Sociology of Families: Core Theories

Overview

Concise revision notes for AQA A-level Sociology (Families and Households). Covers perspectives, division of labor, marriage/divorce, diversity, social policy, childhood, demographics, and migration.

Exam Structure

• Optional Paper 2 topic; worth 40 marks: two 10-mark and one 20-mark questions.
• Families and Households is half the paper; other half is another option (e.g., Media or Beliefs).

Sociological Perspectives on Family

• Functionalism (Murdock, Parsons): family functions, nuclear family, warm bath, expressive/instrumental roles.
• New Right: traditional nuclear family, critiques single parenthood, welfare dependency concerns.
• Feminism: family benefits men, gender socialization, unequal power, abuse risks; liberal, Marxist, radical, difference strands.
• Marxism: family sustaining capitalism; ISA, inheritance, unit of consumption.
• Post-structuralism/Postmodernism/Personal Life: surveillance; choice, agency, negotiated family; wider kin and chosen ties.

Functionalism

• Murdock: nuclear family is universal; functions (SEER): sex, education, economic, reproduction.
• Critiques: functions can be met by state/services; dark side (abuse); ignores diverse family types.
• Parsons: functional fit; shift extended→nuclear with industrialization; primary socialization; stabilization of adult personalities; warm bath.
• Expressive (female) vs instrumental (male) roles; critiques: legal change, capable fathers, capable mothers, technology reduces physical barriers.

New Right

• Supports nuclear family, gendered roles; fears underclass (Murray), welfare dependency.
• Claims: single parent families cause delinquency (Morgan).
• Counterpoints:
  • Only ~1% of single parents are teenagers; average single parent age 39.
  • Most single mothers are in work; a quarter of families single-parent.
  • Children can be happy in single-parent homes; escape toxic households.
• Media and familial ideology: adverts normalize “cereal packet” families; gender role socialization.

Feminism

• Gender socialization:
  • Canalization: toys/activities steer gender roles.
  • Verbal appellations: language reinforces norms.
• Inequalities: less social/economic/cultural capital; triple shift; decision-making power gaps; men praised for typical caregiving.
• Abuse data points indicate underreporting; women as “takers of shit” (Ansley).
• Strands:
  • Liberal: incremental change via policy (Abortion 1967, Equal Pay 1970, Sex Discrimination 1975); critique—piecemeal, reversible.
  • Marxist: oppression rooted in capitalism; reserve army; critique—over-focus on class, underplays patriarchy.
  • Radical: patriarchy central; separatism/political lesbianism; critique—ignores improvements and women’s choices.
  • Difference: experiences vary by class/ethnicity/sexuality; critique—over-fragmentation weakens collective action.

Marxism

• Althusser: family as Ideological State Apparatus.
• Engels: monogamy, inheritance (primogeniture) preserve ruling class power.
• Women as commodified domestic labor; unpaid domestic work mirrors paid services.
• Inheritance tax weakens bourgeois power marginally.
• Zaretsky: family provides unpaid labor, reproduces labor, unit of consumption; pester power; cushions capitalism to prevent class consciousness.
• Critiques: nuclear not dominant; overlooks gender; functionalist benefits (socialization, emotional support).

Post-Structuralism, Postmodernism, Personal Life

• Surveillance: health visitors, attendance officers guide behavior.
• Postmodernism: choice/agency; pick-and-mix family forms; criticized for ignoring structure.
• Personal Life perspective: significant ties beyond blood/marriage (friends, fictive kin, pets, dead relatives, chosen families).
• Donor-conceived families: negotiated kinship; critique—underplays class/ethnicity/gender structures.

Division of Labor

• Separate vs joint conjugal roles (Bott).
• Willmott & Young:
  • 1950s segregated roles; men breadwinners, decision-makers; women dependent, DV risk.
  • 1970s march of progress to symmetrical family; joint roles increasing.
• Drivers: council housing (reduced extended family support), women’s paid work, white goods, contraception.
• Oakley critique: small male participation; quality dissatisfaction; isolation; “say” vs “do.”
• Further findings: women do 50–66% more domestic work; arguments over housework common; few men exceed women’s housework.
• Childcare shifts: men increased involvement but in enjoyable tasks; emergency leave rising.
• Decision-making (Edgell): men decide major issues; joint on important; women on minor.
• Emotion work (Duncombe & Marsden): triple shift; women less satisfied; men net beneficiaries.
• Gender scripts (Dunne): lesbian couples more symmetrical; time on chores tied to work commitment; suggests capitalism shapes asymmetry.

Marriage and Divorce

• Legal changes easing divorce (1949 Legal Aid; 1969 Divorce Reform; 1985 Matrimonial; 1996 Family Law).
• Trends: later marriage; higher expectations; secularization; normalized cohabitation; ~1 in 2 marriages end in divorce.
• Rising single-person and lone-parent households; cohabitation doubling since 1996.
• Perspectives:
  • New Right: nuclear family produces disciplined, self-reliant children.
  • Functionalism: marriage supports socialization, male well-being.
  • Marxism: monogamy for inheritance; distracts proletariat.
  • Feminism: marriage exploits women; outlet for male violence.
• Cohabitation rise: rational choice (more equal labor), risk aversion, trial before marriage; most cohabitors plan to marry.
• Declining divorce rates factors: trial cohabitation, later marriage, dual incomes, legal aid cuts, more equality.

Family Diversity

• Modernism: rigid roles, clear life-course pathways; heterosexual, early marriage.
• Postmodernism: fluid identities, choice; stay-at-home fathers; role reversals.
• Types include nuclear, extended, lone-parent, reconstituted, same-sex, beanpole, multigenerational, and more.
• Giddens:
  • Individualization thesis: more choice, smaller families, joint roles.
  • Confluent love: relationships maintained while beneficial; higher cohabitation/divorce; more same-sex marriage.
• Beck: negotiated families; reflexivity; risk consciousness lowers marriage rates.
• Evaluation: recognizes waning structures; overstates choice; overlooks constraints; many still aspire to nuclear norm.
• Chester: neoconventional family (dual earners) remains dominant; people cycle but return to nuclear.
• Rapoports (CLOCS) five diversities.

Social Policy

• Direct policies: marriage/divorce/abortion/contraception; indirect: education, health, welfare.
• Examples:
  • Divorce Reform (1969) increased diversity; empowered women.
  • Contraception (1967) reduced family size.
  • Same-sex marriage (2014) increased diversity; 15% of gay couples married.
  • Compulsory education (1944), NHS (1948), Equal Pay (1970) empowered women instrumentally.
• Functionalism: policies help families perform functions; NHS supports care.
• Critiques: not all benefit; may reinforce patriarchy; reversibility protects bourgeois interests.
• New Right critique: patriarchal, ignores dark side; cutting benefits worsens poverty; nuclear family socially constructed.
• Feminist views: gains (marital rape criminalized 1991; same-sex marriage 2014; equal pay/sex discrimination) vs persistent bias (tax/benefits, childcare, eldercare).
• Gender regimes (Drew): familistic (UK) vs individualistic (Sweden).
• Troubled Families Programme (2012): targeted multi-agency support; liked by New Right; criticized by Marxists and post-structuralists.

Childhood

• Social construction (Wagg): varies across time/place; not biological inevitability.
• Separateness (Pilcher): protection via schooling, exclusion from work, media controls.
• Ariès: medieval childhood absent; modern childhood lengthened for education; methods limits (interpretation, reliability).
• Change drivers: child labor laws, schooling, protection, rights, smaller families, infant mortality fall, medical knowledge, child-specific laws, industrialization.
• Disappearing childhood? (Postman): adult–child convergence; TV erodes information hierarchy; critiques (Opie: play persists; Jenks: family change cause; legal protections remain).
• Child-centeredness: higher investment; lower infant mortality; universal rights; Marxist critique—commodification.
• Toxic childhood (Palmer): tech/junk food pacify; developmental harm; concerning care/abuse stats (indicative underreporting).
• Inequalities by gender, ethnicity (izzat/honor), class (homelessness, disorders, neglect, low birth weight).

Family Demographics

• UK population grew from 38m (1901) to 64.1m (2013); projected 70m by 2027.
• Concerns: housing, school places, food, wages, aging population, resource competition; benefits: political power, skilled workers, youth via migration, universities, multiculturalism.

Key Measures and Trends

• Aging population: more 80+ (“elderly elderly”); radical longevity (Harper); “grey pound” contributes economically.
• Not homogeneous: outcomes vary by class, gender, ethnicity, location, family support.

Migration

• Net migration significant; ~43% population growth from migration, 57% natural increase.
• 1900–1950s: Irish; Eastern/Central European Jews; British from USA/Canada; mainly white.
• 1950s–1970s: Caribbean; South Asia; East African Asians.
• Since late 1990s: EU migrants (e.g., Polish, Latvians, Lithuanians); 400,000 EU citizens left post-Brexit (finalized 2020).
• Globalization: empire legacies, media, finance, tech, EU expansion; net migration 500k (2021); large student inflows.
• Legislation: UK–Ireland Common Travel Area (1921); Commonwealth Immigration Acts (1962, 1968); Asylum Act (1999).
• Push factors: war, crime, poverty, famine; Pull factors: wages, services, stability, low hazards.
• Types (Cohen): citizen migrants; denizens (privileged); helots (exploited, often trafficked/servitude).
• Feminization of migration (Hochschild): state childcare gaps; men’s limited domestic work; women in labor force; services growth; BAME women fill expressive roles.
• Cultural diversity (Berthoud/Victor et al.):
  • Asian families: nuclear/multigenerational; endogamy; traditional roles; elder care obligation; youth Americanization trends.
  • African-Caribbean: lower marriage, higher lone-mother households; male unemployment; strong fictive kin; intermarriage higher than other groups.
  • Mixed families: rising among youth; variation across groups (lower in Indian/Pakistani communities).

Key Terms & Definitions

• Nuclear family: two-generation unit with parents and children.
• Functional fit: family changes to meet societal needs.
• Warm bath theory: family relieves male worker stress.
• Expressive/instrumental roles: caregiving vs breadwinning.
• Underclass: group reliant on welfare, linked by New Right to family breakdown.
• Canalization/verbal appellations: gendered socialization processes.
• Triple shift: paid work, domestic work, emotion work.
• Ideological State Apparatus: institutions transmitting ruling-class ideology.
• Unit of consumption: family drives demand via consumption.
• Pester power: children influencing parental purchases.
• Surveillance: state monitoring to shape behavior.
• Individualization: increased choice/autonomy in life planning.
• Negotiated family: roles decided via compromise.
• Neoconventional family: dual-earner nuclear family.
• Gender regimes: policy frameworks shaping gender equality.
• Child-centeredness: prioritizing children’s needs/welfare.
• Radical longevity: substantial increases in lifespan.

Action Items / Next Steps

• Memorize SEER functions; critique with dark side and alternatives.
• Compare perspectives (Functionalist, New Right, Feminist, Marxist) with evidence.
• Learn division of labor studies (Bott; Willmott & Young; Oakley; Edgell; Dunne).
• Revise legal milestones affecting marriage/divorce and social policy impacts.
• Practice applying postmodern/personal life perspectives to diverse family forms.
• Know demographic measures and drivers; link to policy and family change.
• Prepare short evaluative points for each theorist and trend for 10/20-mark answers.