Types of family and household
- Nuclear: two parents and their dependent children.
- Extended: includes relatives beyond the nuclear family, such as grandparents (vertically extended) or aunts and uncles (horizontally extended).
- Lone-parent: one parent and their children, most often headed by a mother.
- Reconstituted (step) families: formed when adults with children from previous relationships form a new family.
- Same-sex families, and beanpole families (several generations, but few people in each).
- Households include people living alone, which is increasingly common, and people living together who aren't a family.
Rapoport and Rapoport
- Rapoport and Rapoport (1982) argued families in Britain had become diverse, and identified five types of diversity.
- Organisational (how roles are organised), cultural (ethnic and religious differences), class, life course (such as young couples or retired people) and cohort (the time period people live through).
Why families have become more diverse
- More divorce and remarriage, increased cohabitation, more acceptance of same-sex relationships (including civil partnerships and same-sex marriage, legal in Guernsey since 2017), people living longer, and migration bringing new family forms.
Key terms
- Extended family
- A family including relatives beyond parents and children.
- Lone-parent family
- One parent living with their children.
- Reconstituted family
- A family formed when adults with children from previous relationships join together.
- Beanpole family
- A multi-generation family with few people in each generation.
- Household
- A person or group of people living at the same address.
- Family diversity
- The variety of family types in society.
- Cohabitation
- Living together as a couple without being married.