amazon.co.ukFamilies and Households
Perspectives on the family, changing patterns, domestic labour and power, childhood and UK demography — with 30-mark essay technique for AQA 4.2.2, OCR H580/01 and Eduqas Component 1.
🎯 Learning Objectives
- Set out functionalist, Marxist, feminist and personal life accounts of the family with named theorists (AQA 4.2.2.1)
- Explain the family's relationship to social structure, the economy and state policies (AQA 4.2.2.2)
- Describe changing patterns of marriage, cohabitation, separation, divorce and child-bearing and evaluate the explanations (AQA 4.2.2.3)
- Analyse gender roles, domestic labour and power relationships, including domestic violence (AQA 4.2.2.4)
- Evaluate the nature of childhood and its changing status in family and society (AQA 4.2.2.5)
- Interpret UK demographic trends since 1900 — birth rates, death rates, ageing, migration — and link them to globalisation (AQA 4.2.2.6)
📋 Key Definitions and Core Concepts
Nuclear family: A two-generation family of a couple and their dependent children; the unit functionalists treat as universal and central.
Extended family: A family containing relatives beyond the nuclear unit — vertically (grandparents) or horizontally (aunts, uncles); includes the vertically extended 'beanpole' family.
Primary socialisation: Parsons: the family's function of teaching children society's shared norms and values, equipping them to become co-operative members of society.
Warm bath theory: Parsons' image of the family as a place where the (male) breadwinner relaxes and is emotionally stabilised after the strains of work — the 'stabilisation of adult personalities'.
Symmetrical family: Willmott and Young (1973): the claimed modern family with joint conjugal roles — shared housework, childcare and leisure — typical of richer, home-centred couples.
Domestic division of labour: The allocation of housework and childcare between partners; feminists (Oakley) show it remains unequal and gendered in practice.
Dual burden: When a woman performs paid work and remains responsible for most housework; Duncombe and Marsden (1995) add the triple shift of paid work, housework and emotional work.
Individualisation: Beck and Giddens: in late modernity people construct relationships through personal choice and negotiation rather than fixed obligations, producing family diversity.
Pure relationship: Giddens (1992): a relationship sustained only because both partners find it emotionally satisfying, not for duty or economic necessity — inherently unstable.
Beanpole family: A vertically extended family with many living generations but few members in each — a product of longer life expectancy and lower fertility.
Dependency ratio: The relationship between the working (economically active) population and the non-working population (children, pensioners); shifts as fertility and life expectancy change.
Fictive kin: Personal life perspective (Smart): people treated as family despite no legal or blood tie — close friends, pets, godparents — showing 'family' means more than structure.
📌 Key Points
Functionalist: Murdock (1949, four functions), Parsons (primary socialisation, stabilisation of adult personalities, functional fit); New Right update — Murray, Marsland.
Marxist: Engels (1884, inheritance of property), Zaretsky (1976, unit of consumption and haven), Ansley (1972, women as 'takers of shit').
Changing patterns: later and fewer marriages, rising cohabitation, around 40% of marriages ending in divorce, births outside marriage at about half of all births (ONS).
Domestic labour: Oakley (1974), Boulton (1983), Gershuny (1994) lagged adaptation, Duncombe and Marsden (1995) triple shift, Dobash and Dobash (1980) violence.
Childhood: Aries (1960) the invention of childhood, Postman (1994) its disappearance, Palmer (2006) toxic childhood; March of progress vs conflict view.
Demography: birth rate fallen from about 28 to about 11 per 1,000 since 1900; ageing population (Hirsch 2005); record net migration reshaping families.
Functionalist, Marxist, feminist and personal life perspectives
AQA 4.2.2.1 (also OCR H580/01 Families and relationships; Eduqas Component 1) expects four competing accounts. Functionalism: Murdock (1949) argued the nuclear family performs four functions everywhere — sexual, reproductive, economic and educational — making it universal. Parsons (1955) updated this for industrial society: the family has undergone functional fit, shedding production to factories and retaining two irreducible functions — primary socialisation of children and the stabilisation of adult personalities (the warm bath). The New Right applies functionalist logic politically: Murray (1994) blames the breakdown of the nuclear family — welfare dependency, lone parenthood — for crime and educational failure; Marsland claims welfare has undermined the family's self-reliance.
Marxism: Engels (1884) traced the monogamous nuclear family to the need to pass private property to legitimate heirs; Zaretsky (1976) argued the family offers a private sanctuary from alienating capitalism but is also a unit of consumption absorbing advertising and debt; Ansley (1972) called wives 'takers of shit' — absorbing the frustration male workers bring home, so the family stabilises capitalism rather than individuals.
Feminism: liberal feminists (Oakley) seek equal sharing of domestic labour within existing structures; radical feminists (Delphy and Leonard 1992) see the family as the main site of patriarchal oppression — women's unpaid domestic work benefits men; Marxist feminists (Ansley) link women's subordination to capitalism.
Personal life perspective (Smart 2007): 'family' means more than blood and law — fictive kin, friends, pets and chosen families (Weeks 1999 on same-sex households) show relationships are what people define as significant. AO3: functionalism is criticised for ignoring conflict and the dark side of family life; Marxism is economically deterministic; radical feminism treats all families as equally oppressive, which personal life research disputes.
The family, social structure, the economy and state policy
AQA 4.2.2.2 links the family to the social structure and social change, with particular reference to the economy and state policies. Industrialisation restructured the family: Parsons argued pre-industrial extended families gave way to the nuclear unit that suited geographic and social mobility; Laslett's household-size data (1972) showed the extended family was never universal in pre-industrial England; Anderson (1971) found working-class families in 1850s Preston used extended kin as a mutual insurance system against poverty — evidence the family adapts to economic conditions.
State policy shapes family life directly: the Divorce Reform Act 1969 made divorce easier; the Civil Partnership Act 2004 and the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act 2013 extended legal recognition to same-sex couples; child benefit, Sure Start and free childcare support child-rearing. Evaluations of policy: the New Right criticises welfare for rewarding lone parenthood and weakening incentives (Murray); Donzelot (1977) argued professionals — doctors, social workers, health visitors — 'police the family' through surveillance targeted at the poor and working class; Fletcher (1976) counters that the welfare state supports the family in performing its functions better. Feminists note policy remains gendered: childcare provision and tax systems have historically assumed a male breadwinner, and Thatcherite policy reinforced women's domestic role.
Exam point: a 30-marker on policy needs a perspective debate — functionalists see policy as helping the family perform functions; Marxists see it as relieving capitalism of costs (Donzelot's surveillance protecting the workforce); feminists see it as patriarchal in design and effect — with a weighed conclusion.
Changing patterns: marriage, cohabitation, divorce and child-bearing
AQA 4.2.2.3 expects the trends and their sociological explanations. Trends (ONS): the marriage rate has roughly halved since the early 1970s; the average age at first marriage has risen to over 30; cohabitation has risen steeply (over 3 million cohabiting couple families); around 40% of marriages end in divorce; births outside marriage have risen to about half of all births; lone-parent families are around a quarter of families with children, about 90% headed by women; families are smaller and stepfamilies have grown.
- Secularisation: with church attendance in decline (Wilson), marriage loses its religious status and divorce its stigma — couples see cohabitation as legitimate.
- Declining stigma and changing attitudes: divorce and lone parenthood are now normalised (Weeks 1999) — media and policy treat them as ordinary.
- Rising expectations: Fletcher (1966) argued couples expect more from marriage (companionship, romance), so they are less willing to tolerate unhappy marriages — higher standards, more divorce.
- Individualisation and the pure relationship: Beck (1992) and Giddens (1992) argue late-modern relationships are chosen, negotiated and retained only while they satisfy — divorce becomes a route to new family types (Stacey).
- Women's economic independence: Wilkinson (1994) called the change a 'genderquake' — women with careers and welfare rights need not tolerate unsatisfying marriages.
- New Right counter: Murray (1994) blames welfare dependency for rising lone parenthood — a political, not cultural, explanation that feminists dispute (benefits are modest and single mothers face poverty).
Consequences — family diversity: Chester (1985) argued the nuclear family remains the dominant arrangement (the neo-conventional family: dual-earner but nuclear); the Rapoports (1982) identified five types of diversity — organisational, cultural, class, life-course and cohort. AO3: the A* answer weighs cultural explanations (secularisation, attitudes) against economic ones (genderquake, welfare) and judges which better explain the data.
Gender roles, domestic labour and power relationships
AQA 4.2.2.4 covers the domestic division of labour, power relationships and resources. Housework: Oakley (1974) treated housework as work — monotonous, unrewarding, done mostly by women and largely dissatisfying. Willmott and Young (1973) claimed the symmetrical family with joint conjugal roles was emerging among home-centred couples; Boulton (1983) rebutted this: men may 'help', but women remain responsible for housework and childcare in practice. Gershuny (1994) found a lagged adaptation — men increase housework as wives enter full-time work, but slowly; Kan (2001) showed the gap narrows with women's earnings but never closes.
- Dual burden and triple shift: Duncombe and Marsden (1995) found women in paid work carry paid work, housework and emotional work — men neglect the emotional shift.
- Same-sex households: Dunne (1999) found lesbian couples divide labour more equally, supporting the claim that inequality is gendered, not natural.
- Decision-making: Edgell (1980) found men dominate important decisions (moving house, finances) and women the routine ones.
- Money: Pahl (1993) and Vogler showed pooling has grown with dual-earner households, but men usually control it when they are the main earner.
- Domestic violence: Dobash and Dobash (1980) interviewed 109 women in refuges: violence was systematic male control, often triggered by challenges to male authority; Mirrlees-Black (1999, BCS) found around one in four women had experienced domestic violence — many incidents unreported.
AO3: functionalists (Young and Willmott) see growing symmetry; Marxists (Zaretsky) blame capitalism's strains; radical feminists see patriarchy persisting regardless of employment; the personal life perspective asks whose meanings count — e.g. the woman who insists she 'chooses' domesticity. The strongest answers weigh symmetry evidence (Gershuny) against continued responsibility (Boulton) and reach a judgement.
Childhood, demography and exam technique
AQA 4.2.2.5 — childhood: Pilcher (1995) defines childhood by separateness — a distinct status with its own laws, dress and institutions. Aries (1960), studying medieval paintings, argued childhood is a recent invention: in the 10th-13th centuries children were 'miniature adults' working and mixing with adults from an early age. Childhood varies culturally (Punch 2001 — Bolivian children take adult responsibilities early), so it is socially constructed. Change: the March of Progress view holds childhood has improved — compulsory education, child protection (Children Act 1989; UN Convention 1989), shorter working hours. Conflict and postmodern views disagree: Firestone saw children as oppressed by adult control; Hillman called the control an 'age patriarchy'; Postman (1994) argued TV is blurring the adult-child boundary and childhood is 'disappearing'; Palmer (2006) blames a 'toxic childhood' of screens, junk food and marketisation. Childhood also varies by class, gender and ethnicity — not all children enjoy the same protected status.
AQA 4.2.2.6 — demography since 1900: the birth rate fell from about 28 per 1,000 (1900) to about 11 today, with baby booms after the world wars and in the 1960s; total fertility is around 1.5 — well below replacement (2.1). The death rate fell from about 19 to about 9 per 1,000 as sanitation, nutrition (McKeown) and medicine improved; life expectancy rose from under 50 to over 80. Consequences: an ageing population (Hirsch 2005 — rising pension and health costs, changing dependency ratios), smaller families, and migration-driven diversity: record net migration in recent years has produced transnational families and greater ethnic diversity of family forms (globalisation). AO3: link demographic change to theory — ageing supports Hirsch's policy warnings and postmodern accounts of diverse life courses.
Exam technique for families essays
AQA Paper 2: each optional topic carries 4- and 6-mark items, a 10-mark 'outline and analyse two...' and a 30-mark 'outline and evaluate...' — roughly AO1 8 / AO2 8 / AO3 14, so evaluation dominates. 30-mark skeleton: (1) define the claim and its key concepts; (2) three or four developed points, each with a named study and date; (3) three or four evaluations with counter-theorists; (4) a conclusion with a weighed judgement answering the exact question. Pitfalls: describing statistics without sociological explanation; citing Murdock's universality claim without evaluating it (polygamy, single-parent households); confusing the symmetrical family claim (Young and Willmott) with its rebuttal (Boulton); omitting the synoptic link to socialisation, education and the economy that 30-markers reward.
💡 Worked Example
Exam-style: 1. Outline and evaluate the view that the family is beneficial for all its members. [30 marks]
2. Outline and analyse two reasons for the decline in the marriage rate. [10 marks]
Mark-scheme logic: Q1 (30 marks): AO1 — functionalism (Murdock 1949 four functions; Parsons' warm bath), Marxism (Engels, Zaretsky, Ansley), feminism (Delphy and Leonard), personal life (Smart 2007). AO2 — apply to socialisation, domestic labour, childhood, domestic violence. AO3 — functionalism ignores the dark side (Dobash and Dobash 1980; Oakley 1974 dissatisfaction); Marxists see the family serving capitalism not members; radical feminists see it serving men; personal life shows 'benefit' depends on the relationship, and some members (children, women) do worse than others. Judgement: the family benefits members unevenly — perspective-dependent. Q2 (10 marks): two developed reasons, e.g. secularisation and declining stigma (Wilson; Weeks 1999) — marriage loses religious status, cohabitation normalised; women's economic independence (Wilkinson 1994 'genderquake') — less need to marry for financial security; rising expectations (Fletcher 1966). Developed application only — no extended evaluation required.
❓ Practice Questions & Mark Schemes
Outline and analyse two functions the family performs for society. [10 marks]
Answer: Mark-scheme logic: two developed points with application. (1) Primary socialisation: the family teaches children shared norms and values (Parsons 1955), equipping them for co-operation in wider society. (2) Stabilisation of adult personalities: the family is a haven where adults are emotionally replenished after work (Parsons' warm bath) — supporting a stable workforce. Accept also: reproduction (Murdock 1949), economic production/consumption, care of dependants. Each developed to 5 marks.
Outline and evaluate the Marxist view that the family serves capitalism. [30 marks]
Answer: AO1: Engels (1884) — monogamy secures property inheritance; Zaretsky (1976) — the family is a unit of consumption and a sanctuary that absorbs alienation; Ansley (1972) — wives as 'takers of shit' stabilising male workers. AO2: apply to inheritance and passing on property, to advertising and the family as a unit of consumption, to domestic labour as unpaid work for capitalism, and to the family's cushioning of male unemployment. AO3: functionalists (Murdock 1949) argue the family meets universal needs in any system; feminists argue the family serves men, not just capitalism (Delphy and Leonard 1992); evidence of resistance — families exist under socialism too; Willis (1977) shows working-class culture is not wholly reproduced by the family. Conclusion must weigh whose interests the family serves with a judgement.
Outline and analyse two reasons for the rise in cohabitation. [10 marks]
Answer: Mark-scheme logic: two developed points. (1) Secularisation and declining stigma: with religion in decline (Wilson), cohabitation loses its stigma and is now a normal stage before or instead of marriage (Weeks 1999). (2) Women's economic independence: women no longer need marriage for financial security (Wilkinson 1994), so couples cohabit without the economic pressure to marry. Accept also: risk awareness after rising divorce (Beck 1992); changing attitudes among the young. Each developed to 5 marks.
Outline and evaluate the view that childhood is improving (the March of Progress view). [30 marks]
Answer: AO1: the March of Progress view — child protection (Children Act 1989), compulsory education, UN Convention 1989, shorter working hours, child-centred families (Aries' trajectory). AO2: apply to law, education, family life, health statistics. AO3: conflict view — children remain oppressed by adult control (Firestone; Hillman's 'age patriarchy'); Postman (1994) — childhood is disappearing as TV blurs adult-child boundaries; Palmer (2006) — toxic childhood (screens, junk food, parental absence); childhood is unequal by class, gender and ethnicity, so 'improvement' is uneven. Conclusion must judge how far childhood has improved, with a weighed statement.
Outline and analyse two ways in which domestic labour remains unequal. [10 marks]
Answer: Mark-scheme logic: two developed points. (1) Responsibility remains gendered: men may 'help' but women remain accountable for housework and childcare (Boulton 1983). (2) Lagged adaptation and the dual burden: men increase housework only slowly as wives enter full-time work (Gershuny 1994), so many women carry a dual burden — paid work plus housework — and often a triple shift including emotional work (Duncombe and Marsden 1995). Accept also: decision-making (Edgell 1980); housework still done mostly by women even in dual-earner households (Kan 2001). Each developed to 5 marks.