AQA A-level Sociology (7192): Paper 2 – Families and households – Revision Notes

For full explanations and worked paragraphs, use the Families and Households study guide first.

These notes condense Families and Households for AQA A-level Sociology (7192), from the AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7191, 7192) specification, Version 1.2 (14 October 2021). The topic is section 4.2.2 of the A-level content (also listed as 3.2.2 in the specification-at-a-glance). It is examined in Paper 2: Topics in Sociology, Section A, as one of the four option 1 topics; the specification prints Section A as extended writing, 40 marks.

Test yourself with the practice questions. For the full course, see the AQA A-level Sociology hub and the 7192 checklist.

The five content points (4.2.2)

1. Family, social structure and social change, especially the economy and state policies.
2. Marriage, cohabitation, separation, divorce, childbearing and the life course, including the sociology of personal life and family diversity.
3. Gender roles, domestic labour and power relationships.
4. The nature of childhood and the changing status of children.
5. UK demographic trends since 1900: birth rates, death rates, family size, life expectancy, ageing population, migration and globalisation.

Key terms

Term	Meaning
Nuclear family	Two generations: parents and their dependent children
Extended family	Nuclear family plus other kin, such as grandparents
Beanpole family	Many generations but few relatives in each (Brannen)
Neo-conventional family	Nuclear family in which both partners work (Chester)
Reconstituted family	Family where at least one partner has a child from a previous relationship
Functional fit	Family structure adapts to the needs of the economy (Parsons)
Joint / segregated conjugal roles	Shared tasks and leisure versus separate, gendered tasks (Bott)
Dual burden / triple shift	Paid work plus housework; plus emotion work (Duncombe and Marsden)
Pure relationship	Relationship kept only while both partners are satisfied (Giddens)
Personal life	Approach that starts from the relationships people see as meaningful (Smart)
Age patriarchy	Adult domination of children (Gittins)
Total fertility rate	Average number of children a woman would have over her lifetime
Dependency ratio	Dependants compared with the working-age population
Global care chain	Linked care work across countries, often by migrant women (Ehrenreich and Hochschild)

Studies at a glance

Who	What	Finding	One evaluation point
Murdock (1949)	250 societies	Nuclear family universal; four functions	Ignores diversity and conflict inside families
Parsons (1955)	Functional fit	Nuclear family suits industrial economy	Laslett found nuclear households before industrialisation
Engels (1884)	Marxist history	Monogamy protects inheritance of property	Little direct evidence; neglects gender as a separate inequality
Zaretsky (1976)	Marxist	Family a refuge from capitalism, but an illusion	Assumes all families experience capitalism alike
Donzelot	State and family	Professionals carry out surveillance, especially of poor families	Underplays benefits of support for families
Young and Willmott (1973)	Symmetrical family	Roles becoming more equal	Weak measure of “helping” (Oakley)
Oakley (1974)	40 London housewives	Little symmetry; housework is women’s work	Small sample from one city
Gershuny (1994)	Lagged adaptation	Men’s share rises slowly as women work more	Change may stall at a lower level
Crompton and Lyonette (2008)	Cultural vs material	Two competing explanations of unequal housework	Both may operate together
Edgell (1980)	Middle-class couples	Husbands had final say on very important decisions	Dated; may differ today
Pahl (1989)	Money management	Allowance system versus pooling	Pooling may hide unequal control
Dunne (1999)	Lesbian couples	More equal division of labour	Small, specific sample
Dobash and Dobash (1979)	Violence against wives	Reflects patriarchal power	Wilkinson (1996) points to stress from inequality
Rapoport and Rapoport (1982)	Diversity	Five types: organisational, cultural, class, life-stage, cohort	Chester says diversity is overstated
Smart (2007)	Personal life	Meaningful ties beyond blood and marriage	May underplay structural limits
Ariès (1960)	Paintings and diaries	Childhood a modern idea	Pollock (1983) found earlier evidence of childhood
Postman (1982)	Television	Childhood disappearing	Opie (1993): children’s culture survives
Pilcher (1995)	Separateness	Childhood a distinct, protected status	Not all children are protected equally
McKeown (1976)	Death rate	Better nutrition more than medicine	Public health and medicine also mattered
Phillipson (1982)	Ageing	Older people marginalised under capitalism	Ignores active, high-income older people

Key dates and figures

Date	Event	Why it matters
1948	NHS founded; Empire Windrush arrives	Falling death rate; start of large-scale Commonwealth migration
1964	Peak of the post-war baby boom	Large cohort now approaching pension age
1971	Divorce Reform Act 1969 in force	Sharp rise in divorce
1972	School leaving age raised to 16	Longer, more separate childhood
1989	Children Act; UN Convention on the Rights of the Child	Children’s welfare and rights in law
2013	Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Act	Legal recognition of same-sex marriage
2019	Civil partnerships open to opposite-sex couples (from December)	More legal choice for couples
2022	No-fault divorce in effect from 6 April	Divorce without proving fault

ONS figures worth knowing: 80,057 divorces in England and Wales in 2022, the lowest since 1971; UK life expectancy at birth of 78.6 years for males and 82.6 years for females in 2020 to 2022 (national life tables).

Linking to the core themes

• Socialisation, culture and identity: primary socialisation (Parsons); gender scripts in domestic labour; childhood as a constructed identity; migrant families keeping cultural traditions across borders.
• Social differentiation, power and stratification: patriarchal power (feminists); class and the family (Marxists); age patriarchy (Gittins); unequal care burdens in an ageing population.

Must-know distinctions

• Household vs family. A household is people living at one address; a family is people related by kinship, marriage or adoption.
• Birth rate vs total fertility rate. The birth rate depends on the age structure; the TFR measures women’s fertility directly.
• Separation vs divorce. Separation is not recorded in divorce statistics, so divorce figures understate breakdown.
• Cultural vs material explanations of domestic labour (Crompton and Lyonette).
• March of progress vs conflict views of childhood (and of domestic roles).
• Structure vs action. Functionalism and Marxism explain families from the structure; personal life and life course approaches start from meaning and agency.
• Modernist vs postmodern views of diversity. Chester sees a dominant pattern; Stacey and Giddens see choice and fluidity.

Mini essay plan

Evaluate sociological explanations of the changing status of children since 1900.

1. Introduction. Define childhood as socially constructed; set out the march-of-progress view against the conflict view.
2. March of progress. Laws (Education Act 1944, school leaving age of 16 from 1972, Children Act 1989, UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989); lower infant mortality; child-centredness. Use Pilcher on separateness.
3. Evaluate. Gittins on age patriarchy; Firestone on protection as control; inequalities of class, gender and ethnicity.
4. Is childhood disappearing? Postman and Palmer versus Opie. Link to the media and to consumption.
5. Comparative view. Benedict and Punch show childhood varies across cultures; challenges a single Western model.
6. Judgement. Children’s legal status has risen, but control and inequality remain; weigh which view the evidence supports most.

Quick self-test

1. Name Murdock’s four functions of the family.
2. What are Parsons’ two irreducible functions?
3. Which act made divorce possible on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown, in force from 1971?
4. When did no-fault divorce come into effect in England and Wales?
5. List the Rapoports’ five types of family diversity.
6. What is the triple shift, and who identified it?
7. What did Oakley criticise about Young and Willmott’s measure of symmetry?
8. What is the difference between allowance and pooling systems (Pahl)?
9. What evidence did Ariès use, and who challenged him?
10. Give two reasons for the fall in the birth rate since 1900.
11. What does Cohen mean by “denizens”?
12. What is a global care chain?

Answers

1. Sexual, reproductive, economic and educational.
2. Primary socialisation of children and stabilisation of adult personalities.
3. The Divorce Reform Act 1969.
4. 6 April 2022, under the Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020.
5. Organisational, cultural, social class, life-stage and cohort.
6. Paid work, domestic work and emotion work; Duncombe and Marsden (1995).
7. A husband counted as helping if he did a task at least once a week, which overstated equality.
8. Allowance: the earner gives the partner a sum for household costs. Pooling: both can access income and share spending.
9. Paintings and diaries; Pollock (1983) used diaries to argue childhood existed earlier.
10. Any two: changing position of women; lower infant mortality; children became an economic cost; child-centredness.
11. Privileged foreign nationals welcomed into a country who are not citizens.
12. A chain of care work across countries, as migrant women care for others’ families while relatives care for their own children.

Where marks are usually lost

• Naming a study without saying what it found or how it was done.
• Using “the family” as if there were only one type, ignoring class, ethnic and life-stage diversity.
• Mixing up Murdock’s four functions with Parsons’ two.
• Giving divorce statistics without explaining them, or explaining them only through law.
• Treating time-use figures as the whole story on domestic labour, missing decision-making and money.
• Answering a childhood question with only historical evidence and nothing on today.
• Leaving out migration and globalisation from demography answers, even though the specification names them.
• Giving one side on contested debates about welfare, family policy or migration.
• Ending with a summary rather than a judgement that weighs the evidence.

Official syllabus

AQA AS and A-level Sociology (7191, 7192) specification, Version 1.2 (14 October 2021), section 4.2.2 Families and Households, assessed in Paper 2: Topics in Sociology.