The Nature of ‘the Family’ and Family Obligations in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

This chapter begins with an analysis of the arguments and evidence about the apparent ‘decline of the family’. The issues raised here have focused largely on changing family structures and have, at times, achieved a very high public profile not least in the 1980s and 1990s with the rise in lone parenthood seen as a particular challenge to the nuclear family. The particular focus on family structures, however, provides only a partial picture of the state of family life, and the chapter therefore moves on to more academic debates about the nature of relationships between family members in terms of solidarity, conflict and ambivalence. We then turn to existing data on inter-generational financial exchanges to illustrate one particular dimension of family relationships: functional exchange. This data is interesting in itself but has also been used to explore the relationship between the provision of welfare within families and that provided by more formal structures of the state. In particular, there has been concern that welfare states have ‘crowded out’ family support and thus undermined the role of the family. This apparent ‘crowding out’ has also been seen, along with the concerns about the ‘decline of the family’, as part of a more general process of de-familialisation. We discuss this in part by reviewing the arguments and evidence around actual levels of financial exchange within families. Finally, we turn to another relevant strand of this debate: the role of values and social norms in relation to family life.