Assess Parsons claim that industrialisation led to the movement from a classic extended family to an isolated nuclear family

However there is evidence to say that we should reject Parsons View of the post industrialisation isolated nuclear family. Laslett said, in ‘the world we have lost’ that the family unit was predominantly nuclear, especially working classes because the life expectancy was shorter amongst them, so therefore it was less likely for grandparents to be living with the rest of the family. He also suggested that the reason industrialisation occurred is because of the presence of the nuclear family in Britain, not that the nuclear family unit occurred after industrialisation. Anderson backs up the claim that post-industrialisation that the normal family unit tended not to be the isolated nuclear family. Anderson says that it was common for there to be diversity in the home because no family structure was dominant; rather he argues that there was a wide diversity of family structures. He says that the wealthier were more likely to have an extended family because of a higher standard of living, and therefore longer life expectancy.

Finally the view of Willmott and Young is that the family actually went through different stages, evolving and adapting through the ages. The first being the pre-industrial family, consisting of a nuclear unit, that worked together in mainly agriculture or textiles. Then came the early industrial family from roughly 1750 to 1900’s. The industrial revolution changed the shape of the family, as it ceased to be a unit of production, and workers were employed individually. People at this time were earning low wages and unemployment was high, so the family adapted to become extended. At this time the mother-daughter bonds were tight, as fathers were usually out earning the wage and the mothers staying at home trying to form emotional bonds with other relatives, in case of poverty in the near future. Children who grew older would often move relatively close to their family. The third stage is the symmetrical family, which began in the 1900s. The second stage had nearly almost disappeared, more so amongst the working classes. The family was now a isolated nuclear family, as Parsons said, with the sharing of roles. This was because families were becoming more private, as the sense of community in WW2 for example had been lost slightly, the males stopped socialising as much down the local public house because of a shortage of money, unless the wife was working and bringing in a wage, and if she was the family as a whole would go out. Chores and tasks around the house were beginning to be shared, as were decisions and bread-winning in some cases. Finally the stage we are currently in, the asymmetrical family unit. Families are more segregated, where the men are the main salary earners, and women adopting the role of mother and housewife. This can however be disputed by the numbers of women who are much more career centred, and less ambitious to have a family and husband. William J Goode agreed with Parsons claim that the family unit had become more extended because more time and effort was being spent on careers for men and women. Also family circumstances were changing; people are settling down later and having fewer children later.

Altogether it is impossible to say that all family’s fit a certain sociologist’s theory, but there is always the majority to say what it is and what it isn’t. Yes Parsons may be correct, that families are much more likely to be an isolated nuclear one, as Arensberg and Kimball and William J Goode agree, but the evidence that says that it isn’t isolated from Laslett and Anderson seems to ring pretty true also. All in all, Willmott and Young’s theory of the family unit adapting throughout is more true to life because the family stereotype appears to be changing all the time, and families are not that same now as they were just after the industrial revolution. However in all of the theories there is little to say about single parent families and serial polygamy.