AQA A-Level Sociology: Families and Households
6 exam-style questions with full mark schemes and model answers. Write your own answer and the AI examiner marks it against the mark scheme.
Read Item A below and answer the question that follows.
Item A — written for this exercise
Recent research into the changing shape of UK households suggests that the picture is far more varied than the image of the traditional nuclear family of a married couple and their dependent children. One study of household types reports the following invented distribution:
| Household type | Share of households (%) |
|---|---|
| One-person households | 30 |
| Married couple with dependent children | 19 |
| Cohabiting couple with dependent children | 11 |
| Lone-parent households | 15 |
| Couple with no dependent children | 21 |
| Other (including multi-family and same-sex) | 4 |
The same research argues that rising cohabitation, the growth of lone-parent and reconstituted families and the legal recognition of same-sex partnerships have all weakened the dominance once enjoyed by the conventional nuclear household. Others, however, insist that the married couple with children remains the form most people still aspire to and pass through at some stage of their lives.
Question: Applying material from Item A and your knowledge, evaluate the view that the nuclear family is no longer the dominant family type in the UK. [20 marks]
Read Item B below and answer the question that follows.
Item B — written for this exercise
Sociologists have long debated how the move from a mainly agricultural society to an industrial one reshaped the family. One influential view holds that pre-industrial families tended to be larger, multi-functional units in which several generations worked the land together, whereas industrial society favoured a smaller, more mobile household. Writing for this exercise, one commentator suggests that "as factories drew workers into the towns, the wider kinship group lost many of the jobs it once performed, and the streamlined household that emerged was better matched to the demands of wage labour and a mobile labour market."
Question: Applying material from Item B, analyse two ways in which industrialisation may have changed the structure of the family. [10 marks]
Outline and explain two ways in which government policies or laws may affect family life. [10 marks]
Outline three reasons for the increase in the divorce rate since the 1960s. [6 marks]
Outline two functions that the family performs, according to functionalists. [4 marks]
Outline two criticisms of the functionalist view of the family. [4 marks]