Family and Kinship in East London

The key concept discussed in the study is family and the transaction from extended family to nuclear family; the main reasons for the evolution from extended family to nuclear family is mobility in the light to have a better job or to have a better house, the fall in birth-rate and the emancipation of the women. In extended family the mother, who keeps the most of her sons and daughter under the same roof, manages the household, it stands out the close ties that mother and daughter has daily although daughter get married the relationship is similar as when they were not. The discourse of the mother is important in all social life situations and is regarded as a source of accuracy information and guide for the development of the daughter-household, the relationship with sons are constrain when they got married as the wives keeps that trend. This came be seen as a functionalism approach because it provides benefits for daughter such as emotional (husband no much time in home and had no care for her and just was seen as a source of income) or the economical help that many people bringing income to the household. Other important key factor on the shift to nuclear families is that industrial society has many different occupations, which in turn have different income, and as Talcott Parson argues different occupations and different incomes are not well fit under the same roof.

The shift from Bethnal Green to the government housing project in Green Leigh can be seen like a family policy as Michel Foucault argues to promote nuclear family where control of the body and morality can be better managed so in the new re-housing sate the family became structurally isolated from kin, they became home centred, and the roles of husbands & wives becomes more equal as women go out to work, men do more housework, and the conjugal bond becomes "companionate".

Young and Willmott suggest that new houses should be developed within the community that people can keep their kinship and family ties. In Green Leigh families last attachment to their families. Wives were suffering from depression, as they had no friends and social life. Husbands were not able socialise with their friends because of economic and social reasons. And both have to face the lack of place to go because of the distance and the economic difficulties due to the arrival of new electronic household applicants, higher rent and fares to Bethnal Green to see their relatives. The reward they got was to be able to improve their quality standards in terms of housing space and to be the pioneers of the change in the family social institution but some of them at the end move back to Bethnal Green.