Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World

1. Chapter 11The Family Sociology: Understanding and Changing the Social World

2. Learning Objectives • Describe the different family arrangements that have existed throughout history • Understand how the family has changed in the United States since the colonial period • Describe why the typical family in the United States during the 1950s was historically atypical • Summarize understandings of the family as presented by functional, conflict, and social interactionist theories

3. Learning Objectives • Describe the major marriage and family arrangements in the United States today • Discuss racial and ethnic differences in marriage and family arrangements • Discuss why the U.S. divorce rate rose during the 1960s and 1970s and summarize the major individual-level factors accounting for divorce today • Describe the effects of divorce for spouses and children • Summarize the evidence on how children fare when their mothers work outside the home

4. Learning Objectives • Discuss how children of same-sex couples fare compared to children of heterosexual couples • Discuss evidence concerning the continuing debate over the absence of fathers in many African American families • Define the four major styles of parental discipline and summarize the differences among them • Explain why spanking may ironically promote antisocial behavior by children

5. Learning Objectives • Understanding how parenting style may differ by social class • Describe the extent of violence against intimates and explain why it occurs • Describe the extent of child abuse and explain why it occurs

6. Types of Families and Family Arrangements • Family: A group of two or more people who are related by blood, marriage, adoption, or a mutual commitment and who care for one another • Nuclear family: A family composed of two parents and their children living in the same household • Extended family: A family in which parents, children, and other relatives live in the same household

7. Figure 11.1 - Types of Families in Preindustrial Societies

8. Types of Families and Family Arrangements • One-parent family - Nuclear family that dissolves upon divorce/ separation or the death of one of the parents • Monogamy - One man and one woman are married only to each other • Polygamy - The marriage of one person to two or more people at a time • Polygyny - One man having many wives • Polyandry - One woman having many husbands

9. Types of Families and Family Arrangements • Endogamy: Marriage within a social category or group, including race, ethnicity, social class, and religion • Exogamy: Marriage between social categories or groups • Bilateral descent – Considering ourselves related to people on both parents’ sides of the family, and parents pass along their wealth to their children • Patrilineal:Inheritance through the male line • Matrilineal:Inheritance through the female line

10. Types of Families and Family Arrangements • Patriarchal family: A family where the husband and father holds the main authority in the household • Matriarchal family: A family where the wife and mother holds the main authority in the household • Egalitarian family: A family where both spouses share authority equally

11. The Family in the U.S. Colonial Period • Different family types abounded in the colonial period • Nomadic Native American groups had relatively small nuclear families • Nonnomadic groups had larger extended families • African Americans slaves had extended families because nuclear families were very difficult to achieve • Stepfamilies emerged due to the deaths of European parents of colonial children

12. American Families in the 1950s • Less than 60% of American children during the 1950s lived in breadwinner-homemaker nuclear families • The poverty and teenage pregnancy rate was almost twice as high as it is today • Alcoholism and violence in families were common • According to historians, many women were unhappy with their homemaker roles

13. Table 11.1 Theory Snapshot

14. Family Patterns in the United States Today • 117 million (approx) households exist in the United States • 67% (approx) are family households • 33% (approx) are nonfamily household • Most of the nonfamily households consist of only one person • About half of all households involve a married couple, and half do not involve a married couple

15. Figure 11.4 - Marital Status of the U.S. Population, 2008, Persons 18 Years of Age or Older

16. Family Patterns in the United States Today • According to the census reports, 7 million (approx) opposite-sex couples are currently cohabiting • 55% (approx) of cohabiting couples have no biological children • 45%(approx) live with a biological child of one of the partners • 21% (approx) live with their own biological child • 96.1%of marriages are intraracial

17. Figure 11.6 - Median Age at First Marriage for Men and Women, 1890–2009

18. Figure 11.7 - Family Households With Children Under 18 Years of Age, 2008

19. Figure 11.8 - Race, Ethnicity, and Percentage of Family Groups With Only One Parent, 2008

20. Changes and Issues Affecting AmericanFamilies • Cohabitation • Married couples who have cohabited with each other before getting married are more likely to divorce than married couples who did not cohabit • Cohabitation may change the relationship between a couple and increase the chance they will divorce if they get married • Individuals who are willing to live together without being married may not be very committed to the idea of marriage

21. Divorce and Single-Parent Households • The U.S. divorce rate has risen since the early 1900s, and is now the highest in the industrial world • It rose sharply during the Great Depression and World War II, probably because of the economic distress of the former and the family disruption caused by the latter • It fell sharply after the war as the economy thrived and as marriage and family were proclaimed as patriotic ideals

22. Figure 11.9 - Number of Divorces per 1,000 Married Women Age 15 or Older, 1960–2008

23. Reasons for Increase in Divorce Rate during the 1960s and 1970s • Increasing economic independence of women • Divorces became legally easy and less expensive to obtain • The establishment of no-fault laws

24. Effects of Divorce and Single-Parent Households • Divorce immerses many women into poverty or near poverty • Psychological consequences depends on the contentiousness of the marriage • Individuals seem to fare better psychologically after ending a very contentious marriage but fare worse after ending a less contentious marriage • Children fare better if their parents end a highly contentious marriage • They fare worse if their parents end a marriage that has not been highly contentious

25. Figure 11.11 - Race, Ethnicity, and Percentage of Children Below Poverty Level, 2008

26. Working Mothers and Day Care • According to studies conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, day-care children: • Exhibit better cognitive skills than stay-at-home children • Are more likely to engage in aggressive behavior

27. Working Mothers and Day Care • Factor such as the quality of parenting and parent’s education and income matter much more for children’s cognitive and social development than whether or not they are in day care • To the extent that day care is beneficial for children: • It is high-quality day care that is beneficial • Low-quality day care can be harmful

28. Marriage and Well-Being • According to contemporary research: • Married people are happier than unmarried people • Married people score better on measures of psychological well-being, are physically healthier, have better sex lives, and have lower death rates • Marriage helps keep men from committing crime • Marriage has these benefits for several reasons: • The emotional and practical support spouses give each other • Their greater financial resources compared to those of unmarried people • The sense of obligation that spouses have toward each other

29. Marriage and Well-Being • It would be more accurate to say that good marriages are beneficial, because bad marriages certainly are not • Marriage benefits seem greater for: • Older adults than for younger adults • Whites than for African Americans • Individuals who were psychologically depressed before marriage than for those who were not • Psychologically happy and healthy people may be the ones who get married in the first place and are less apt to get divorced

30. Gay and Lesbian Couples and Marriages • According to the opponents of same-sex marriages : • Same-sex marriages threaten the stability of the institution of marriage • Children of same-sex couples fare worse than those raised by both their biological parents • The social science evidence fails to support either of these two arguments

31. Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Marriages and Families • Children are more likely to live with only one parent among Latino and African American families than among white and Asian American families • African American, Latino, and Native American children and their families are especially likely to live in poverty • According to studies, Latino and Asian American families have strong family bonds and loyalty • Extended families are common among Latinos, Asian Americans, and Native Americans

32. Racial and Ethnic Diversity in Marriages and Families • Among African Americans, 40% of all births are to unmarried women • The high number of fatherless families among African Americans can be attributed to: • The forcible separation of families during slavery • The fact that so many young black males are unemployed, in prison or jail, or facing other problems • The problems African Americans face stem to a large degree from: • Their experience of racism, segregated neighborhoods, lack of job opportunities, and other structural difficulties

33. Children and Parental discipline • Four major styles of parental discipline • Authoritative - Parents set clear rules for their children’s behavior but also let their kids exercise independent judgment • Authoritarian - Parents set firm but overly restrictive rules for their children’s behavior and are generally not very warm toward them • Lax or permissive – Parents set few rules for their children’s behavior and don’t discipline them when they misbehave • Uninvolved – Parents provide their children little emotional support and fail to set rules for their behavior

34. Children and Parental discipline • Authoritative discipline is better than authoritarian discipline • It avoids spanking in favor of “reasoning” types of discipline and punishment • Spanking teaches children: • That they should behave to avoid being punished • That it is acceptable to hit someone to solve an interpersonal dispute • Children who are spanked may resent their parents

35. Figure 11.17 - Percentage Agreeing That “It Is Sometimes Necessary to Discipline a Child With a Good, Hard Spanking”

36. Violence Against Intimates • Intimates commit violence against each other in many ways • They can hit with their fists, slap with an open hand, throw an object, push or shove, or use or threaten to use a weapon • According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, almost 600,000 acts of violence are committed annually by one intimate against another • Women also commit violence against husbands and boyfriends, but their violence is less serious and usually in self-defense

37. Violence Against Intimates • Intimate violence is more common in poor families and economic inequality • Cultural myths help explain why men hit their wives and girlfriends: • Many men continue to believe that their wives should not only love and honor them but also obey them • The belief that battering cannot be that bad if women hit by their husbands do not leave home is a myth that reinforces spousal violence against women

38. Child Abuse • It can be both, physical and sexual in nature • Children can suffer from emotional abuse and practical neglect • It is difficult to know how much child abuse occurs • Infants cannot talk • Toddlers and older children do not tell anyone about the abuse • They might not define it as abuse • They might be scared to tell on their parents • They might blame themselves for being abused • They might not know whom they could talk to about their abuse

39. Child Abuse • Why does child abuse occur? • Children being powerless, are easy targets of violence • Evidence indicates that child abuse is more common in poorer families • Cultural values and practices also play a role