Conservatives are strongly opposed to high levels of taxation and government spending. They argue that family breakdown and the increase in numbers of lone-parents families has led to more spending on welfare benefits. As this has to be paid for out of public funds, it places a bigger tax burden on the working population.
High levels of taxation and benefits act as ‘perverse incentives’- punish responsible behaviour and reward irresponsible behaviour.
-Undermining the traditional family by discouraging men from working to support their families.
-Encourage a ‘dependency culture’ of living off welfare benefits.
The new right therefore favour cutting welfare benefits or even abolishing them entirely to reduce the dependency culture and encourage the conventional family.
Critics
Feminist Anne Oakley (1997) argues that the new right wrongly assumes that husbands are wives roles are fixed by biology. Cross cultural studies show great variation in the roles men and women perform within the family. Oakley believes that the new right view of the family is a negative reaction against the feminist campaign for women’s equality.
Feminists assume that biology take
Chester: The neo-conventional family (1985)
Chester acknowledges family diversity changes but does not regard them as significant, also does not portray it in a negative light.
The most important change is the switch from the traditional nuclear family to the neo-conventional family- which is a dual-earner family; both spouses go to work similar to young+willmott symmetrical family.
Chester states that individuals do not aspire to move away from the nuclear family it is still ideal.
The decrease of the nuclear family due to the life cycle- many of the people who are not in a nuclear family right now are either divorced widows or young men. They have been a part of a nuclear family in the past or the future.
Statistics on household composition are misleading as they only show a snapshot point of their life- does not show the future as they would be likely to live in a nuclear family.
Evidence that there have been no major changes;
Most people live in households that are headed by married couple.
Most still marry, children reared by natural parents
Most marriages still continue till dea.l;th, most divorcees remarry – divorce increased
Cohabitation has increased but that is seen as a temporary faze before marriage and is likely to get married if have children.
Births outside marriage have increased, yet most jointly registered showing a degree of commitment.
Overall Chester states the importance of family diversity has been exaggerated, sees the nuclear family as dominant like functionalists , yet believes that there has been a change to neo-conventional family where both spouses play ‘instrumental+ expressive role’.
The Rapports: five types of family diversity (Rapports 1982)
Family diversity is the central importance in understands family life today.
We have moved away from the dominant nuclear family to a range of family types
Families have adapted to a more pluralistic society – society that has become more diverse in term of cultures+ lifestyles.
Family diversity represents freedom of choice and the widespread of acceptance of different cultures and lifestyles.
Unlike the New Rights, Rapports sees diversity as a response to people’s needs and wishes, not an abnormal and deviation from the norm.
Five different types of family diversity:
Organisational diversity- differences in the ways family roles are organised (joint-conjugal roles, segregated- conjugal roles and two wage earners
Cultural diversity – different cultures and religions have different family structures eg Indian extended family.
Social class diversity – different incomes different structures
life-stage diversity –stage in life cycle affects family structure
Generational diversity –different generations have different attitudes and experiences which reflect the historical period they lived in.
Post modernity and the life course
Life course analysis (Hareven 1978)
The idea that there is flexibility and variation in people’s choices- timing and sequence in events in their lives (have baby, come out)
(Holdsmith+Morgan 2005) – Examined how young people experience leaving home- how to define being an adult and independence. Focuses on meanings people give to life events.
2 major strengths
What family members themselves consider important, not sociologists views. How family and household change from the viewpoint of people involved (more insider view)
Suitable for family today as more diverse- family structures due to choices made by members
Family practices Morgan 1996
The routine actions through which we create our sense of being a family member
Influences by the beliefs we have about our rights and obligations within the family
Which helps understand the conflict that may exist among families as different views and expectations of others duties.
Closer to the reality of every day experiences – family life than structural approaches such as functionalists.
Post modernism and family diversity
We no longer live in modern world with its predictable family structure
Entered new chaotic postmodern society
Family structures are fragmented and individuals have more choice in lifestyle and personal arrangements – more diversity
Advantage – freedom to plot own life course to meet own needs
Disadvantage- greater risk of instability
Views of family diversity
Choice and equality Giddens 1992
Family and marriages have been transformed by greater choice and equality
Contraception – sex and intimacy rather than reproduction for reproduction
Feminism – more opportunities for women
Couples are free to define their relationships rather that defined by law or tradition e.g. cohabit rather that marriage.
‘Pure relationships’- exists solely to meet each partners needs and is likely to continue only so long in doing so.
Couples stay together for love, happiness or sexual attraction, rather than because of tradition, a sense of duty or for the sake of children.
Relationships become part of the process of self- discovery or self-identity trying different relationships becomes a way of establishing ‘who we are’
Beck : risk society and the negotiated family beck 1992
Tradition less influence, more choice means risk society
Aware of more risks – involves calculating risks and rewards of different actions
Contrast with previous society where people’s roles were fixed and less choice
e.g. marriage- men played role of disciplinarian and breadwinner too make important decisions , women responsible for housework and childcare
Traditional family was unequal and oppressive but did provide stability and defining roles
Thought the traditional family was undermined by two trends.
1 greater gender equality – challenged male domination expect equality in home and work
2 greater individualism – actions are influenced by calculations of self-interest, rather that obligation to others
Beck – Gernshein 1995- these trends have led to the negotiated family- does not conform to the norm of patriarchal family, but varies according to expectations and wishes of their members
More equal, less stable and free to leave if needs are not met
People turn to the family as a haven of security; irony is that family relationships themselves now subject to greater risk than ever.
Since the late 20th century, society has entered new postmodern phase it includes;
Diversity and fragmentation , greater diversity of cultures and lifestyles ,collection of subcultures than single culture shared by all people can pick and mix creating own identity
Rapid social change, new technology electronic media has dissolved old barriers of time and space
A Less stable society- though greater choice of relationships which allows more diversity.
No longer possible to generalise,-unlike modernist sociologist such as Parsons.
The divorce extended family Stacy 1998
Greater choice has enable women to free them from patriarchal oppression and shaping family arrangements to meet own needs
Life history interviews – found out that women were main agents of changes in the family; many rejected the traditional house wife role.
Morgan 1996
Pointless trying to make large scale generalisations about the family as if it was a single thing.
Like functionalists, instead more attention to how people create their own diverse family lives and patterns.
The growing acceptance of diversity weeks 2000
Identifies a long term shift in attitudes since the 1950’s
Shown that sexual morality has become largely a matter of personal choice
The church and state have lost much of their power to influence individual morality
Growing acceptance of sexual and family diversity especially under 35s
More favourable attitudes towards cohabitation and homosexuality
Although there are changing attitudes;
Family patterns still fairly traditional
People still live in a family
Most brought up by couples
Most couples marry
Many divorces re marry
Weeks argues that sexual and family diversity are now an undesirable accepted fact, despite new right
Two views of family diversity
1 against diversity (functionalists, new rights)
States there is only one best normal family type
Natural based on biological differences
Nuclear family best equipped to meet needs of society
2 in favour of diversity (post-modernists, new rights)
A family is simply whatever arrangements those involved choose to call a family not natural but social constructed by its members.
