Changing Patterns & Family Diversity

Reasons for increase in the divorce rate (40% of marriages end in divorce)

• Legal changes e.g. Divorce Act 1969
• Less stigma
• Secularisation
• Higher expectations of marriage (functionalists)
• Women's financial independence
• Modernity & individualism

Reasons for fewer first marriages

• Changing attitudes
• Alternatives e.g. cohabitation
• Women's economic independence
• The impact of feminism
• Rising divorce rates

Other trends

• More re-marriages
• Later marriages
• Fewer church weddings

Cohabitation

• Trial marriage
• An alternative to marriage

Patterns in childbearing

• 50% of children are born outside of marriage
• Women are having children later; more are remaining childless or having fewer children

Lone-parent families

• Account for 25% of families
• Increased divorce & decline in stigma
• 90% of LP families are headed by a female
• Increase in reconstituted / stepfamilies

Ethnic differences

• More black LP families
• Larger Asian households

• Functionalists: The dispersed extended family
• The beanpole family: Extended vertically, but not horizontally
• People still feel obligation to their wider extended kin, but this is expected to be reciprocal
• More is expected of daughters than of sons, but this varies depending on other commitments