The Rapoports & Family Diversity (AQA GCSE Sociology)

Key thinkers: Rapoport and Rapoport (1982)

• Rapoport and Rapoport (1982) argue that families in the UK are changing

  • There is no longer a dominant norm regarding what family should be like

  • Today, people value their freedom to choose the kind of family life that suits them; therefore, the diversity of families we see today reflects the needs and desires of individuals in society

  • Diverse family types are just as functional and effective as nuclear families in performing essential functions for society

• The Rapoports reviewed previously published works by other sociologists and therefore used secondary sources in their research to develop the five types of family diversity

Types of family diversity

Organisational diversity

• Families differ in their structures, the way their domestic division of labour is organised and their social networks

• Examples of family structures include conventional nuclear families, reconstituted families and dual-worker families

Cultural diversity

• Families differ in their cultural values and beliefs

• Different minority ethnic groups (such as South Asian, Cypriot or African-Caribbean heritage) illustrate this diversity in beliefs and values

• These differences can affect people's lifestyles, ideas about gender roles, child-rearing and attitudes towards education

• For example:

  • African-Caribbean communities have a higher than average proportion of lone-parent families and Asian communities have lower than average

  • A relatively high percentage of extended families are found in the British Asian community

Social class diversity

• Working-class families tend to favour conventional role relationships between husbands and wives

• Middle-class family roles may be unequal due to the husband's demanding career

• Social class also affects childrearing, as discipline is more physical among working-class parents

Life-course diversity

• The structure of a family changes depending on where in the life cycle the family is

  • Newlyweds without children, families with young children and retired couples in empty-nest families all have different lifestyles

Cohort diversity

• The particular time period in which a family passes through different stages of the family life cycle

• For example:

  • Homosexuality has lost its social stigma so younger people may find it easier to live in same-sex families today compared to 40 years ago

Recent findings

• Since this study, family diversity has further increased due to

  • Changes in social attitudes towards divorce

  • Changes in the law, such as the introduction of civil partnerships and same-sex marriages

  • Developments in reproductive technology like IVF or surrogacy

How families differ in a global context

• Cross-cultural studies show that different family types exist in different cultures

Communes

• A group of people who share living accommodation, ownership of property and the division of labour, valuing equality and cooperation between members, such as an Israeli kibbutz

• These small communities tend to share similar political or environmental beliefs, such as the Findhorn ecovillage community in Scotland, in which members avoid activities that might exhaust the earth’s natural resources

• Members share the ownership of wealth and may follow certain religious beliefs, such as the Bruderhof Christian community in East Sussex

Kibbutzim

• Originally agricultural settlements set up by Jewish settlers in Palestine a century ago, now over 2% of Israel's population live in kibbutzim

• A kibbutz is a group of people who live together communally and value equality between members

• Children used to sleep separately from their parents and were looked after by a metaplet but now, children live with their biological parents up to age 15

• Children born in the same year are raised and educated together

One-child family policy in China

• Introduced in 1979, couples living in cities in China were legally allowed to have just one child

• If they had a second, they could face fines, demotion or dismissal from work

• In 2016, this controversial policy ended and married couples in China could request government-issued birth permits for up to two children

• Since 2021, married couples are now allowed to have up to to three children

• These changes are due to China's ageing population so more young people are needed to provide the workforce of the future and to look after ageing relatives