based on the value of their particular relationship

Men and women have an equal opportunity for all jobs to this day. This is a myth that is incorrect because women are not as represented in certain fields of work like construction and stem. Another feminist myth perpetuated by radical feminism is that there is a huge wage gap in the same jobs amongst men and women, when really that wage gap is just based around an overall salary and is not job specific. 

In preindustrial times, family members took sole responsibility for physical survival of children, for example health care, as well as education which was also taken care of within the family. The family was more of a self-contained unit with fewer connections to wider society as most people worked with and around the home and children were taught roles and responsibilities. In industrial society, children receive education and health care from institutions outside the family. Since the family no longer acts as a school for teaching children, more emphasis has been placed on establishing emotional attachments. The nature and extent of the family has changed which has altered the focus of primary socialization.  

Through this perspective parents give their children both expressive and instrumental relationships and it does not matter which partner it is provided by. Conjugal roles can be fluid in contemporary families. Women can provide instrumental values and men can provide expressive values and vice versa. Same sex families, lone parent families, and even extended family members can provide these roles. For example, grandparents can provide an expressive role while the parents provide an instrumental role. This view believes that anti social behavior stems from the instability of family roles and relationships. 

Families can be seen as crucial to social order and stability. The government supports the family both generally and particular family structures, roles, and relationships. Families are shaped and influenced by family ideology. This ideology defines the family as a public institution supported by the government and a private institution where family members should be left alone to work out their relationships. 

demographic changes rather than a change in people’s behavior. A related explanation is that, in any society, some age groups (cohorts) are 

more likely than others to marry.  This means there are “peak periods” for 

marriage (the age range at which marriage is more likely). The size of the two cohorts affects marriage statistics.  If we focus on those 

most likely to marry – the marriageable population – we find only a relatively 

small decline in marriage rates over the past 30 years. 
2: A second set of explanations focuses on wider influences on people’s behavior.  

There is now less stigma attached to having children outside marriage and there 

is also less social pressure to get married.  Cohabitation as an alternative to marriage has increased in recent years and 

although many cohabitating couples eventually marry, many do not.  Self and 

Zealey suggest that falling marriage and rising cohabitation are the result of 

more people choosing to delay marriage until later in life.  Secularization processes, whereby the influence of religious 

beliefs has generally declined, leads to changes in the meaning 

and significance of marriage.  As secularization has spread, there 

is less pressure to marry and the importance of the institution of 

marriage has declined. The statistical likelihood of divorce, with its attendant emotional 

and economic consequences, can lead to the avoidance of risk by 

not marrying.

demographic changes rather than a change in people’s behavior.  
Group 2: A second set of explanations focuses on wider influences on people’s behavior.  

There is now less stigma attached to having children outside marriage and there 

is also less social pressure to get married.  

life,  for example, focus on the psychological 

damage family life does to children – and suggests the ‘abolition of family’ as 

a solution. However, the critical theory does not locate the family group within the 

structure of society as a whole to consider whether families serve a useful 

social purpose, regardless of how the lives of its individual members may be 

affected. 

Within this approach, there are three general views – those who see family as:

1.  psychologically destructive

2. socially oppressive and exploitative of women

3.  violent and abusive institutions.

Examples/Statistics: 

-Around 80 children are killed each year by parents or caretakers.  

-The National Commision of Inquiry into the Prevention of Child Abuse has said the most likely abuser is someone the child knows personally and has a connection like a parent.  

-Home Office found that most serious offenses, 25% of recorded 🤬 victims are children.  

their definitions of childhood and, by extension, adulthood.  If childhood was a simple biological category, we

would expect every society to see it in a similar way.  The fact that they do not suggests that childhood is

socially constructed rather than biologically determined. 

development is a consequence of modern societies.  Childhood as both a social and biological category only

came into existence around three centuries ago.  Childhood as a special status, therefore, is linked to social

change and, more specifically, the change from pre-industrial society to industrial society.

humans’.  During this period, whose length differs across cultures, children 

are first exposed to primary socializing influences from adults and, increasingly, secondary sources such as the media.  In our 

society, ‘childhood’ can have several different meanings, from the idea of 

‘innocence’ to children being in need of adult care, supervision and 

protection. Archard (2004) argues that every human society has developed a concept of childhood, but societies differ in 

their definitions of childhood and, by extension, adulthood.  If childhood was a simple biological category, we 

would expect every society to see it in a similar way.  The fact that they do not suggests that childhood is 

socially constructed rather than biologically determined.  

humans’.
Youth is the next stage, and reflects a range of identities, including pre-teens (‘teenies’), teens 

and young adults. 
Adult identities are generally built on rights and responsibilities that set them apart from other 

identities.  
Elderly is the last, which is about old age in contemporary societies, which is generally seen as a special category of 

adulthood.  

together ‘as if married’, was extensively practiced in the past, cohabitation (a

relationship where two people live together as if they were married) is not legally

recorded in the UK and this limits the reliability of the data.
- Reasons for increase in Cohabitation:

1.  reduced social pressures to marry

2.  lower levels of stigma attached to living with someone without being married

3.  the wider availability of contraception/abortion.

Smart and Stevens (2000) suggest four main reasons for the recent upward trends:

1.

Changing attitudes to marriage (indifference, uncertainty, is partner ‘suitable’.

2.

Cohabitation represents a trial for their partner to prove they can settle down,

keep work, and interact successfully with the mother’s children.  Self & Zealey

suggest that later marriage is a factor here, both males and females move into

and out of serial cohabitation.

3.

Many believe it is easier to leave a cohabitating relationship if it doesn’t work

out.

4.

Philosophical opposition to marriage and that cohabitation leads to more equal

relationships.  Smart and Stevens note two basic forms of “commitment to

cohabitation”; 1.  couple cohabitate until It was ‘safe or sensible to marry’, and

2.  mutual, where couples felt as committed to each other and their children as

married couples.

Over the past 50 years there has been a decrease in birth rates from 30 live births per 1000 to 10 live births per thousand. Family size has gone down from an average of 3 children to 1.6. There has been an increase in the age at which women have their first child, and birth’s outside of marriage have become much more popular, accounting for over half of births. Some factors of these dropping fertility and birth rates are an increase in the female workforce participation, limitied fertility spans, and economic and cultural factors. 

Another reason would be that with people have an age range in which more marriages are likely to happen.  

Also, that the size of the two cohorts affects marriage statistics.  

impact, which makes it difficult to see ‘the elderly’ as a distinctive stratum in

modern societies in any but the broadest sense.  

Meadows (2003) further argues

that job performance does not significantly deteriorate with age and ‘there is no

evidence to support the view older workers are inherently less productive than

younger workers’.  She notes, however, that older workers do not always receive

the same levels of workplace investment and training as younger colleagues. 

Where they do receive training they ‘reach the same skill standards’.

One reason would be that women now have more career opportunities which allows them for greater financial independence, so they have less economic pressure for them to marry.  

There is also cohabitation as an alternative to marriage has increased over the years.  

They also just have been a increased of choosing of remaining together or just not marrying at all.  

 

Archard argued that every human society has a concept of childhood. However, the concepts of childhood might differ by meaning and ideas. It is a social construct. We know this because if it was a biological category then we would think childhood to be the same for everyone. However, it’s not. So, childhood is socially constructed. 

development as a consequence of modern societies. Childhood, through Aries’ eyes, is seen as a link to the change from pre industrial society to industrial society. Childhood is known as ‘uncorrupted innocence.’ 

Such as social organization. We can understand this by looking at nomadic 

societies. The society sees old people as burdens. The elderly in these societies are neglected and can be killed. This differs from other societies who praise elderly people.

The concept of chronological age is increasingly blurred in modern societies.  A more useful concept of social age has come about and it is the idea that, over an individual’s lifetime, certain structured life events mark the divisions between different phases and experiences. This has become more significant because it conforms with the post modern social change. 

Causes for divorce:

-Legal change: each time a divorce is made easier or more affordable, the number of divorces increases.

-economic change: aid was made available to divorcing couples, which meant that divorce was no longer something only the rich could do.

-the process of secularization: many couples no longer regard marriage as a ‘sacred institution’ that must be preserved.