Family and Households
This domain tests your understanding of family structures, changing family patterns and the division of labour within households. Questions often ask whether the family is becoming more equal or more diverse.
Core rules and concepts
- Family types: nuclear (two generations), extended (wider kin), beanpole (long and thin across generations), matrifocal and lone-parent households.
- Functionalism: Murdock lists sexual, reproductive, economic and educational functions; Parsons argues the nuclear family fits industrial society by providing emotional support and socialising children.
- Conjugal roles: segregated roles separate male and female tasks; joint roles share them. Willmott and Young claimed a move towards the symmetrical family.
- Feminist critique: Oakley found little evidence of symmetry in housework and childcare; the dual burden and triple shift describe women's paid work plus domestic and emotional labour (Duncombe and Marsden).
- Changing patterns: rising divorce and cohabitation, later marriage, lower birth rates and an ageing population. Giddens and Beck link these to individualisation and the 'pure relationship'.
Worked example
Question: Assess the view that the family is becoming more symmetrical. A strong answer presents Willmott and Young's evidence of shared leisure and decision-making, then uses Oakley and Hochschild to show that domestic labour remains unequal. It explains 'lagged adaptation' and notes class and ethnic variation. The conclusion should distinguish helping with tasks from equal responsibility.
Traps that cost marks
- Assuming the nuclear family is universal.
- Equating symmetry with equality.
- Ignoring domestic violence and conflict.
- Treating changing family patterns as simple decline.
- Describing feminist research without explaining its evidence.