welcome to this tutor to you sociology topic video on families and households looking at the work of the rapper pause on family diversity in a groundbreaking piece of research husband and wife team ronda and robert rappaport examined changes in the family unit during the 1980s and noticed that the conventional family was being replaced by more diverse forms of family the rapid social changes of the 1960s and changes to social policies resulted in a more diverse range of family types occurring such as lone parent families more singletons remarriages and same-sex relationships and the rapper poor's noticed this using published research and other secondary sources they established that there were five ways in which families were becoming more diverse in the 1980s the types of diversity they identified are highlighted here firstly organizational diversity focusing on the structure and organization of gender roles within the family secondly cultural diversity focusing on the social backgrounds of different families based upon their ethnic background a third form of diversity was social class diversity with the rapper paul's arguing that middle class and working-class families had different structures and organization the fourth form of diversity was life course diversity with the rapper paul suggesting that depending upon the stage of our lives that we are at different family types are the norm and finally cohort diversity arguing that between generations there were stark differences in the types of family and the relationships within those families we're going to look at each of these types in more detail organizational diversity according to the wrapper boards focused on the organization of different family structures and the support networks that were available to those whilst the likes of will martin young had suggested that there was greater symmetry in the family and oakley talked about the dual burden on women the rappaport suggested that both of these types of families existed and often roles in the family were supplemented with support from friends and relatives organizational diversity was largely impacted by the employment status of individuals when looking at the organization of labor but the structure of the family might also be influenced by factors such as their marital status with cohabiting couples having children before marriage or reconstituted families where one partner is not the biological parent of the children which impacts on the dynamics within the family similarly whilst the foster family might have a structure resembling a nuclear family the organization of that family unit will be very different from one with biological children a second form of diversity was cultural diversity and in the 1980s the impact of mass migration into the uk in the post-war period was more evident as migrants to the uk settled and raised their children as part of british society they also attempted to keep the traditions of their homeland alive and this led to different structures and cultures of family life in the uk for example asian families may have migrated and relied upon support networks of families who also had migrated to areas in the north and the midlands to help them settle into the uk which created extended families whilst caribbean and african families formed local communities to support one another upon their arrival providing employment opportunities and housing whilst keeping alive the culture and traditions of their homelands particularly in areas of london and the midlands these structures differed from the privatised nuclear families that have been suggested by parsons and to a lesser extent wilmot and young who suggested families were self-sufficient often assumptions about what family life is like are based upon middle class ideals of family life and the rapper paul suggested that this was not the case for different social classes the organization of domestic labor differed greatly between working class and middle class families and were in stark contrast to those of the upper classes in the working classes women were more likely to be involved in low paid labor alongside their partner who was working in manual labour whilst there were greater career aspirations of middle class women or marriage to professional males in a more traditional housewife role often employment for women was out of necessity doing odd jobs such as cleaning or working in schools to make ends meet for working class women whilst leisure time was less likely to be shared and child care responsibilities fell mostly on women in middle class and upper class families domestic labour and child care was often contracted out to paid labor which demonstrates the different experiences of females between the social classes life course diversity referred to the stage of life that individuals were at and how it impacted upon the type of family or household they found themselves in the rapper paul suggested that it is rare that we will remain in one household for the entirety of our lives even by the 1980s the idea of moving from the nuclear family of one's parents to the formation of your own nuclear family will be rare life events such as divorce employment higher education and having children all shape the form of household an individual lives in with students moving from their parents home into shared accommodation young professionals moving out into their own flat or home middle-aged couples being left in empty-nest families after their children have moved out to form families of their own and the elderly at risk of isolation if their partners die as you move through different stages of life so are living arrangements will change and finally cohort diversity this refers to the intergenerational attitudes of different groups for example how my people born in the years after world war ii often referred to as boomers have different attitudes to the structure and organization of the family how many generation x those born in the late 1960s to early 1980s have different attitudes to parenting and the division of labour than their parents what values will millennials have that differ from previous generations each of these different cohorts will have their own norms and values that will be placed upon the organization of their family life whereas earlier generations might see marriage as a necessity other generations might see it as just a piece of paper others might see it as something to aspire to later in life once you have a career others again might choose to have children at a later age particularly younger generations might seek out alternatives to traditional marriage and children and within their cohort this would be not seen as abnormal the rapper paul's research was certainly influential as it highlighted the growth of family diversity even within seemingly similar family structures it was also published at a time when the greater diversity of family life was beginning and subsequent events in society such as the rise of remarriages lone parent families and same-sex relationships have demonstrated the changes that the rapper pulls highlighted furthermore the development of fictive families family types based upon relationships with friends increased cohabitation and other changes in personal life choices demonstrate the validity of the research as time has passed one criticism is that by using existing research their interpretations were inherently subjective based upon the subjective opinions of others from which they have drawn conclusions however further research into changes to family life have supported the rapper paul's ideas that concludes this cheated to you sociology topic video on families and households examining the work of the rapper pause on family diversity thanks for watching