Domestic Labour and Gender roles within the family

Ann Oakley who is a radical feminist went on a research and interviewed housewives in south east England and discovered that the majority of household tasks were performed by women rather then men a number of interesting aspects were revealed it appeared that in terms of classes that the middle class was more symmetrical then working class family's, however in both classes men seem to do less in child care and house work. Many women in the interview comment on how boring and unfair they felt about the housework.

some felt that there gender identity was being sacrificed along with their husband with some of the men believing that they should not be doing the house work.

Decision making and power within the household!

Power is to get what you want even though others around you may not want it. On occasions we do things because we either think it is the right thing to do or we have to obey those that are in power.

The family is the key place where power is exercised so sociologists will see inequalities within the family differently based on their on their perspectives on how power is distribute.

functionalists take a traditional approach to the family and they will suggest that their is a natural division of labor based on biological differences.

Talcott Parsons believes that women are better suited to be caring because there expressive roles as carers and they naturally care for children and provide emotional support for the family.

Marxist Feminist believed that men are the main reasons for the inequality's by reproducing the workforce and the inequality within the family.

Radical feminists, they believed that the family and the roles within the family are created by men for the benefit of men to enable them to go to work without the burden of child care or domestic work which is completed by the partners i.e the women.

Diversity of the Family.

Diversity in the family is changing within the society. This can be a result of a rise in the divorce rates, this consequently leads to more lone parent family which has created a situation in which there are one parent families who are lead by women because the law awards custody to women over the men as the women in known to be the priory career, also it leads to reconstituted family and various divers family units within the society, another reason for why diversity in the family is changing is because people are cohabiting more which is when people live together and not have to be married. There are also multicultural influences that give impact on the shape and form of the family like many different culture have settled in the UK but have bought with them there culture traditions associated in their families.

Cultural Diversity

different ethnic groups tend to have different forms of family structure it is under latest research it is said that black groups have higher abortion of one parent families then other one parent families.
This is partly due to higher divorce rate amongst black communities there appears to be a long term trend by which black women would rather want to live without the children's partner, it is also revealed that other cultural groups such as Pakistani and Bangladeshi house holds had only a 9% chance of having a lone-parent family however one of the lowest rates of lone-parent family was found amongst white households.
Culture is an important factor in the family diversity, with black families most likely to live with one parent families due to issues mainly around the support of the male partner, on the other hand Pakistani and Bangladeshi families are more likely to live in a traditional nuclear family structures.