The Effects of Industrialisation on the Structure of the Family

There is very good reason to believe that primitive families living in the pre-industrialization age suffered less from stress and frustration and were more satisfied with their ways of life than privatized families who were faced with the inevitable social and psychological problems as the Industrial Revolution evolved. In contemporary terms, the Industrial Revolution is viewed as a two edged sword. Despite the positive changes brought on by it, its impact on society at large and on families in specific has inspired many researchers.

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Talcott Parsons’ (1956, pg. 309) believed that “the nuclear family is a social system” which consists of a straight married couple and around two to five children, “can be distinguished, and does function as a significant group” (1956, pg.308). Parsons believed that the family benefitted society in ways such as the teachings of gender roles and the overall structure of society: the male going to work and being the breadwinner, while the wife stays at home and cooks and nurtures the children. After the Second World War, the nuclear family was the most common type of family making the structure easily “distinguishable”. However, when we look at the postmodern society, we can see that there are many different types of families nowadays such

This population boom led to not only the increased of the products but products being bought. Before this boom the quality of life was low and around 75% of kids under the age of 5 died, thanks for the growth in population that number lowered down to 30%. According to Document 15: “The Factory system led to a rise in the general standard of living, to rapidly falling urban death rates and decreasing infant mortality---and produced an unprecedented population explosion.” (15). Furthermore the overall impact of this boom gave families a source of income as children could work for the well being of the family. With the growth of population products began to be mass produced therefore making them cheaper and more accessible. A main concern in during the Industrial Revolution was bad working conditions and child labor which may have been a impact in some factories but in document 3 it states “...children would thrive better when employed in our modern factories, than if at home in apartments too often ill-aired, damp, and cold. (3). Decisively it is clear that the Industrial Revolution not only contributed to the growth in population but the growth in families, companies, and the overall well being of people. On the other side working conditions were not always the best. In both Document 11: The Conditions of the Working Class in England and Document 7: Picture of Outdoor Factory Environment. They both show how disease could be spread and how roads and the safety of factories could cause injury to workers; however this was only some factories and as the factories grew so did the necessity for safety and that danger soon turned into a safe working

The Nuclear Family generally consists of a Mother, a Father and at least 1 child, this image of a family is thought to of come about at the time of the Industrial Revolution. (Willmott and Young) believe that an increase in the Nuclear Family was the result of the Industrialization. They found that during pre-industrial times, the most common type of family structure, was that of the Extended Family (Extended Family can take

Today's nuclear family with mom, dad, 2.3 kids, and dog only came into being just after the Industrial Revolution (Swerdolow 15). This leads to the idea that perhaps the desengration of the nuclear family isn't necessarily a negative things, but more of a retirement of a one way of life in favor of a new one. Even if this is true, the current period of decline still spurns numerous problems and attempted solutions.

To explain, in both the pre-industrial and urban industrial periods men were pushed into and dominant in public life, whereas women were pushed into and expected to be in the private sphere, commonly the household. In both periods, the gender roles of men expected them to be the “money-earners” as well as the heads and decision-makers of families. On the other hand, gender roles of women expected them to stay home to raise and nurture children as well as do the household work as the domestic servants of the families. Though there were comparisons between both historical periods, there was a significant difference for women in the urban industrial period as some women, specifically widows began to work, though their gender roles reckoned them to be in the private sphere. Additionally, in the urban industrial period when the men went off to war, women replaced their roles and would also work in the public sphere to provide financial support to their families. Not to mention, there were contrasts between both historical periods when viewing family size and form. In pre-industrial times, monogamous marriages and living with extended families were the norm as religion viewed marriage as sacred and private, as well as assistance was required in establishing cottage industries

Primary Sources and Social Change of the Industrial Revolution The impact of the Industrial Revolution on the standard of living of working class people is, and has been frequently debated. There is a mass of primary and secondary sources of evidence from the time of the Industrial Revolution available to support differing views of the debate, and there are also many novels available that were written at the time which criticise industrial society, but the difficulty of assessing the total impact of industrialisation upon a population, is how to measure the changes in standard of living. We can look at changes in wages, the changing cost of food, rent and clothing, the impact of the factory

Lawrence Stone's Family, Sex, and Marriage in England, 1500-1800 swept aside the scattered remains of prior methods of interpretation. It attempted to construct a new understanding of family history through its innovative discussion of the development of the English family from the Reformation until the Industrial Revolution. Stone presented a compelling argument, which centered primarily on the gradual emergence of the intimate, modern family and he claimed that it emerged largely due to the rise and spread of the idea of “Collective Individualism” (221). Furthermore, whereas prior historiographic accounts emphasized the prominent roles that economic and demographic formations played on the development of family history, Stone differed because he based his research around the idea that major functional and psychological reasons ultimately caused fundamental changes in family life (18). Despite the loss of economic and social institutions like schools, asylums, and hospitals, Stone argued that families became closer. In a work of colossal size and aspiration, Stone discarded the idea of a clear linear transition. According to Stone, three stages of development occurred between 1500 and 1800, which overlapped each other.

During the Industrial Revolution, an exponential amount of working-class and middle-class Americans moved to the cities, seeking to better their lives and to break away from the American tradition of farming. Family dynamics also changed due to the Industrial Revolution, making the need for a large family obsolete. Children were no longer helpers on the farm, making them more of a liability than an asset. In turn, the number of children in middle-class families reduced significantly, giving more educated women time to accomplish other gratifying goals. Many American women spent their time shopping and mingling with their neighbors, some would work, others would support their church, but few would advance themselves in scholarly education or embrace a political role. Even with the ability to work, many middle-class women continued living with the mentality of staying at home. With the poor wages paid to working women, it was not worth the effort for most. Many advice books, women’s magazines, novels, and religious periodicals inspired middle-class mothers and married women to focus on raising upright and moral children, and to produce a haven for their working husband, changing their role to be a more domesticated one. This kept most middle-class women constrained to their homes and away from political affairs even though they were still expected to participate in social gatherings with other wives of businessmen to reinforce their social and economic bonds (Hewitt 331). It

Family relations started to weaken during the second revolution in America and New England because with new employment opportunities for women, men and children in New England and America, families had the ability to become free or separate from each other, move away, or have an employment in which their gender or age might not have otherwise allowed today. “In short, the Industrial Revolution in early America created a standard of hard work, individuality, and in some cases, an equal amount of importance dedicated to career and family.”

Before the Industrial Revolution, there were many hard times for families. All of this changed when the Industrial Revolution happened. Women

He also found that relatives continue to be the main source of informal support in all social classes. The effects of there being more extended families is that in some areas of the world there is an ageing population, which can also mean that there are more empty nest families, these are families where the children have left home and it is just the elderly parents living in the home. An example of extended families can be found in South Asian families, here the family is vertically extended. In one household there is a man, his sons and grandsons, their wives and any unmarried daughters, this would make a family relatively large. Living like this means that kinship ties a strong and it also causes the younger generations to change their behaviour as the family would be quite ‘old fashioned’, which causes them to stay living with their family and increasing family size in Southern Asia.

Social Structure theory has three main perspectives for what shapes family relations. Friedrich Engels argued that the transformation from feudalism to capitalism altered family life by moving production outside households and into factories which societal view of personal worth became attached to earning capacity (Baker 2014). Political Economy theory shows that families change when the economy does. The change in economy had families changing from extended to nuclear and the importance of establishing lineage to pass wealth onto. Talcott Parsons theorized about family life through Structural

Family dynamics appear to always change as society does and it is hard to understand the evolvement if one is not in that specific family. Different time periods present various adjustments to everyday life and some seem to forget that it includes family lifestyle as well. In The Incredible Shrinking Family by Robert B. Reich, he compares midcentury families to how they are in the twenty-first century. Reich claims that the best way to be a family is by following the stereotypical nuclear family, I believe that although there are benefits in keeping a family in that fashion, there is also beauty in family someone would not consider “normal".