In this chapter we turn our attention to the ways in which family practices have changed since 1960 and the sense in which such change can be understood as the decline of ‘the family’. In the baseline study, Rosser and Harris conceptualised social change in terms of increasing differentiation and the move from a cohesive to a mobile society. They also spoke about the ways in which demographic change was associated with the ‘de-domestication’, or increasing individualisation, of women. Since 1960, as we saw in the last chapter, there have been considerable changes in the occupational structure which have created more employment opportunities for women and a greater occupational differentiation of society. This is likely to have led to further occupational differentiation within extended kinship networks leading, in Durkheimian terms, to greater heterogeneity and decreased solidarity within them. Decreasing solidarity within social networks is also conceptualised in terms of declining social capital and/or disembedding; in either case, social networks are said to be less dense and less able to provide support, a sense of identity and a source of moral values for their members. In what follows we explore the extent to which the changes outlined in Chapter 2 have led to a reduction in the connectedness of kinship networks. We look at the major patterns of continuity and change in family lives between 1960 and 2002, describing how families and households have changed, how far away from each other family members live and how often they see each other. Our focus is on extended family networks, the extent to which they form kin groups, and their increased heterogeneity in terms of residence and occupation. In particular we discuss the frequency with which members of kin networks see each other and how close to each other they live. We show that, despite the significant socioeconomic and cultural changes since the 1960s, the patterns of residence and contact found in 1960 have changed much less than we might have supposed. This is particularly surprising given claims of radical family change during this period.

The family in decline?

It is often argued that the family is in terminal decline. Our findings, however, show that the situation is more complicated than this and that, as well as change, there is also continuity.