Talcott Parsons And Bales: Leader Of The 1950s-Nuclear Family

Family structure and stability have constantly evolved and been researched in aspects of sociology. Following World War II, the family ideology in the 1950’s was brought to the attention of Talcott Parsons and Robert Bales (1955) whom demonstrated how transitioning from an agricultural society to that of an industrialization one played an important role in altering family life and structure. Parsons and Bales further expressed how gender role specialization was vital in the continuous of family solidarity. The “instrumental” male father role as the leader of the family responsible for providing the income and support as the “expressive” role which is that of the female mother delivers her contribution to the family through house work and nurture

However, Stephanie Coontz (1997) wanted to take their finding into her own perspectives and research what made it possible to have such a family like that of a nuclear one. While Parsons and Bales completely ignored policies like the FHA and GI Bill and believed modern families would and should be well-off and self-supporting, Coontz found out that it was not only industrialization that was influential to family life but the result of family stability was due to the social factors and economic policies. The Great Depression was an era where the economy plummeted and left people in a financial struggle. However, following the Great Depression and World War II, the economy became stabilized and allowed for families to go back to the values surrounding the nuclear ideal. There policies put into place that made it easier for families to adhere to the nuclear family organization. The first policy was the Federal Housing Act which made it possible for families to buy homes and mainly “restructures home mortgages” (Kelsey, lect. 01/25/17). Moreover, the GI Bill helped approximately 40% of men further their higher education and acquire a college degree due to the fact that the economy needed men in the professional field who had been educated. Coontz (1997) showed how with the arise of social and political policies, men were able to make a good income

However, social conditions made it less feasible for families to live this way. As the 1960s approached and consumption was in high demand, women were yet again, forced to join the work force; but only a quarter of the women joined the workforce, whereas in the 1990s about “two-thirds of women who had children were in the work force (Coontz 55). Coontz (1997) explains how by 1973, “real wages were falling for young families, and by the late 1970s, government effectiveness had decreased (Coontz 54). It was because of economic factors that the nuclear bread-winning family could only be a lifestyle a few can afford. Nonetheless, women joining the workforce created a new understanding of women-hood, changed women’s status in society, and created conflict within the household. Women did not have the time to complete all the household tasks which contributed to the increased divorce rates, but left women happier due to the fact that they had that ultimate