Family structure
There are seven different types of family structures; nuclear families which are made up of a mother, father and their children. The nuclear family is often thought of as the “normal” family group. Extended families are made up of a mother, father, their children plus other relatives who either live close by or live in the same house hold. Single parent families are where a parent has decided to bring his or her children up on their own, this is usually the result of divorce, separation or death of the one parent. A reconstituted family, this is where people get married for a second, third, ect. time. Reconstituted families create step-parents and stepchildren. Empty-nest family is where the children of a nuclear family have grown up and left home. Single-person family, this is a household where the person lives on their own. Same sex parent family, this is where two women or two men live with their children if they have any.
Elizabeth and Tola have different family structures. Elizabeth lives with her mother, father, her two brothers and her grandparents live nearby this mean her family structure is an extended family. Tola lives with just his mother and little sister this family structure is a single parent family. Elizabeth and Tola are not equal because Elizabeth lives with both parents this means she is likely to have more support in life and things will be made easier for her. Tola lives with his mum and is not likely to get as much support as Elizabeth. Even though Tola lives with his mother he might find it a lot harder in life because his mother is not around all the time as she needs to work so Tola will not get as much advice as Elizabeth.
Geographical location
People in higher social classes tend to live in more expensive housing, areas with good facilities for travel and education. People with lower incomes tend to live in more densely occupied housing areas. People on low incomes are often forced to rent their homes. Different social groups often live in certain areas. Our post codes inform people of the type of area will live in.
Elizabeth and Tola live in totally different places. Elizabeth lives in a detached house with a large garden in a leafy suburb in Kent, but Tola lives in a flat above a shop on the high street in a highly populated area of London.
In this part of my assignment I will be looking at the factors that contribute to diversity and affects the equality of individuals in society.
There are a lot of factor that contribute to diversity such as:-
Ethnicity
Ethnicity means your ethnic background, character or affiliation. Ethnicity is identifying with or being a member in a particular group such as racial, national or cultural group. This also comes with belief and language. There are a variety of ethnic group such as white, black, other black, Asian, Indian, Chinese ect. Individuals in society are treated with inequality because of their ethnic groups. This is called racism. I personally believe that the main issue that different ethnic groups face, particularly the Asian population is employment. For example it was said in the news that young Asian footballers are not getting the opportunity to play in the premiere leagues and that there is only one Asian football player playing national. In my research I have found that the main victims of racial motivated incidents were Black, Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi people but later declined in 1999 from 145,000 to 95,000.
Education
It was said in 1999 that pupil with Indian ethnic background were more likely to get the most A*-c grade than any other ethnic group. Also of those who achieved or five or more A*-c grades in GCSEs, only half of black pupil achieved very high results.
Gender – everyone is put into gender role from the minute they were born and throughout their lives followed those roles. This can be shown through:-
The way you are dressed (usually girls are wrapped in pink and boys in blue)
Names
Toys- boy mainly plays with toy trucks and football and girls play with dollies and dolly houses ect.
Hair (girls usually wear ribbons)
The way you are treated.
I believe that gender has a big effect on how people are treated because in the UK and other parts of the world women are not treated equally as men because in most jobs women don’t receive lower wages and salaries than men does even though they may do the same job e.g. if a women and a man went on a interview for a job on construction working I believe that the man would more likely to get the job simply because he is a man and a lot of people believe in women working on construction sites.
Age
A lot of people are discriminated against because of their age. Peoples’ age prevents them from getting employed, taking part in certain hobbies and experience certain life events such as marriage, divorce, leaving home, buying alcohol.
Adolescents are discriminate against because of their age; they are treated unfairly because people tend to not give them a chance to prove themselves adolescents are stereotyped against and don’t get a lot of respect reason being a lot of people describes them as being immature and inexperienced to carryout certain activities which in my opinion is not true because I believe that some adolescents are more experienced than most adults. I believe that is absolutely ludicrous that an adolescent is allowed to have sex and get married at the age of 16 but is not allowed to vote.
Even the elderly get treated unfairly because of their age. Foe example even though the retire age is 65 if an 58 years old man or woman tried to get employed for a new job they are most likely to be rejected because of their age. This is because the retirement age is 65 and in my opinion some companies don’t want to employ anyone who is only able to work with them for a short period of time( in this case seven years), when instead they could employ someone a lot younger and who is likely to be of longer assistance to them.
Family structure
Family is known to be a social group made up of people who are related to each. There are four different types of family
- Extended family
- Nuclear family
- Lone-parent family
- Reconstitution family
Lone-parent
a lone-parent family are dependent children who are led by a lone mother or lone father.
While some lone-parent families are well off and have nothing to worry about, there are many who are disadvantage because many lone-parent live on low income and rely on benefits. Whereas, with couples with dependent children what a contrast.
For example. Jade live with her 13 years old son in a local estate which is known for high crime activity. Jade cannot move because she lives on low income even though she fears for her and her sons’ life because they live on benefits and Jade has not got enough money move else where.
Being a lone-parent takes a lot of time, patience and money and sometimes leads to stress especially without the support of a partner.
It is also hard to deal with the stress that comes with work and family life together family. And being a lone-parent can sometimes affects your job and your social life because it is hard to find someone to look after the children while at work without worrying about how much it might cost.
Extended family
An extended family is usually described to be a family where there are parents, children and grandparents, but the grandparents don’t necessary have to live in the same house they could live in the same area or next door.
Being apart of an extended family makes it easier for parents especially when needing someone to baby-sit. This helps parents to be less stress and worried about who they are leaving their children with.
In the extended family comes with a lot support and security. This support may be financially or comfort towards a member of the family who is experiencing a difficult situation. For example. (Financial support) Jamie lives with his parents, brother, sister and grandparents in a four bedroom house with two bathrooms and one kitchen. If it weren’t for Jamie’s grandparents, his mom and dad would not have been able to afford the house. Also Jamie grandparents have left their share of the house to his parents in their will.
Nuclear family
A nuclear family structure is expected to be a mother, father, son and daughter. The nuclear family is like the centre of the extended family meaning there don’t have to be any involvement of grandparents or auntie and uncle, just the parents and the children. Many couples no longer fit the above description of the nuclear
It is said that the original nuclear a husband who work and earn money for the household, a wife who stays home to look after the children while they are still young and unable to care for themselves and the children
Because very often both parents have to take on full-time employment it makes it difficult for them to stay home and care for the children. So they have to hire a childminder or nanny to care for their children. That is why nowadays many couples no longer fit the above description of the nuclear family
Reconstituted family
The reconstituted family is where couples are not both parents of each child. One partner might have been divorced from a previous marriage and decided to start a new family. Also children from different relationships are sometimes are sometimes include in a new reconstituted family. E.g. Taryns’ parents had lived together for ten years and had been married for five years but because the relationship wasn’t working out they got divorced so Taryn now live with her mom and step- father who’s been together for four years but her step- father has a son called Kaydian. Taryn like Kaydrian and so does he but Taryn feels as though her step-father give Kaydrian more attention than he does her.
Social class
The term social class is broken up into three categories:-
- Upper class- an upper class is described to be wealthy and/or powerful
- Middle class- a middle class is considered to people who are highly paid professionals.
- Lower class- a lower class is people who are paid average or low wages, and sometimes receive benefits.
I believe that ethnicity influence peoples’ social class reason being from my research I have discovered that Pakistanis and Bangladeshis were much likely to be living on low income. Also 49% of black non- Caribbean household also lived on low income. But white people were least likely to be living on low income.
Anti - social behaviour not only causes peoples’ lives to be a misery, but can ruin neighbourhoods.
In November 2003 he number of male prisoner are higher than the number of female prisoners. But the female prisoner has risen at a faster rate than male prisoners
Categorise in employment Category
Financial viability
Peoples’ social class influence their financial viability for example Tola in the above case study family would be placed in the lower class category because his mother work a s a local cashier which means that she does not receive enough income, this may be a problem for Tolas’ mother because she wont always have enough money to support the family. This means that Tolas’ mother financial viability isn’t as good as it may have been if she was receiving higher income. This also can sometimes cause to stress.
People who are placed in the higher and middle class category are more likely to be capable of surviving despite what their situation or circumstances may be.
Your class affects your holiday because it is based on the amount of money you make in order to on certain holidays. It is mostly people in the higher class who does sports such as horse riding, fox hunting, gulfing and fishing and they usually have their personal fitness instructor or join a private gym when doing exercise. Whereas, a middle class person would probably do the same but prefer to go to a public gym and carry out sports such as football and basketball.
A higher class or middle class person would have easier access to health care than a lower class person. If a lower class person needed to see physiotherapy they would be lucky enough to get seen within three weeks, whereas, a higher class person would probably get seen to immediately or maybe the next day. And if the lower class person were to be seen the next day they would have to pay a tremendous amount of money.
A lower class person would more prefer to eat junk for example, fish and chips, burgers and kebab. Whereas a lower or middle class person would have fruits and vegetable with cucumber salad with the crust cut off. They make sure that they eat five portions of fruit and vegetable a day.
Parents of the higher class children receive better education than children of the lower class because parents of higher class mainly send their children to private schools where they are more likely to receive better education. They are also able to get better jobs and their parents have higher expectations of them when it comes to grades. On the other hand children whose parents are in the lower class are not always able to send their children to university and have lower expectations of their children when it comes to grades. It is also difficult for them to afford childminders so the parents sometimes have to stop working so that they can stay home with the children.
Conclusion
In conclusion I believe that diversity does cause inequality and causes people to be treated unfairly. Even though in society some people are treated as equals despite their diversity, in my opinion there is a higher percentage of people who are treated unfairly because of diversity.
Reference
- Web: national statistic.htm
- N. Moonie, Y. Rolan, S. Lavers BTEC First caring
Zanele Porter- 13099- Lesley Davis- Health and Social Care BTEC 1st