Changing Family Life » Demographic Change, Industrialisation and the Family

Demography and the family

Families do not change on their own. They change because the society around them changes. One of the biggest forces is the size and make-up of the population. Sociologists use the word demography for this. Demographic changes affect how big families are, who lives in them and who looks after whom.

Key terms:

• Demography: the study of populations, including how many people there are, their ages, and how many are born and die.
• Birth rate: the number of live births in a year for every 1,000 people in the population.
• Family size: the number of children in a family.
• Ageing population: a population in which older people make up a growing share of the total.

Birth rates and family size

In many societies the birth rate has fallen over the last hundred years or so, and families have become smaller. Several reasons are linked to this:

• Contraception: couples can plan how many children to have and when.
• Fewer infant deaths: better healthcare and clean water mean most babies survive, so parents do not need to have many children to be sure that some live.
• More education and jobs for women: many women now study and work, and so put off having children or have fewer.
• The cost of children: children stay in education for longer and cost parents more, so people choose to have fewer.

Life expectancy and an ageing population

Remember, life expectancy is the average number of years a person is expected to live. In many societies it has risen because of better healthcare, food, housing and sanitation. When life expectancy rises and the birth rate falls together, the population becomes an ageing population: there are more older people and fewer young people.

Having children in later life

In many societies, people now have their first child at an older age than their grandparents did. Reasons include:

• staying in education for longer and building a career first
• marrying or settling down later
• the high cost of housing and of raising a child
• reliable contraception, which gives people control over when to start a family

Effects on family life: families tend to be smaller, because there is less time to have several children. Parents are often more settled and have more money. There may be a larger age gap between parents and children, and between children and their grandparents. Older parents may find themselves caring for their own parents at the same time as bringing up young children.

Industrialisation and urbanisation

Industrialisation is the change from an economy based mainly on farming and handmade goods to one based on factories, machines and mass production. Urbanisation is the growth of towns and cities as people move there to find work. The two usually happen together.

Before industrialisation, many families lived and worked together on the land. The family was a unit of production: everyone, including the children and grandparents, helped to grow food or make goods. Extended families were common in many societies.

With industrialisation, the main work moved out of the home to factories and offices. People moved to cities for jobs, often leaving their wider family behind. Homes in cities were smaller, which suited small households, and relatives lived further apart, so there was less daily contact with the wider family. Work became separate from family life.

Parsons' fit thesis

The functionalist Talcott Parsons argued that the nuclear family fits the needs of an industrial society. This is called the fit thesis. He said that industrial society needs:

1. A geographically mobile workforce. Workers must be able to move to where the jobs are. A small nuclear family can move easily, but a large extended family cannot.
2. A socially mobile workforce. People are given jobs for their skills (achieved status) and not because of who their parents are. Staying in a close extended family could hold back a person who rises above their relatives.

So, Parsons said, the family changed from extended to nuclear. His views on the key functions of the family are covered in the lesson on functionalist views of the family.

Criticisms of the fit thesis

• Extended families did not disappear. As you saw in the lesson on family diversity, Young and Willmott found extended family ties still strong in a working-class area of a big city. Many families keep close contact and give help, even when they live in separate homes.
• Nuclear families existed before industrialisation. Historical research suggests that in some societies, small family households were already common before the factories arrived, so industrialisation did not create them.
• It is too simple. Different societies industrialised in different ways, and in some societies extended families remain common in cities. Family structures are shaped by culture and religion as well.
• It is too positive. Marxists and feminists would say it ignores how the nuclear family serves capitalism and how unequal roles were for women.

Exam-style question

(a) Define the term demography. [2 marks]

(b) Explain three ways in which an ageing population can affect family life. [6 marks]

(c) Explain three reasons why industrialisation may have led to more nuclear families. [6 marks]