Changing Family Patterns
Video notes
Divorce:
o 2018 – 90’000 divorces in the UK of the opposite sex marriages and 428 same-sex
marriages (less people marry in the beginning)
o 1971 – 74’000 divorces (Divorce Reform Act came into place)
o 1993 number of divorces peaked at 165’000 following rapid rise from 1971 –
continued to fall throughout 1990s and early part of this century.
REASONS:
 Changing attitudes to relationships Giddens – confluent love has replaced romantic love and people are more
willing to leave partners in search for greater fulfilment.
 Beck – family is negotiated in late modern society and it conditions placed
upon relationships are broken, divorce ensues.
 Higher expectations of marriage – while divorces have declined in recent
years, so have marriages – people demand more satisfaction from
relationships (they grow apart)
 Reduced stigma and secularisation:
 Process of secularisation has led to people no longer being guided by
morality of church and therefore marking their own judgements on
relationships.
 As number of divorces increased, attitudes to divorce as a failed marriage
are vanishing.
 Less social disapproval of divorces (particularly of female divorcee) with
the rise of feminism (2 in 3 women started the divorce and bring in the
papers)
 Increased life expectancy:
 People are living longer and this is impacting both on the age when they
marry and their likelihood of divorce.
 ONS (Office for National Statistics) reported increased divorce rates for
over 65s in 2018, with increased in males by 23% and females by 38% on
previous years.
 With longer to live, people are more likely to leave unhappy marriages and
seek out new partner – as seen by the increase in remarriages (serial
monogamy)
 Changing gender roles:
 Rise of feminism and greater career aspirations have been cited as reasons
for the increase in divorce.
 2/3 of divorce are requested by females which reflects a growing
dissatisfaction with married life for women.
 Male’s lagged adaptation to changing gender roles, combined with growing
individualism and the crisis of masculinity can be seen as contributing to
divorce rates also.
 Growing individualism in society:
 Individualisation Thesis suggest that people are increasingly looking to
satisfy their own needs rather than sacrifice their needs for the good of the
family.
 Concepts such as confluent love (Giddens) and liquid love (Bauman) are
based upon individuals having choice and looking to satisfy their own
needs.
 Relationships have become a transactions, one that needs when the
relationship has fulfilled its purpose.
Consequences
 Conflict within family- impact on children or parental conflict over access, finance
and new relationships.
 Formations of new families – reconstituted families – could bring increased
conflict over parenting of children.
 Greater number of remarriages, more lone-parent families and more lone-parent
households within society.
 Financial issues for the partners – loss of second income, additional costs of living
apart.