The growth of diversity has led to a decline in the importance of the traditional nuclear family unit
In recent years the UK has moved to a more diverse pattern of family arrangements. This was researched heavily by the Rapoports. Such sociologists would suggest that the changes in household structures and relationships show that the traditional family has declined’ — e.g. the Rapoports’ 5 types of family diversity may have replaced the traditional nuclear family for many households. Additionally, the idea that postmodernists would argue that there is now more individual choice about relationships was suggested by Giddens, Beck, Stacey, among others. However, other sociologists like Budgeons, Smart, Chester and Functionalists argue that these changes have been exaggerated. Marriage is still desired by most and most people, at some point in their life, are part of a nuclear family.
The Rapoports (1982) argue that diversity is of central importance in understanding family life today, seeing it as a positive response to people’s different needs and wishes, and not as a deviation from the assumed norm of a ‘proper’ nuclear family. They identify five different types of family diversity in Britain today: Organisational, Cultural, Social class, Life-stage, and Generational. Different cultural, religious and ethnic groups have different family structures. For example, there is a higher proportion of female-headed lone-parent families among African-Caribbean households, and a higher proportion of extended families among Asian households, straying away from the nuclear family norm. Similarly, family types vary through generations, reflecting the historical periods in which they have lived. For example, they may have different views about the morality of divorce or cohabitation, once again showing how diversity has allowed for a divergence from the nuclear family unit into other family types.
However, Chester, (1985) while recognising that there has been some increased family diversity in recent years, does not regard this as very significant. He argues that most people are not choosing to live in alternatives to the nuclear family (such as lone-parent families) on a long-term basis, and the nuclear family remains the ideal to which most people aspire.
Chester states that the only important change is a move from the dominance of the conventional nuclear family, with its division of labour between a male breadwinner and a female homemaker (as described by the New Right and Parsons- a Functionalist), to what he describes as the ‘neo-conventional family’, where both spouses go out to work (akin to the symmetrical family described by Young and Willmott). Essentially, this is still a form of the nuclear family, and it is thus unjust to deem the traditional nuclear family as being ‘replaced’, when the neo-conventional family is so similar. This proves that while the postmodern period has brought about much organisational diversity, just like the Rapoport’s discovered, the nuclear family is still clearly popular.
Postmodernists such as Cheal (1993) go much further than the Rapoports. In postmodern society, there is no longer one dominant family structure as the nuclear family. As of the late 20th century, individuals have much more choice in their lifestyles, personal relationships and family arrangements, family structures have become fragmented into many different types. In this respect, they are proposing that freedom of choice over family structure and roles has indeed replaced the traditional nuclear family for many.
This view is supported by Stacey, (1998) who disagrees with Chester, Functionalists, and the New Right in their belief that most people want a nuclear family structure, whether it be traditional or neo-conventional. By conducting life-history interviews with women in California, she found that these women had the choice to create new family types that better suited their needs.
A case study of Pam Gamma comes from what Stacey dubbs the ‘divorce-extended family’, whose members are connected by divorce rather than marriage. Pam divorced and cohabited for several years after marrying young. Her second husband had also been married before. By the time the children of Pam’s first marriage were in their 20s, a divorce-extended family had been formed with Shirley, the woman cohabiting with her first husband, who aided each other financially and domestically. This illustrates how postmodern families are shaped by the active choices people increasingly get to make about how to live their lives- for example, whether to get divorced, cohabit, come out as gay, etc. This shows how personal choice directs family structure choices.
Giddens (1992) furthers this individualisation thesis. He argues that the transformation brought about by contraception (allowing sex and intimacy as a reason for the relationship rather than reproduction) and women’s gained independence (as a result of feminism) has meant for a change in the basis of marriage and family. In the past, external laws governing the marriage contract and powerful laws went against divorce and sex outside marriage. Nowadays, couples are free to define their relationship themselves, and do not for example have to marry to have children, and divorce when required, not forced to stay trapped in an unhappy, traditional nuclear family.
While Smart (2007) agrees that there is more family diversity, she disagrees with the aforesaid explanation of it, making several criticisms of the individualisation thesis;) It exaggerates how many choices people have about family relationships today, reflecting neoliberal ideology. Budgeon (2011) notes that in reality, traditional norms that limit people’s relationship choices have not weakened as much as the thesis claims. May (2013) states that Giddens views the individuals as simply being ‘an idealised version of a white, middle-class man’, ignoring the fact that not everyone has the same ability as this privileged group to exercise choice about relationships. The individualisation thesis additionally ignores the importance of structural factors such as social class inequalities and patriarchal gender norms in limiting and shaping our relationship choices. Finally, it wrongly sees people as disembedded, ‘free-floating’, independent individuals. It ignores the fact that our decisions and choices about personal relationships are made within a social context, therefore placing importance on the nuclear family yet again.
Reflecting these criticisms, sociologists from the personal life perspective (Smart) propose a ‘connectedness thesis’. According to this, we live within networks of existing relationships and interwoven personal histories, and these strongly influence our range of options and choices in relationships. For example, Finch and Mason’s (1993) study of extended families found that although individuals can to some extent negotiate the relationships they want, they are also embedded within family connections and obligations that restrict their freedom of choice. Similarly, while those who support the individualisation thesis argue that there has been a disappearance of the structures of class, gender, and family that traditionally controlled our lives and limited our choices, May argues that these structures are not disappearing, but being reshaped. While women can now pursue traditionally ‘masculine’ goals such as careers, they are still expected to be heterosexual. Heteronormativity means that many lesbians are forced to remain ‘in the closet’, limiting their choices about their relationships and lifestyles.
Therefore, the personal life perspective does not see increased diversity simply as a result of greater freedom of choice, as Giddens does, but rather emphasises the importance of social structures in shaping the freedoms many people now have to create more diverse types of families. This ensures the traditional nuclear family still dominates, despite the prevalence of diversity
However, there were 12.4 million married-couple families in the UK in 2015, representing two-thirds of all family households. For all the talk of the decline in the nuclear family, the statistics suggest the traditional, married nuclear family is still the predominant family type, including among those with no religion. This demonstrates how nuclear is still desired and seen as important.
Additionally, research suggests a strong link between cohabitation and marriage; couples cohabit as a form of marriage preparation. They need to test the stability of the relationship, intending to marry if it goes well. Surely this ‘trial run’ suggests the heavy value still placed on the ‘nuclear’ family- individuals are wary of making any mistakes in marrying the wrong person. Beijing (1985) similarly argues that cohabitation among some young people represents a conscious attempt to create a more personally negotiated and equal relationship, preventing the risk of divorce in the future. However, there is some evidence that younger generations do not show the same strong link between premarital cohabitation and marriage dissolution and it is suggested that, as cohabitation becomes the majority pattern before marriage, this link will become progressively weaker. This shows that cohabitation clearly does not mean the same thing to every couple — the term covers a diverse range of partnerships and the relationship between marriage and cohabitation is a variable one.
As shown, some sociologists argue that the presence of the traditional nuclear family in modern society is under threat. Alternatively, other sociologists argue that this view is overstated, and that family diversity is not as great as it would appear, with the nuclear family still being significant. Overall, however, diversity has not led to its decline in importance because fewer people value it, but rather its decline in frequency as other family structures coexist alongside it.
