The Family and Industrialisation

The relationship between industrialisation and the nuclear family.

The Debate Functionalists argue that industrialization

led to the creation of the nuclear family suggesting that the nuclear family best suits the needs of industrial society.

Social historians have asserted that nuclear families predate the industrial revolution and may well have caused industrialisation rather than have been a product of it.

Functionalists Young and WilmottExtended families well

suited to pre industrial domestic system.

Industrialisation separated home and work and created male breadwinner role. Links to extended family broke down as they were no longer an economic an social necessity.

Talcott ParsonsIndustrial societies need

nuclear families because they provide a more geographically mobile workforce

Nuclear families also fit in better with the underlying principle of meritocracy (fewer ties of family)

Social historians 1

Peter Laslett “The World We have lost" argues:

Nuclear families predate Industrial Revolution.

Only 10% of families were extended before Industrial Revolution.

It was thus the existence and predominance of nuclear families which allowed industrialisation to occur.

Social Historians 2

Michael Anderson studied the town of Preston using 1851 census data. He concluded;

The extended family actually became more commonplace during industrialisation as the working class needed as many family members working as possible to survive

The Family in the 20th Century

State took away a number of social and welfare family functions in the 20th century.

Family size has declined – children an economic burden rather than asset.

Geographical mobility has increased – extended family networks declined.

Family Trends Today Robert Chester claims nuclear or “neo

conventional” family remains typical, with men still being main breadwinner

However only 23% live in “neo conventional” families. Neo conventional is perhaps a common form of family arrangement but family and household structures are complex and diverse in modern society.

Is the nuclear model used ideologically to mark other arrangements and structures as deviant and undesirable??