Family Studies: Critical Review

Family life is undergoing drastic changes as a result of industrialization and modernization. Elaborate. The family has changed a lot throughout time; this is a result of industrialization and modernization. Industrialization refers to mass production of products with machinery in a factory. Modernization is the development of social, cultural, economic and political practices and institutions, which are found in today’s society. Such developments and changes in society may replace religious beliefs with scientific beliefs, replacement of monarchies with democracy systems.
After these changes in society the family structure changed; nowadays the family is smaller in size. Today the family only consists of two adults and no more than three children. Other modern family types are symmetrical families, where both parents share conjugal roles. The modified extended family is like the classic extended family but instead of all the family members to live in the same household they live close by. Due to death of a partner, divorce or having kids out of wedlock; Single parent families are quite common in todays society as well, this is where a lone parent heads the family.
In some societies same sex couples are accepted to have their own family with children as well who are either adopted or surrogate mother. Nowadays the family is no longer a unit of production since it has lost functions due to industrialization and modernization where individuals study for a specific field and are not capable of carrying out certain functions that the family used to do. Therefore the family needs other institutions in the society to be able to live and maintain its family life.

Nowadays the society has institutions for health and education; in the past school wasn’t compulsory, and not everyone could afford schooling for their children so they chose to make their children work so the family could earn more money. In the pre-modern society healthcare was not much of a concern, in fact it was something that was taken care of by the family…nowadays in the society we find a health institutions which therefore takes another function, which the family used to perform.
Since the industrialization family changed because the father in the family had to go out of the house to work in a factory instead of working as farmers as most families used to do. This earned the family money so they could buy other products and services from the market since the family is no longer a unit of production. Nowadays religion beliefs are not given much importance and don’t effect most family lives. This is due to secularization, which is when the religion is not given importance when it comes to the country’s business.