Family Sociologists

Family is universal and has four key functions: economic, educational, sexual and reproductive

Functional fit theory - family structure has shifted to the isolated family due to structural differnetiation

Family has two irreducible functions: primary socialisation and stabilisation of adult personalities

Men perform the instrumental role whilst women perform the expressive role

Warm bath theory - the family is a place of emotional support and love to relieve the stress of the outside world

The welfare state provides perverse incentives for illegitimacy and unemployment creating an underclass reliant on benefits

The welfare state has created a dependency culture

Early humans lived in primitive communism in promiscuous hordes without monogamy and fidelity until the inheritance of private property created a need for a legitimate heir

Families are no longer a unit of both production and consumption but only a unit of consumption due to capitalism

Family creates a false illusion of security as a safe-haven from capitalism but this is just ideology as abuse and divorce exist within families

The commodification of personal services means that family services eg: baby sitters and therapists take on the emotional labour of family, creating alienation from family and the natural human experiences

As most women are heterosexual so we must apply principled pragmatism to realistically solve the patriarchy whilst recognising most women with have relationships and families with men

Women are for unpaid domestic labour, the reproduction of labour and as a reserve army of labour

Women act as absorbers of anger for their husbands due to the stress of capitalism and carry out the ‘worry work’ to care for their children and husbands. Women are the ‘takers of shit’

Families are an economic system with unequal labour relations as women act as the husband’s ‘employee’ as he makes the decisions and has the financial power whilst she does the most work eg: childcare and domestic work

Women are objectified and treated as ‘trophies’ as wives, undervalued as mothers and sexualised as daughters

There is a ‘myth of traditional family’ as nuclear families are becoming rare as there are alternative families, single mothers and gay mothers

Personal life is a ‘life project’ which is fluid, flexible and ever changing. Families can be non-biological fictive kin or families of choice

Connectedness thesis - strong sexual, emotional and personal connections are powerful which mean relationships cannot totally fall apart or be totally fluid and prevents people from walking away from relationships

Overlapping features of personal life - memory, biography, embeddedness, relationality & imaginary

Everyday practices such as having breakfast or putting the children to bed build intimate personal relationships but can lead to conflict and intergenerational power struggles

Due to a rise of pet-human relationships and companion-species, pet-orientated families have emerged in which the pet becomes the centre of activity

Donor conceived children prove that family relationships do not have to be biological. Grandparents of donors or donors may or may not be involved in the child’s life despite a contract - shows that relationships are fluid and everchanging

Social liberalism is the opposite of social conservatism, allowing divorce, supporting single parents and LGBTQ rights.

Interventionism is the government being involved in family matters eg: domestic violence legislation and social services

Surveillance of families - social policy has become over interventionalist and is quite sinister. Anti-social behaviour orders given to restict families by the Labour government and parenting orders (parenting classes and benefits stopped if not attended) mainly targets low income families

The Conservative party have divided into traditionalists (pro-marriage and nuclear families) and modernisers (embracing alternative families and becoming more socially liberal to stay in the present)

The New Right are overly influential on all parties and social policy eg: married couples tax allowance which is unfair to single parent families and the family courts often awarding custody to the woman in divorce reinforcing patriarchal ideas that women are the primary carer

Marriage and the nuclear family are being undermined by social policy. The state should not be acting as the breadwinner or child carer as family is a private matter. Single parenthood and divorce should not be encouraged and same sex marriage undermines parenthood and fidelity.

Housing policy favours the nuclear family, with most housing built with them in mind. Landlords and housing agencies also favour nuclear families over alternative families.

Familistic gender regimes often in the global south see family as a private matter and have little support for single mothers. Individualistic gender regimes are more developed countries where people without children, single parents and same sex couples are supported and allowed to make individual decisions.

Countries without female education have higher birth rates. Education opens up alternate pathways for women to focus on like careers and higher education which means they are less likely to have children

Feminism has influenced fertility rates as female emancipation has given more women the choice to chose careers or not to have children

Postmodern society has created a ‘body maintenance’ market of gym memberships and anti-aging creams as people are living longer so want to stay healthy and looking young longer

Old age is a social construct at which society assumes the elderly to be disengaged, however it is argued that there is a difference between chronological age and personal age

There is institutional ageism in the job market assuming the elderly are ‘past their best’ forcing them into structured dependency.

Three types of migrants: citizens (professional migrants allowed due to qualifications and skills), denziens (welcomed due to extreme wealth) and helots (unskilled and often exploited)

Men no longer dominate migration as their has been a feminisation of migration with many migrant women working in the sex trade, domestic work or in healthcare

Policies have shifted to multiculturalism and celebrating/embracing other cultures. But this is shallow diversity of embracing a culture’s food or music and deep diversity would be fully embracing all values of cultures eg: national holidays for Eid and endorsing arranged marriages

The biological dominant framework sess children as incomplete and needing needing to be socialised fully to be fully functioning members of society morally, culturally, linguistically and intelligently (deficit model of childhood)

Argues that adults are adultist as see children as incompetent of making decisions. This disempowers children and prevents them from speaking out against abuse due to this oppressive view.

Present tense of childhood - sociologists should study children from the perspective of children and not adults.

The dominant framework is a Western view. In the developing world there is a belief that it is normal for children to work or have sexual interactions (eg: differing ages of consent)

Childhood is a social construct as historically children worked and had the same legal status as adults. This changed in the industrial revolution when liberal politicians feared it was dangerous for children to be working in mills or mines so in 1880 compulsory schooling was introduced and children became more seperate.

March of progress - there has been an increase the the manufacturing of specialised goods and services for children eg: books, toys and parenting advice. Childhood has been reconstructed to be a special and protected age in the ‘modern cult of childhood’

Disappearance of childhood - when news was mainly distributed by print there was an information hierarchy as children could not read to learn about war, sex or politics. In the digital age this has become accessible for children due to the internet and 24 hour TV causing children to become less innocent

Technology, junk food, pressure from school and less family interaction has led to physical and mental health issues in children creating toxic childhood

Age patriarchy - there is inequality between children and adults. Absolute power of adults over children conditions children to believe adults are always right and not speak up about abuse.

In response to adult control children either ‘act up’ to seem more mature drinking alcohol, swearing etc. or act down, acting younger than they are eg: baby talk to get what they want

In late-modernity adult relationships are more unstable so parents cling onto their children as it is the only primary relationship seen as permanents creating child centredness.

Futurity - there is more of a focus on children’s future instead of just the experience/enjoyment of childhood.

Dionysian image - belief that children are mischievous and have the potential to carry out evil acts so harsh discipline and corporal punishment is required.

Apollonian image - children seen as morally good but requiring adults to help coax out their good nature. Each child is a special individual.

Parental roles are not biological but instead feeling rules dictate gender roles, eg: women feel they needed to be closer to their children whilst men feel they are expected to remain emotionally distant from their children

Dual earners mean that families are becoming more symmetrical with both men and women in paid work and sharing domestic work. Part of the march of progress.

Families are still asymmetrical as women have a more heavy domestic workload of ‘worry work’ whilst men take part in ‘token work’

Most fathers are background fathers instead of active fathers, leaving domestic work and childcare to the woman. This is due to the male provider ideology.

Triple shift - women are now balancing paid work, domestic work and emotional work.

Newer couples are ‘undoing gender’ and opting to share domestic work introducing new fatherhood where fathers are more involved in the child’s life and not conforming to gender roles as purely the breadwinner. Many end up ‘falling back into gender’ post paternity leave.

There are two explanations for unequal division of domestic labour: cultural explanations (patriarchy and male breadwinner ideology) and material explanations (gender pay gap, men have more earning power which is used to justify women staying at home)

Gender expectations are passed form generation to generation. The most equalitarian couples are more likely to have been raised in symmetrical households.

Lesbian couples are more likely to be in equalitarian relationships due to lack of cultural and historical baggage of gender role expectations

Middle class women do less domestic work as they can afford labour saving devices (eg: tumble driers) and cleaners/childcare

When women work full time their domestic workload is reduced as more pressure is put on the man to help out

For every £10,000 a woman earns, she does 2 hours less domestic work as the power balance shifts

Male careers are prioritised in the family and they use their earning power to dominate decision making

In the 1990s, husband controlled pooling or complete husband control were most common with wife control most common in families living on benefits

Joint pooling and partial pooling have become the most common financial arrangements.

Same-sex couples have the most consistent equalitarian joint decisions making processes and control over money. Most symmetrical arrangement.