Examine Family Diversity and the Life Course

Examining Family Diversity and the locomotelihood Course M any years ago, Parsons examine families from different type and de c aloneined that finished structural differentiation, the multifunctional extended family became the thermonuclear family, and made a tear down of focusing on this type of family. Marxism in like manner made this mistake, as whole many up as feminism. What these approaches didnt take into account was that thither ar legion(predicate) other types of family out there, which is even truer in contempary society. This es state go away endeavour to asses the extent of this variety show, and the explanations of it.The first approach I entrust talk just intimately is the raw dear. They atomic number 18 a genuinely controversial collective with very right wing ideas. Charles Murray believes that family multifariousness is a bad thing, and that l wiz levy families atomic number 18 detrimental to society. 90% of families are patriarchal. He des ignates that this get downs delinquency in young boys, as they confine no male role good example to aspire to, so they look to the streets to find one instead. This process creates and lower class who are dependant on the welfare state. However, there are mountain that would disagree.Feminists argue that there is very little evidence that matriarchal lone- heighten families cause delinquency, and that rattling they are a positive thing because they encourage and personate the growing independence of woman. Another issue the new right kick in with diversity is that family diversity encourages a dependency culture. They are ague that any type of family that is unstable such as reconstituted families, lone-parent families and cohabiting families present a essay of dependency on the welfare state.This is extremely detrimental to society as the welfare state is a perverse incentive it takes money from those who counterfeit hard, gives money to those who do nothing, and allows f athers to avoid their duty as breadwinners. The neo-conventional family, a terminal coined by Chester, takes a slightly different look at diversity. Whereas he agrees that there has certainly been an augment in diversity, he does see this increase as large, or as a bad thing. The nuclear family is fluid the dominant family type, considering is s trough account for 56% of families. Most marriages continue till death, ohabitation is just a step before marriage, and births outside marriage have indeed increased, scarcely most of them are jointly registered. He also points out that we low life sentencet presume that all families considered diverse are permanent, and rather we go through a life cycle of families. We live in a nuclear family whilst young, cohabit before marriage, live in a nuclear family after(prenominal) marriage, then live alone after divorce, with many other steps in-between. Another point he makes, and defines the term neo-conventional with is that many families now have dual earners, where both spouses work.There are much or less issues with this though. The new right would argue that whereas the nuclear family still accounts for the majority of families, that turn is declining and may slip into a minority in coming years. Feminists would say that whereas many families are indeed dual earners now, Chester ignores the emotional and domestic motor that women do. The rapports also have their view on diversity. They disagree with Chester in that diversity is actually very widespread, and also very important unlike the raw(a) Rights perspective.They attempt to define diversity by splitting it into 5 different groups Organisation diversity which focus on how roles are distributed among the family some families have joint conjugal roles, whereas some have one wage earner and one domestic labourer. Cultural diversity takes into account ethnic, religious and cultural differences. For example, some the majority of white British households are nuclear, whereas most afro-Caribbean families are single parent. Social class diversity implies that income can affect your family.Middle class families are more likely to interact with their children than work class families. Life-stage diversity. Where we are at in our life course will affect diversity. University students are likely to live in a family at all, whereas those who are in their 30s are more likely to be in a nuclear family. The final factor is generational diversity, which means that generations will affect diversity. Younger generations are more likely to cohabit than senior(a) ones. All of the above approaches are modernist perspective. They look at diversity through one lens and attempt to apply a structure to it.An occupation against all of the above approaches is post-modernism. This approach believes that we make our own survivals about family life and relationships, and that it is wrong to assume that that there is a best family type for society. It act t o look at the family from the perspective of the someone, and relies more on meaning that statistics. Post-modernists would argue that the new right ignore the benefits of diversity, and say that the nuclear family is the best for society, when we bring to look at the needs of the individual instead.They would say that Chester ignores the extant of diversity and focus too much on trying to reinforce the nuclear familys presence. Finally, they would agree with the rappoports that diversity is a good thing, but rile them for trying to structure diversity, when it needs to be looked at from each individuals perspective. Giddens, a post-modernist, argues that contraception had allowed marriage to be more about meaning and love rather that purely about reproduction, and that feminism has light-emitting diode to better job opportunities and education.He says that both of these points have led to greater choice and comparison in society. The new right would agree that contraception is a good thing as it has potentially lowered that number of lone-parent families, but would argue that the freedom it brings has undermined the stability of family. Giddens would agree with this, but that this risk is worthy if it meets the individuals need, and leads to a purer family. Beck, another post-modernist, builds on the idea of risk in the family. The greater choice we now have has moved us away from impost in two ways.We now have greater gender equality due to feminism, and a greater individuality because of an increased self sake. The new right would disagree with beck as well, and argue that this increased self interest means that we may put out interests ahead of those who need them more such as children, which can undermine their future. Stacey complied some case studied she carried out on a number of Californian women, and found that there may be another type of family that other sociologists hadnt notice yet. Many of these women rejected tradition family values, di vorced their husband, and then re get hitched with.This new family is base on the connection between the woman, and the wife of the womans ex-husband. They had create a financial and domestic partnership. Stacey calls this the divorce-extended family. Chester may argue that whereas this may well be going on, than this isnt a type of family at all and that its rather just two nuclear families that have some contact, which would support his view of the nuclear familys stability. Points from both modernist arguments and post-modernists can be taken into account. It is becoming more and more apparent that diversity is growing.Whereas the new right believe this is a bad thing, they fail to realise that diversity is actually better in some cases where empty-shell marriages where children are used as scapegoats for their parents anger. On the other hand they may have a point, because divorce rate in decreasing, and people are getting married for love more than anything now so the nuclea r family seems to be an increasingly stable environment. This occurrence of this stable environment is decreasing though, meaning that Chesters point may not be as valid as he thinks, and this decrease means that family diversity is increasing which supports the postmodernist view.