Examine the extent of and reasons for family diversity in UK today Britain has become a pluralistic society more than one family types exist this is due to family diversity increasing. Family diversity is variety. It is the different types of family types that exist for example single parent families, same sex families and re-constituted families. In the past the Nuclear family was the most popular family type that existed it was seen as the ‘normal’ family type. However now only 25% of families actually live in the nuclear family whereas 75% are diverse family types.
With a mother who chooses to spend much of her time outside the confines of a family home for whatever reason you can expect to see many changes. Another reason mothers have become less dependent on their husbands is because the divorce rate has more than doubled in the last 60 years. It is still agreed that a happy marriage is something to strive for and it is all around better for the family, though the divorce rate is almost at its peek. The woman’s job in the 50’s was to make the family happy and to steer it away from divorce at all possible, and since the woman’s role has changed so has the rate of divorce. Adultery, abuse, and unhappiness are not any less common now than it was 60 years ago, but it is now less tolerated.
It has declined dramatically for women college graduates, whereas less-educated women have experienced virtually stable divorce rates” (Lamanna & Riedmann, 2011, 402). “Another reason is that better-educated and better-off working couples have had the economic tide in their favor. According to public policy professor Andrew Cherlin, “Families with two earners with good jobs have seen an improvement in their standard of living, which leads to less tension at home and lower probability of divorce,” so long as the wife does not earn more than her husband. This is particularly true in white marriages, where the greater a woman’s income, compared to her husband’s, destabilizes the marriage” (Lamanna & Riedmann, 2011, 405). Divorce rates in the past 20 years have been declining the majority of that decline has been attributed to both men and women waiting longer to marry at a more advanced and mature age.
Another main reason is the simple fact people are marrying later for many reasons, more because of the change in attitudes towards education and religion (seclurisation). It doesn’t help that the countrys ecnomy is in decline and the price of weddings not only was expensive enough but they are also getting dearer to match the current cost of living. From 1838 until. Nearly a quarter of children lived with only one parent (25%) last year and nine out of ten of these households were headed by
Outline and explain the reasons for the increase in diversity of family types (20 marks) One reason for the increase in single parent families is the introduction of the divorce reform act 1969. The divorce reform act made it easier for people to get divorced and made it cheaper also. This increased single parent family's because people who were unhappy about marriage could leave and it was seen as socially acceptable, but now because of the rate of divorces has increased it is seen less of a taboo and more of a normal procedure people go through in life. Another change in family diversity is the decrease of patriarchal family's, where the male is dominant in the household. From 1950's living and working in the uk we see that a male follows a patriarchal role and goes out to work while the wife stays at home and cooks and cleans as well as dealing with childcare waiting for the father to come home to provide emotional support and comfort from the strains of working life.Now in the modern day we see changes in conjugal roles in the family and now both parents may usually work and share jobs within the household.Wilmot and Young suported conjugal roles and that at the time of writing in 1970 that housework and leisure time were both shared as opposed to 1950s nuclear families where jobs and chores may have only been done by the wife in the household.
This shows that nuclear families now have decreased. As well as that, reconstituted families are also an increase in Britain due to the rise in divorce. This means more step families are becoming visible in Britain. This can happen due to broken marriage, adoption or even death. Cohabitation and single sex families have all started to become the norm in Britain today.
She doesn't believe that the 50's should be taken 'literally' because from the 50's there were changes in values that caused racism and sexism discrimination against women. Many of the existing social problems could have been avoided or ignored. Racial conflict was intense in many places, but many suburbs were exclusively white. The poverty rate was higher than today, but at least it was falling. Teenagers had more babies than they do now, but access to good jobs-even with only a high school education-enabled young men to marry their pregnant girlfriends.
This undermines their motivation and self-esteem therefore they give up on trying to do well in education and have a fatalistic attitude towards it. Another reason why girls achieve better could be because of the changes in the family. There is now an increase of the number lone-parent female headed families and these changes are affecting girls attitudes towards education. This could be because an increased number of female headed lone-parent families means that
Secondly they believe it is most important type of family as it stops deviance in children and also reduces crime caused by children. They also believe that there are some economic gains to being in a nuclear family which is that it reduces the dependency ratio of the country as both parents are capable of supporting their family, rather than depending on the government of financial support. And finally their view on divorce is that it creates an underclass of welfare- dependant female lone parent’s lone parent and leaves boys without the adult male role model they need However, postmodern sociologists support the view that family has become diverse in modern UK. They see that people have become fragmented and
Couples can share a life of dreams, excitement and happiness. Many believe that marriage put women in higher risk factors for abuse and violence. Marriage has become only a statement now because of the widespread social change. Many have stated that being marriage is not important any longer and choose to live together instead. But this is not the same as sharing an intimate and fulfilling life.