Family Formations Essay -- Sociology Family Structure

Outline and critically assess the most significant crises, conflicts and changes in family formations over the last two decades (since 1990). Make reference to your own experience, in terms of changes in identity and identifications over time. In order to address the question it is important to present the evidence which shows that there have been conflicts, crises, and changes in society since 1990. It is widely understood there are many formations of the family. This involves the forever changing affects on society which bring us back to the family. This essay will discuss the social changes occur within the family paying particular attention to lone parenthood. It will look at changes to marriage, divorce, births outside marriage and poverty and look at to what extent these changes have had on British society since 1990, and also what these changes have meant to the family within. In Western Society, over the past two decades there has been significant changes in the which the family is forming. We have seen major shifts in the demographic constitution of the family and public policy, especially in terms of their formation and dissolution. As a result of this there is far more diversity in people's domestic and living arrangements compared to how they were earlier in the centuries. It has been noticed over these recent decades that living patterns between individuals are less and less conforming appropriately to the model of the nuclear family leaving some commentators to claim the family is in terminal decline. Increases in divorce, cohabitation, births outside marriage and lone parent families all result in old certainties to family formations being questioned. (Kiernan, 1998) In society, the family is seen as a ... ... London:Family Policy Studies Centre Giddens, A. (2006) Sociology Fifth Edition. Polity Press Bridge Street: Cambridge Cheal,D. (1991) Family and the State of Theory, Harvester Wheatsheaf:Hertfordshire Kiernan,K. Land, and Lewis, J. (1998) Lone Motherhood in Twentieth-Century Britain Clarendon Press: Oxford Parental Divorce in Childhood and Demographic Outcomes in Young Adulthood, Demography, 32: 299-318. Murray, C. (1996a) 'The emerging British underclass', in Lister, R (ed.) Charles Murray and the Underclass: The developing Debate. London: Institute of Economic Affairs Murray, C. (1996b) 'Underclass: the crisis deepens', in Lister, R (ed.) Charles Murray and the Underclass: The developing Debate. London: Institute of Economic Affairs Dallos, R. (1991) Family Belief Systems, Therapy and Change, Milton Keynes: Open University Press