The Changing Nature of Families: Declining Nuclear Ideal

1. Chapter 10 Families

2. Chapter Outline • Is the Family in Decline? • Functionalism and the Nuclear Ideal • Conflict and Feminist Theories • Power and Families • Family Diversity • Family Policy

3. Nuclear Families • The nuclear family is composed of a cohabiting man and woman who maintain a socially approved sexual relationship and have at least one child. • The traditional nuclear family is a nuclear family in which the wife works in the home without pay while the husband works outside the home for money.

4. Household Types, US • INSERT FIGURE 10.1 HERE (pg. 231)

5. Traditional Nuclear vs. Alternative Families • INSERT CONCEPT SUMMARY 10.1 HERE (pg. 231)

6. Polling Question • Do you believe the strength of the American family is declining? • Strongly agree • Agree somewhat • Unsure • Disagree somewhat • Strongly disagree

7. Functionalist approach to Family The family serves several functions and because the nuclear family model serves them well, it is the ideal family type • Sexual regulation • Economic cooperation • Reproduction • Socialization • Emotional support

8. Other Family Forms • Functionalists acknowledge the existence of other family types but argue that the basic building block of these is sill the nuclear family • Polygamy expands the nuclear unit “horizontally” by adding one or more spouses to the household. • The extended family expands the nuclear family “vertically” by adding another generation to the household.

9. Marriages and Divorces, 1940 - 2009 • INSERT FIGURE 10.2 HERE (pg. 233)

10. Marriage, Divorce and Fertility Rate • Marriage rate - number of marriages in a year for every 1000 people. • Divorce rate - number of divorces in a year for every 1,000 people. • Total fertility rate - average number of children that would be born to a woman if she had the same number of children as women in each age cohort in a given year.

11. Conflict Theory of Family • Engels argued that the nuclear family emerged with inequalities of wealth. • Once a man had wealth, he wanted to ensure it was transmitted to his sons. • Sexual control - enforced female monogamy- ensured this. • Engels concluded that eliminating private property and creating economic equality could end gender inequality and the traditional nuclear family.

12. Gender Inequality and Communism • Engels was wrong to think communism would eliminate gender inequality. • Inequality in the family has been as common in communist societies as in capitalist societies.

13. Feminist Theory of Families • Patriarchy: male dominance and norms justifying that dominance • Has a bigger effect on the gender inequality and the persistence of the traditional nuclear family

14. Mate Selection: Social Influences • Marriage resources - financial assets, status, values, tastes, and knowledge. • Third parties - families, neighborhoods, communities, and religious institutions. • Demographic factors - size and sex ratio of groups you belong to and the social composition of the local marriage markets.

15. “If a Man (Woman) Had All Qualities You Desired, Would You Marry this Person if You Were Not in Love?”

16. Factors Underlying Marital Satisfaction 1. Economic forces • Dissatisfaction and divorce are more common among groups with high poverty rates. • Satisfaction of both husbands and wives increases when wives enter the paid labor force.

17. Factors Underlying Marital Satisfaction 2. Divorce laws • When people are free to end unhappy marriages and remarry, happiness increases among married people. • In countries where getting a divorce is difficult, husbands and wives tend to be less happy than in countries where getting a divorce is easier.

18. Factors Underlying Marital Satisfaction 3. The family life cycle • 1/4 of divorces take place in the first 3 years of a first marriage. • 1/2 of all divorces take place by the end of the 7th year. • Nonparents and parents whose children have left home enjoy the highest level of marital satisfaction.

19. Factors Underlying Marital Satisfaction • Housework and child care • Marital happiness is higher among couples who share housework and child care. • The farther couples are from equally sharing responsibilities, the more tension among family members.

20. Factors Underlying Marital Satisfaction 5. Sex • Sex improves during a marriage. • The relationship between marital satisfaction and sexual compatibility is reciprocal.

21. Family Satisfaction and the Family Life Cycle • INSERT FIGURE 10.4 HERE (pg. 238)

22. Divorce • Economic Effects: • A rise in the husband’s income and a decline in the wife’s (because husbands tend to earn more) • Emotional Effects: • Some research shows a long-term negative effect on children, but not fully supported empirically

23. Divorce, cont. • Distress among children of divorce caused by: • A high level of parental conflict • A decline in living standards. • The absence of a parent.

24. Reproductive Choice • As women have gained power from working outside the home, they have also experienced increasing control over their reproductive decisions • Nonetheless, right-to-life and pro-choice activists have been clashing since the 1970s

25. The Abortion Issue • INSERT TABLE 10.1 HERE (pg. 241)

26. Reproductive Technologies For some women, reproductive choice means facilitating a pregnancy • Artificial insemination - donor’s sperm is inserted in a woman’s vaginal canal or uterus during ovulation. • Surrogate motherhood - donor’s sperm is used to artificially inseminate a woman who has signed a contract to surrender the child at birth.

27. Reproductive Technologies, cont. • In vitro fertilization - eggs are surgically removed from a woman and joined with sperm in a culture dish, the embryo is transferred back to the woman’s uterus. • Screening techniques are used on sperm and fetuses to increase the chance of giving birth to a baby of the desired sex and end problematic pregnancies.

28. Reproductive Technologies, cont. • Sociologists are concerned with several ethical issues regarding reproductive technologies • Discrimination: very expensive excluding options for the poor • Render the terms “mother” and “father” obsolete • It is unclear who has rights and obligations to the child

29. Housework and Child Care Although women have increasingly entered the paid workforce, and although men take a more active role in running the household than they used to: • on average, American men do 20–35% of the housework and child care. • Men do low-stress chores than can wait a day or a week

30. Housework and Child Care The gender gap in housework shrinks when: • the difference between the husband’s and wife’s earnings shrinks • the husband and wife agree that there should be equality in the household division of labor

31. Domestic Violence • A 1997 Gallup poll found that 22% of women and 8% of men reported physical abuse by a spouse or companion at least once in the past. • In 2009, 1081 women and 279 men were murdered by intimate partners in the U.S.

32. Types of Domestic Violence • Common couple violence occurs when partners have a specific argument and one partner lashes out physically. • Intimate terrorism is a general desire of one partner to control the other. • Violent resistance typically involves a woman violently defending herself against a man who has engaged in intimate terrorism.

33. Gender Inequality and Domestic Violence • For heterosexual couples, domestic violence is associated with the level of gender equality in the family and the larger society • Greater the inequality, greater the frequency of domestic violence • Connects with conflict and feminist theories of family by highlighting the importance of power in structuring family life.

34. Heterosexual Cohabitation • Since 1970, the number of American heterosexual couples who are unmarried and cohabiting has increased more than fivefold • More than half of the people who get married today cohabited before marrying

35. Cohabitation and Marital Stability • Cohabitation is associated with marital instability because the people who cohabit differ from those who do not • Those who do not cohabit are more religious and therefore less likely to divorce • Those who do cohabit are more likely to be African American, poor, have liberal political and sexual views, and have parents who divorced

36. Same-sex Unions and Partnerships • In the U.S. • 31% support same-sex marriage • 32% favor civil unions • 30% prefer no legal recognition at all • Dozens of states have passed laws explicitly opposing or supporting same-sex marriage and civil unions

37. Relationship Recognition for Same-Sex Couples • INSERT FIGURE 10.5 HERE (pg. 246)

38. Raising Children in Homosexual Families • A 14-year study assessed 25 young adults who were the offspring of lesbian families and 21 young adults who were the offspring of heterosexual families. • The researchers found that the two groups were equally well adjusted and displayed little difference in sexual orientation.

39. Single-Mother Families: Racial and Ethnic Differences • Whites have the lowest incidence of single-mother families; African Americans have the highest • We’ve seen the rate of single-parent families increase over time

40. Families with Own Children Under 18 • INSERT FIGURE 10.6 HERE (PG. 247)

41. Decline of Two-Parent Family among African Americans • Since about 1925, proportionally few black men have been able to help support a family • Falling ratio of eligible black men to women (imprisonment, murder, drug addiction) • Earnings ratio; income of African American women has risen over time while the earning power of African American men has declined

42. Zero-Child Families • In the United States “zero-child families” are increasingly common. • In 1980, 10% of women between the ages of 40 and 44 had never given birth; in 2008, the figure was 18%. • A main reason is the cost of children

43. Costs of Children • Children cost, on average, about $250,000 for a child born in 2011 to age of 18 • College costs extra • Couples incur greater stress when they have a child

44. Family Policy • U.S. is a good example of how social problems can emerge from nuclear family decline but Sweden is a good example of how such problems can be averted • Family Support Policies: • Parental leave policies; free well-baby clinics; health care; sick leave; high-quality, government subsidized day care

45. Quick Quiz

46. 1. Which of the following is not considered by functionalists to be a function of the nuclear family? • sexual regulation • economic cooperation • marital cohabitation • socialization • reproduction

47. Answer: c • Marital cohabitation is not considered by functionalists to be a function of the nuclear family.

48. 2. Throughout history and across cultures, marriages have typically been about love between a woman and a man. a. True b. False

49. Answer : b • Throughout history and across cultures, marriages have not typically been about love between a woman and a man.

50. 3. According to Friedrich Engels: • the nuclear family is based on the existence of private property • patriarchy is more deeply rooted in the economic, military, and cultural history of humankind than the classical Marxist account allows • women engaged in an “orgy of domesticity” post-WWII • the nuclear family is in every society