Families, Labour and Love: Family diversity in a changing world

by Baker, Maureen

• ISBN13: 9781864489859
• ISBN10: 1864489855
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2001-07-01
• Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Summary

A sociological analysis of family life in three 'settler' societies: Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Table of Contents

List of Tables	p. x
Preface	p. xi
The Personal and Social Worlds of Families	p. 1
Why focus on families in Australia, New Zealand and Canada?	p. 3
The origins of family studies	p. 5
The meaning of family	p. 6
Academic definitions	p. 7
The myth of the monolithic family	p. 9
Government definitions of family	p. 11
Family diversity	p. 12
Why do governments collect and analyse family statistics?	p. 13
Family trends in Australia, New Zealand and Canada	p. 14
Rising life expectancies	p. 14
More cohabitation	p. 16
Declining legal marriage rates	p. 17
Declining fertility	p. 18
Lower adoption rates	p. 19
Rising rates of marriage breakdown and lone-parent families	p. 21
Rising rates of remarriage	p. 22
More women and mothers in the paid work force	p. 22
Interpreting family trends	p. 23
Discussion questions	p. 25
Cultural Variations in Families	p. 26
Variations in family structure	p. 27
Patterns of authority	p. 29
Marriage patterns	p. 32
Monogamy versus polygamy	p. 32
Arranged versus free-choice marriage	p. 33
Indigenous people in the three countries	p. 34
Aboriginal families within Australia	p. 34
New Zealand Maori and conceptions of whanau	p. 38
Canada's First Nations	p. 40
Recent immigrants to New Zealand and Australia	p. 42
Pacific Island immigrants to New Zealand	p. 42
New Asian immigrants to Australia	p. 46
Conclusion	p. 49
Discussion questions	p. 49
Early Family Life in Settler Societies	p. 50
Early European contact	p. 51
Early settlement	p. 52
Reasons for migration	p. 54
Colonial family life and work	p. 55
Children's rights to protection and social services	p. 58
Education and early child care	p. 60
Gendered labour and the family wage	p. 65
Conclusion	p. 67
Discussion questions	p. 68
Conceptualising Families	p. 69
Political economy approach	p. 70
Structural functionalism	p. 72
Systems theory	p. 74
Psychoanalytic theories	p. 75
Social construction approach	p. 76
Social exchange theory	p. 78
Developmental theories	p. 79
Feminist theories	p. 80
Postmodern theories	p. 82
New directions in family theorising	p. 84
The emerging emphasis on fatherhood	p. 84
Re-theorising family intimacy and dependency	p. 86
Conclusion	p. 87
Discussion questions	p. 89
Intimacy, Cohabitation and the Quality of Marriage	p. 90
The influence of modernisation on marital relationships	p. 90
Social changes from World War II	p. 92
Changing dating practices	p. 93
Changes in sexual attitudes and behaviour	p. 96
Mate selection	p. 100
Mate selection for arranged marriages	p. 100
Mate selection within free-choice marriages	p. 102
Theories of mate selection in free-choice marriage	p. 103
Cohabitation	p. 105
The quality of marriage	p. 106
Violence in intimate relationships	p. 109
Remaining unmarried	p. 113
Conclusion	p. 116
Discussion questions	p. 117
Childhood, Reproduction and Child Care	p. 119
Changing images of children and childhood	p. 119
Parenthood, reflection and choice	p. 121
Social pressures to reproduce	p. 122
The costs and benefits of children	p. 122
Why have children?	p. 124
Becoming a parent	p. 125
Delayed parenting and declining fertility	p. 126
Pregnancy and childbirth	p. 127
Infertility, reproductive technologies and surrogacy	p. 129
After childbirth: The changing division of labour	p. 135
Child-care concerns	p. 137
Child abuse	p. 140
Choosing no children	p. 142
The future of parenting	p. 144
Discussion questions	p. 145
Families and Paid/Unpaid Work	p. 147
Labour market trends	p. 148
Access to earnings and control of family money	p. 152
Changing labour markets and employment poverty	p. 155
Welfare-to-work programs: Assumptions and effectiveness	p. 156
Low-paid employment: Cross-national variations	p. 157
Unemployment	p. 158
Low wages	p. 161
Time outside the labour force	p. 162
Combining paid work and child-rearing	p. 164
Structural barriers to entering the full-time labour force	p. 165
Unpaid domestic work	p. 167
Australian time-use surveys	p. 168
New Zealand surveys	p. 169
Canadian studies on unpaid work	p. 170
Explaining patterns in housework	p. 172
Conclusion	p. 173
Discussion questions	p. 174
Separation, Divorce and Remarriage	p. 176
Measuring separation and divorce	p. 176
Marriage and divorce trends	p. 177
Comparing divorce rates	p. 180
A historical view of marriage and divorce laws	p. 181
Early ideas and laws concerning marriage	p. 181
Early divorce laws	p. 183
Divorce reform in the twentieth century	p. 184
Spousal maintenance and the division of family assets	p. 186
Guardianship, custody and access to children	p. 193
Child support	p. 195
Continuing controversies in divorce and support	p. 198
Divorce, lone parenthood and children	p. 200
Lone parenthood and remarriage	p. 204
Conclusion	p. 205
Discussion questions	p. 206
State Regulation of Family Life	p. 208
Government intervention in family life	p. 209
Categorising welfare states	p. 210
Models of family implicit in social policy	p. 213
The male breadwinner/female caregiver family	p. 213
The egalitarian model of family	p. 214
The development of family policies	p. 215
Before the 1950s	p. 215
From the 1950s to the 1970s	p. 218
After the 1980s: The retrenchment of the welfare state	p. 220
Family policies in restructured liberal welfare states	p. 226
Discussion questions	p. 227
The Future of Family Life	p. 228
Future trends in families	p. 229
Intimate relationships outside marriage	p. 229
The future of marriage	p. 232
Future gender relations	p. 233
The future of parenting	p. 235
Midlife in the future	p. 237
The future of family life among seniors	p. 240
Conclusion	p. 243
Discussion questions	p. 245
Glossary	p. 246
References	p. 258
Index	p. 299
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