Although other sociologist like Laslett(1972 )found evidence that the pre-industrial three generational families that parson claimed to have existed in the pre-industrial era did not really exist. Because he found that the average in household side was around 4.75%.According to Laslett this was due to either late child birth or short life expectancy so most grandparents would not life long after they see their first grandchild.
However Young and Willmott looked at the history of the family in Britain to describe the changes. They argued that the structure of the family has gone trough three stages. Stage one was the pre-industrial stage that was before the 1750’s. Home and work where not separated and most families where nuclear not extended as parsons stated. The stage one family was said to be and inter-dependent unit of production under the command of the father on farms or other cottage industries such as waving. Stage two was the early industrial stage from the 1750 to around the 1900’s. this was the point when industrialisation had stared coming into society, work and home became separated work to place in factories now. Women and children became dependent on the men’s wages due to the factory act that excluded women and children from paid work. Stage two families also depended on other female relatives for support in time of need, in sort of mutual aid system. Stage three was the modern industrial stage from about the 1900 from witch the symmetrical nuclear family started to emerge; as a result of social changed such as higher standards of living more married women getting paid work and the welfare state improved the living conditions
Young and Wilmot’s work show the importance of social class. Hardships encouraged some families to keep larger family units, because each member can help with child rearing, contributing to rent and food. Young and Willmott disprove parsons view on the family because it is considered as to generalised, where as there study shows a more in-depth study of the change of the family due to industrialisation.
Michael Anderson used “exchange theory” to prove that the industrial 19th centaury kin preferred extended family network. Exchange theory involves the factors that motivate people to keep relationship with others depending on the cost and benefits. Andersons work showed because of industrialisation working class families formed extended families networks due to their hardship of the time, poor working condition in factories being dangerous and unhealthy pay. Extended families benefited its members because they could use older kin to take care of young while the parents went to work; also having other kin in the house hold brought extra money. Anderson also found that so son as conditions got better families started to cut ties with wider kin because they did not see the benefits. The change due to industrialisation that Anderson talks about is similar to Young and Willmott view of stage two and Andersons study proves that what they have claimed are more or less correct.
In addition other sociologist used the same theory as Anderson; Tamara Hareven (1999) did that and found that the extended family acted as a source of security and mutual aid to soften the effects of poverty and unemployment that the early industrial era had brought. Also she says that exchange theory help s us to understand the patterns of mutual aid witch can be linked to how depending on a families economic survival needs at the time you could be able to determine and how industrialising could have changed family structures and what these changes were. but she disagrees with Anderson that mutual aid is given to kin based purely on calculating the benefits but more due to the fact that most family have a strong sense of obligation to wider kin. But at the same time Hareven with Anderson rejects Parson’s view that industrialisation caused the nuclear family to emerge in such harsh times of early industrialisation; they both with young and Willmott claim that industrialisation especially early industrialisation caused the emergence of extended family structure. Hareven concluded that extended family structure best fitted industrial society.
Although Young and Willmott, Anderson, and Hareven have a point in saying that the extended family structure was used as a source of mutual aid to soften the blow of unsympathetic times; historian peter Laslett (1972 found that there was a high mortality rate in pre-industrial society that meant older generations did not live long. Using old church records of households he found that the percentage of people living in a family unit was to low to have been an extended family structure so he concluded that the family had always been nuclear in both pre-industrial and industrial society.
On the other hand although Laslett view became widely accepted one could argue that because of the fact that he used each household as an individual family unit he could be misled by his sources because families could have had and extended network despite the fact that they did not life under the same roof.
Due to the conditions families were exposed to sociologist like Young and Willmott and Anderson could be correct that the family might not have been extended but nuclear to begin with and changed because industrialisation especially in its early years that caused poverty. On the other hand the need for extended family in pre-industrial times could indicated that the family structure could have started out as extended because they lived as a economic unit of production, so the best way to keeping a farm especially a big farm having many people working on them, provided them with cheep labour and a way to survive. in addition statements that the family structure had always been nuclear cant be completely correct because industrialisation with a bit from help urbanisation did change the family structure.
I would have to agree with parsons and young and Willmott that both there studies could be correct to a to some extent but also conclude that the effect of industrialisation to the family was that the family structure were not only extended in pre-industrialisation but also in early industrialisation because in both times a wider kinship seemed necessary and then after that in modern society they changed into nuclear isolated family units.
