Fecundity is the numbers of children women are able to have in biological terms. It is physically possible for a normal woman to bear a child every year during the period when she is capable of conception.
Crude death rates are calculated in the same way as the birth rates, the number of deaths per 1,000 of the population per year.
2)
There are two types of poverty, absolute and relative. Absolute poverty refers to the lack of basic requirements needed to have a healthy life. Relative poverty is judged in relation to the society the person lives in.
The numbers of people living in, or on the margins of, poverty increased dramatically throughout the 1980’s. In 1987 10 million people were living in poverty and 5 million were living near the margins due to a rise in un-employment.
The un-employed, those in part time or unsecured jobs, older people, the sick and disabled, members of large families and single parent families are all particularly likely to be living in poverty. They are mainly poor because of their relationship to the labour market many are outside it altogether.
“Class is a formal categorization of people into groups (or classes) which share certain characteristics in the market for labour, services and capital.” (Sociology An Interactive Approach, pg 265)
Oscar Lewis wrote a book based on a study carried out on a small number of families in the USA. In this book he writes about ‘the culture of poverty’ which refers to the likelihood of where groups of families exist in poverty, they create a set of social attitudes which can make it very hard for members to escape from poverty and the under class. Children within these family groups may have the attitude towards money of it being spent quickly and grabbing pleasures while they can and therefore neglecting their education and long term plans. This cycle continues and they remain in poverty.
Lewis also noted that the leisure patterns of the under class rarely allows interaction with people from other classes because of money. Their culture therefore becomes separated from everyone else.
There are many groups that are not in the underclass but as considered poor. Many single parent families and families where members are unable to work find themselves in poverty.
Often the most important predictor of health and other life chances is social class. Good health and ill health can be traced back to what class u fit into. Un-skilled working classes are more likely to have a long-term illness than those in higher classes. Therefore the higher a class a child is born in to the better health it will have throughout its life.
Sir Donald Aches stated in his 1998 report, Independent Inquire into Inequalities in Health, that people at the bottom of the social ladder are still in much worse health that those at the top.
Rebecca Leach
Occupation is one of the most accurate predictors of all life chances. Those in high paid jobs are more likely to have better health and education and will pass these benefits on to their children.
Children from high-class families will have access to better schools and therefore will improve their education. Differences in class can be seen early on in baseline tests where children from the lower classes are receiving poorer results. Schools in poor neighbourhoods are more likely to have limited space and have a degraded environment, which can lead to a more stressful learning environment. Children from the lower classes are less likely to receive good results in education therefore their life chances are impaired.
Deprivation and social class both effect children dramatically. Those who are in the lower classes have relatively poor life chances compared to those born in to higher classes.
Rebecca Leach
3)
Recent changes in family life have provoked both optimistic and pessimistic responses. Some believe that the family in modern Britain is declining and that marriage is no longer working. The opposite view argues that family life is better than before.
Working mothers
The rise in the proportions of children with mothers who go to work has been one of the major changes affecting family life since the war.
Reasons for the increase in working mothers:
∙ The 1978 DHSS report, wives as sole and joint breadwinners, estimated that three times as many families would be in poverty if it weren’t for the wages of working mothers. The economic recession in the 1980’s meant that more fathers were out of work and on low wages. There has also been an increase in single-parent families, ninety per cent of which are headed by the mother.
∙ Industry has increased its demand for female labour which is often employed at low wages and on a part time basis.
∙ Women now have better educational opportunities. The Equal Pay Act and the Sex Discrimination Act now ensures that women are treated fairer at work than before.
∙ Mothers now have smaller families than previous generations.
Sue Sharpe found that 36 per cent of middle-class and 57 per cent of working-class mothers with jobs received hardly any help at all around the home from their husbands, which increases the women’s workload.
Woman and their families have benefited in all sorts of ways from the increased numbers of mothers going out to work but wives have also suffered from an overload of work.
Effects of working mothers on children
In the last two decades there has been a steady increase in the proportion of working mothers whose pre-school children are being cared for outside the home. Children are not worse off because they spend more time with others besides their mothers. The quality of the relationship between mother and child is most important.
Overall, the children of working mothers see female competence more positively and the daughters of working mothers have higher levels of independence.
Rebecca Leach
Single parent families
There were 1.3 million lone-parent families in Britain in 1992, double the amount 20 years ago.
Lone-parent families are likely to share a number of characteristics:
∙ The majority of lone-parent households are headed by women
∙ They are disproportionably concentrated in inner city areas
∙ They are much more likely to live in poverty. In 1992 around 75 per cent of lone-parents were claiming income support
∙ Lone mothers are less likely to be employed than married mothers.
∙ One-parent families are more likely to live in poor housing, overcrowded conditions and are less likely to be homeowners. Over 50 per cent live in council accommodation.
Current Government policy aims to encourage lone parents to support themselves through employment or to look for support from their former partner. State childcare provision remains limited making it difficult for lone parents to work outside the home and ex-spouses are often unable to fulfil their maintenance obligations. In 1993 the Government launched the Child Support Agency with the aim of tracking down absent fathers whose ex-partners are dependant on state benefits and forcing them to provide financial support.
Effects of single parent families on children
Although the children of lone-parent families may not see their second parent very often, that person does not become less emotionally important to the child.
Wallerstein and Kelly observed that when the burden of childcare falls mostly on one parent, the family is more vulnerable to stress.
Children who grew up in one-parent homes complete fewer years of schooling, enter lower-status occupations and have less stability in their own relationships.
