5. Applying material from item B, analyse two reasons for ethnic differences in family and
household patterns.
Item B - The different cultural traditions, migration patterns and economic circumstances of
different minority ethnic groups are reflected in the ethnic differences in family and household
patterns seen in the UK today. These include differences in the proportions of people from
different ethnic groups who live in single person, nuclear families, lone-parent and extended
family households.
According to the item, economic circumstances of different minority ethnic groups can play a big
role in the type of family structure these families exist in. It is argued that this is the reason why
half of all black families in the UK (2012) were lone parent families headed by women.
Sociolgists argue that the evidence of family disorganisation can be linked back to slavery, and
more recently to the high rates of unemployment among black males. During slavery children
were to stay with their mothers and from this it is suggested that this established a pattern of
family life that persists today. The lack of male employment and the poverty experienced have
meant that black men are less able to provide for their family, resulting in higher rates of
dissertation or marital breakdown, stressing the importance of women's economic
independence. As Mirza (1997) brings our attention to the fact that the higher rate of lone-parent
families among blacks is not the result of disorganisation, but rather reflecting the high value
that black women place on independence rather than being a signifier of instability. Going on
from this Reynolds (2010) argues that the statistics are misleading and in fact many ‘lone’
parents are in fact in stable, supportive but non-cohabiting relationships.
As mentioned in item B cultural factors can also determine the type of family that ethnic
minorities exist in. The Asian culture has close ties with the whole of the family and greatly
believes in the support of the extended family, which is why Asian families are often found living
in beanpole households. The Asian culture places value on the extended family as they have
many significant advantages for Asian cultures. Such as the need for assistance when migrating
to Britain, as well as providing an important source of support among Asian migrants during the
1950s and 1960s as Sociologist Roger Ballard (1982) discovered. During these migration
periods the extended family would also migrate as they act as a constant source of both
financial and emotional support. However, although people of ethnic minorities have different
family structures, according to functionalists such as Parsons, the extended family is the
dominant family type in pre-industrial society, but in modern industrial society it is replaced by
the nuclear family. Willmott (1988) argues that rather than the extended family disappearing, it
may have just declined and continues to exist as a ‘dispersed extended family’, in which
relatives are geographically separated but maintain frequent contact through visit and phone
calls. Which is what the Asian households now do since the period of migration is over,
households are now nuclear but the relatives often live nearby. So as of today there are no
major ethnic differences in family patterns as there once was.
