The cereal packet image of the family.

 Leach calls the image of the happily married couple – a male breadwinner and a female housewife with two children – the
‘cereal packet image’ of the family. This image remains prominent in advertising.
Recent research suggests, however, that contemporary societies are characterized by a plurality of household and family types,
so this idea of a ‘typical’ family is misleading.

Family Diversity – Changing Family Patterns:

 Official Social Trends clearly show that the variety of family types have increased in Britain since the mid-20th century.
 Robert and Rhona Rapoport attack this idea of a typical Family by pointing out that for instance the popular image of a nuclear
family consisting of a married couples with children in which there was a single breadwinner only constituted 20% of families
in Britain in 1978.
 Data from the Office for National Statistics, London shows that since the 1960s there has been a steady decline in the
proportion of households consisting of married couples with dependent children (nuclear families) from 38% in 1961 to just
21% in 2010. There has been a corresponding increase in the proportion of single-person households in the same period,
rising from 12% in 1961 to 29% in 2010.
 There’s also been an increase in reconstituted families. In 2001-2, 8% of all households were reconstituted families.
 Weeks, Donovan et al (1999) found that there has been an increase in the number of gay or lesbian households since the
1980s. This is due to changes in attitudes and legislation.
 There is a strong body of evidence which suggests that are a variety of family types to be found today and that it is this
DIVERSITY which stands out when analysing the modern family structure.

Robert and Rhona Rapoport identified 5 types of family diversity in Britain…

Organizational Diversity 1. Organizational Diversity means there are variations in family

structures, in household type, kindship network, and differences in the
division of labour within the home. For instance, there are differences in
between conventional families, one-parent families and dual-worker
families, in which the husband and the wife both work.

Cultural Diversity 2. Cultural Diversity refers to differences/ the diversity that arises in
the lifestyles of families as a result of different ethnic and religious
origins. For instance, there are differences between families of Asian,
West Indian and Cypriot origin.

Class Diversity 3. Class Diversity refers do differences between middle class and
working classes in terms of relationships between adults and the way in
which children are socialised. For instance, some believe that middle class
parents are more child centred.

Life-Course Diversity 4. Life - Course Diversity refers to diversity caused by the different
stages in the family life cycle which generate different patterns of
structures. For instance, family structure and lifestyle tends to be
different for newly-weds without children and those with children.

Cohort Diversity 5. Cohort Diversity refers to historical periods the family have lived
through which might have a direct effect on the structure. For instance,
unemployment in the 1980s would have led to a smaller family structure.
Another example is that children who reached maturity during the 1980s
may have remained dependent on their parents for longer due to high
unemployment.

Minority ethnic groups have contributed to family diversity in Britain through each group having its own
distinctive family pattern. They have succeeded in retaining many of the culturally distinctive features of
their family life.
 South Asian Families!
Roger Ballard  Roger Ballard examined South Asian families in Britain and compared them to families in South Asia
itself.
 He argued that the family was originally strongly extended and patriarchal but with the unit working
together.
1. Changes in  Ballard argued that changes were taking place in Asian families in Britain.
South Asian  Women were increasingly working outside home and production was less frequently family-based
Families because wage labour provided the most common source of income.
 Families were also split into smaller domestic units, partly because British housing was rarely suited for
the needs of larger groupings.
2. The  Many South Asian families perceived British culture as attaching little value to family honour and placing
strengthening of little emphasis on the maintenance of kinship ties. Consequently, first-generation immigrants have
South Asian become even more conservative and cautious in their attitudes to family life, with increased vigilance in
families: ensuring that standards of behaviour did not slip and keeping a close check on their children.
 Despite the distances involved, most families retained links with their village of origin in South Asia
- Very family and money was sometimes sent to support remaining family members there.
oriented!
- Clash of  Many children also had the experience of two cultures, conforming to the culture of wider society for
cultures? part of the time whilst conforming to their ethnic subculture at home.
 Although children increasingly expected to have some say in their choice of marriage partners, they
generally did not reject the principle of arranged marriages.

Ghazala Bhatti  In Ghazala Bhatti’s ethnographic study of 50 British Asian families living in Southern England, she found
– Asian relatively similar findings to that of Ballard.
children at  Bhatti found that the distinctiveness of Asian families was largely continuing and therefore contributing
to family diversity in Britain.
home
Loyalty to the  Like Ballard, she found there was a continuing emphasis on loyalty to the family and on trying to
family? maintain traditional practises related to marriage. For example, most families were keen to maintain
links with relatives in India or Pakistan. Bhatti said the tradition of ‘Bhai chaara’ (literally, brother’s help)
is taken very seriously and most families felt some obligation to help their kin in India and Pakistan
financially.
In South Asian families, men are more likely to have authority and power (patriarchy). This is reflected in ‘traditional’ family roles.
Traditional  Bhatti found that a concept that was taken very seriously was that of Izzat or family honour, with
particular emphasis being placed on the behaviour of daughters. Mothers saw their traditional role as
being of paramount importance with child rearing being the most important role and duty in their life
whilst paid work was seen as much less important than caring for others and the family.
 Fathers, on the other hand, conformed to the traditional breadwinner role. Bhatti noted that ‘Asian
fathers felt they had to provide for their families. They saw themselves as heads of their households.’
Conflict between  Bhatti did find some evidence of conflict between different generations, in 4 of the families studied
generations – there had been open clashes between the parents and children because the eldest brother had decided
to marry an English girl instead of somebody of his own kin. Thus, the parents of these children felt they
Generational had failed as parents and worried about whether their younger children would follow a similar path.
conflict!  However, Bhatti stresses that these families are not the norm.

 Richard Berthoud and Sharon Seishon’s analysis of data on families collected in the Policy Studies Institute’s Fourth National
Survey of Ethnic Minorities found that:
- British South Asian were more likely to marry and marry earlier than their white equivalents.
- Separation and divorce were relatively rare.
 Nevertheless, there was some evidence that family patterns were changing.
- There were some divorces and single parents in South Asian communities, and another sign of change was a fall in the number
of children born to each married couple.
 They also found some evidence of changing attitudes to family life, with, for example, young people expecting more say in
the choice of marriage partner than their parents had expected.