in this ethnic group. In 2001 48 of
  African-Caribbean families were headed by lone
  parents (women), they also have the lowest
  marriage rate and relative divorce rate.
• Multi-cultural families there has been an
  increasing number of partnerships between people
  from different ethnic groups. Beck-Gernsheim 2002
  studies have found there can be conflict between
  the ethnic groups of origin yet she also found
  that multicultural marriages help break down
  social barriers

18
Ethncity

• Bangladeshi and Pakistani family size has reduced
  to an average of about three children per family,
  still higher than other groups
• Chinese fertility is particularly low, partly
  because one third of the Chinese population are
  students
• is less difference in family size between ethnic
  groups than in past decades
• People from mixed race backgrounds are the
  youngest ethnic group in England and Wales

19
Cohabitation

• New figures from the UK Census have revealed that
  more and more couples are living together without
  being married and/or before getting married
• In 1994, the earliest date for which figures are
  available, 75 of couples marrying in a civil
  ceremony lived together before getting married.
  This percentage increased steadily to 88 in 2011
• The number of dependent children living in these
  opposite sex cohabiting couple families also
  increased, from 0.9 million to 1.8 million
• The reasons are as follows

20
Cohabitation

• sexual relations cohabiting is no longer
  associated with living in sin (social stigma)
  making cohabitation socially acceptable
• choice people (particularly young couples)
  choose to cohabit in order to test their
  relationship
• changing roles of women greater economic
  independence has meant women are able to choose
  their relationships
• effective contraception from 1967 onwards
  reliable contraception was made available on the
  NHS. This meant it made it possible for couples
  to cohabit without worrying about becoming
  pregnant
• parental freedom the 1960s saw a gradual
  relaxation in parents towards their children. The
  formal discipline of the past slowly eroded and
  so eventually parents allowed their children to
  live together without being married

21
Cohabitatation

• education 1960s saw a growth in Higher
  Education, this meant more children were given
  more freedom than ever before
• building societies started lending money to
  unmarried couples in the late 1970s and early
  1980s as the social stigma waned
• divorce theres increasingly less stigma
  associated with divorce, consequently marriage as
  a union between couples is not as socially strong
•  increasing divorce rates makes marriage is less
  of an aspiration for people which has added to
  the currency of cohabitation

22
Singlehood

• According to the Office for National
  Statistics the 2011 Census revealed just under a
  third of households consisted of one person in
  2011
• proportionally this has remained unchanged since
  2001 although the number of people living alone
  has increased by 0.6 million.
• The composition of singlehood shows 2.5million
  between 45 and 64 living in their own home alone
  with the number of men on living on their own has
  increased far more than women

23
Singlehood

• So what is driving this growth?
• American sociologist Eric Kinenberg research
  identified the following points
• more people live alone than ever before is that
  they can afford to
• the rise stems from the cultural change that
  Émile Durkheim, called the cult of the individual
  - according to Durkheim, this cult grew out of
  the transition from traditional rural communities
  to modern industrial cities.
• divorce once justified a persons decision to
  stay in an empty-shell marriage -today if someone
  is not fulfilled by their marriage, they have to
  justify staying in it, because there is cultural
  pressure to be good to ones self.

24
Singlehood

• communications revolution has allowed people to
  experience the pleasures of social life even when
  theyre living alone
• young solitaires actively reframe living alone as
  a mark of distinction and success -they use it as
  a way to invest time in their personal and
  professional growth building up a strong network
  of friends and work contacts.
• contemporary families are fragile, as are most
  jobs, and in the end each of us must be able to
  depend on ourselves
• as divorced or separated people often say,
  theres nothing lonelier than living with the
  wrong person- theres a difference between being
  lonely and alone

25
Singlehood

• The rise in singlehood means
• number of people living alone has pushed up
  demand for  housing
• is very expensive in terms of state benefits and 
  health and social services care
• people who live alone are more likely to need the
  NHS or social services