Lone parent families now make up 24% of all families in the UK. This is due to the increase in divorce rates as mentioned before “In 1961, there were only 27000 divorces in the United Kingdom. By 2000, the annual number of divorces was 15500 about six times as many as in 1961.” Over 90% of these families are looked after by lone mothers as they are more likely to gain custody of their children following a divorce, because they can give the emotional support a child would need as well as providing for them as the position of women are changing, its also the norm for a women to be left with their children as the farther is usually the breadwinner who would be at work most of the time. Another reason would be the increase in feminist ideas and the fact that women can now support themselves because of the fantastic opportunities out there, women can now have children without ever having had a relationship with the child’s father and some may choose this option because they had previously experienced abuse this would result in the women getting a sperm donor. The advantage of this is that children will grow up with a loving, supportive parent, whereas the alternative of having both parents might have been a dysfunctional family with an abusive parent. A disadvantage of being part of a lone parent family is that the children are more than twice as likely to live in poverty as children that have both parents because duel career families are better than single ones.
Some people think that the reason for the increase in lone parent families is because the government are being too lenient with benefits as unmarried mothers and children tend to receive more. Charles Murray (1984) would agree because he believes that the government shouldn’t reward irresponsible behaviour because having children outside marriage and bringing them into an unstable relationship where they would not be able to provide for them. He also believes that benefits should not exist as a lot of people will depend on them too much. On the other hand it helps the families which live in poverty but it doesn’t go very far as the standard of living has increased dramatically.
Reconstituted families are the children of previous marriages. They only account for 10% for all families in Britain. In 86% of stepfamilies, at least one child is from the woman’s previous relationship, while in 11% there is a child from the man’s previous relationship. Only 3% of reconstituted families have children from both partners’ previous relationships. This is due to the fact that women are a lot more likely to gain custody of their children forming the majority of lone parents as mentioned before. Reconstituted families were at greater risk of poverty this can be linked back to the idea that reconstituted families have more children than ordinary ones and the fathers may have to support children from previous marriages. In addition, according to Graham Allan and Graham Crow, step families may face divided loyalties and issues such as contacting the non resident parents may cause tensions within the family.
The extended family is more than two adults and their children all living under one roof, this family type seems to be quite widespread among ethnic minorities but is decreasing in the United Kingdom. According to functionalists, such as Parsons the extended family was dominant only in pre-industrial society and was replaced by the nuclear family in modern society. However Peter Willmott argues this type of family continues to exist as a “dispersed extended family” where relatives are separated only by distances but maintain significant contact with each other by telephones, emails and webcam. On an overall level, the extended family still plays an important role in the lives of many people today even though the members no longer live in the same household, and are no longer bound by mutual obligations as strong as in the past.
There have been many changes in relationship patterns such as fewer first marriages, more divorces, re-marriages and co-habitations. There have also been differences in parenting such as more births outside marriage, stepfamilies and lone parents. Even the original extended family has changed. The main reasons for these changes include the greater level of individualism, reduced stigma and changing attitudes and the changing position of women. Considering that all of these changes have created a post modern society, where everyone can do what they please.
In conclusion, I think that childbearing and childrearing has become less needed as there’s more freedom for people to do what they please. There are different factors such as divorce rates which lead to different type of families, such as step families and lone parent families.
