The Effects of Industrialisation on the Structure of the Family

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The Effects of Industrialisation on the Structure of the Family

The pre- industrial family was said to be an extended family

consisting of three generations, the children, parents and the

grandparents. The family would all work together in the farms to help

provide for the entire families needs, children as young a 5 or 6

would have been found work to do. However this was until the

Industrial revolution when factories become the main source of work

and development. The pre-industrial societies were largely based on

extended kinship networks; land and other resources were commonly

owned by a range of relatives that extended well beyond the unit of

the nuclear family. It was very common for families to work alongside

their cousins and even live with them. This extended family was

responsible for the production of the shelter, food and clothing for

the family. Roles in the family were usually ascribed to the offspring

rather than being achieved. These roles would hardly ever be rejected

and in return for this commitment, the extended network would perform

other functions for the members. The family gave its members the

skills and the education in which to take their place in the family

division of labour. The family functioned to maintain health for its

members, as there was no universal health care, they also provided

welfare; those in the family who would make it to old age would have

been cared for in exchange for childcare services.

Then came the industrial revolution. Parsons believed that the

industrial revolution brought about the dramatic change from the

extended family to the nuclear and three fundamental changes to

soci...

... middle of paper ...

... there

own crops and provide for themselves really seems to have had little

effect on the family until 1960 when the nuclear family appeared in

great numbers according to Young and Wilmot. However is this actually

true? Laslett seems to suggest that the nuclear family has always

existed but worked as an extended family and that industrialisation

only occurred because of the nuclear family and not the other way

around. So if Laslett is correct then there was no extended family but

two nuclear families working as an extended unit, living under

separate roofs. This greatly flaws Parsons and Young and Wilmot's

theories of the extended family consisting of three generations. So

has the nuclear family always been the norm of British society and has

everything that has been developed has only been developed because of

it?

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