Functionalists argue that different social institutions like the family and economy are closely linked and operate in harmony with each other. Parsons argues that changes in the functions of the family also involve a change in the structure. He argues that in pre-industrial societies an extended family system made it easier to carry out the wide range of functions required since a larger pool of kin was available. In industrial societies however, the extended family system was no longer needed this was due to structural differentiation, there were now specialised, social institutions like the education system and welfare state which meant that the nuclear family therefore contained basic roles of socialising children into the roles, norms and values of the industrial society. He also suggested the ‘functional fit’ theory, the nuclear family could move from place to place in search of jobs which meant the family became geographically and socially mobile and were not so dependent on the wider kin. Parsons said because of this, the industrial nuclear family was ‘isolated’.
Growth in people’s wealth reduced their dependence on kin for support in times of distress. There was a growth in meritocracy in the industrial societies; the status of an individual in the pre-industrial society was ascribed meaning that it was decided at birth by the family they were born into. Parson believed that in the industrial society, the individual’s status was achieved by the person’s success meaning you had to achieve an occupational status on the basis of talent, skill and educational qualifications in society outside of the family. This means that the nuclear family was essentially the best for allowing individuals to achieve status and position without conflict. People were able to better themselves as they aspired themselves to achieve a higher status then the previous generation with improved education.
Parsons also believed specialised roles had developed through the nuclear family. Men carried an ‘instrumental role’ and women were the ‘expressive leaders’ in the family, he thought this came about as it was more effective for society. The ‘expressive role’ conveyed how women were naturally suited to the caring and emotional role and the ‘instrumental role’ portrayed how men were more practical.
However Peter Laslett (1972) said that the typical family before industrialisation was never the extended family. Using parish records he found only 10% of households contained kin beyond the nuclear family and it was the nuclear family that allowed industrial society to emerge. Laslett found that the life expectancy reports didn’t support the family could have more than two generations because in pre-industrial times, people had a low life expectancy.
Using data from the 1851 census of Preston, Michael Anderson found households contained kin other than the nuclear family. His showed that diversity of household type was in fact the norm during as families who were more affluent were likely to exhibit an extended pattern due to higher standards of living allowing longer life such as easier access to medicine during the industrialisation thus families were become increasingly dependent on their kin.
Young and Willmott’s four stages of the family life support Anderson’s view of the family in Britain during the pre-industrial and industrial times. They studied families in different parts of London and Essex to test the theory that the nuclear family was the dominant form in modern industrial society. They had found that British families had developed through three stages; the first stage was that family had worked together as economic production units during the pre-industrial times. The second stage conveyed how the extended family was broken up during the early industrial times. Individuals left home to work and women staged at home and had strong extended kinship networks. Then the third stage was family was based on consumption not production, the family were buying things rather than making them. The nuclear family they found was focused on its lifestyles and personal relationships, this was called ‘the symmetrical family’ the husband and wife had joint roles.
Young and Willmott found improved living standards for example washing machines instead of hand washing, the decline of the close-knit extended family, improved status of women, and weaker gender identities (where women could do what men could do whereas before women weren’t expected to do much) lead to families becoming equal. Young and Willmott’s could be criticised by conflict theorists for not addressing the negative aspects of changes, as their theory seems to suggest that family life gets better. Feminists criticise their view on the division of labour, as they believe it’s inaccurate to talk about a symmetrical family, because it implies that men and women now do the same jobs, which is not the case for Radical feminists, women are ‘takers of shit’ because men benefit from women’s unpaid domestic labour.
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lulu_m20 (student)
