3.2 Diversity and Social Change
3.2 Diversity and Social Change
Cohabitation
A relationship where 2 people who are not married to each other live together as if they were married
Cohabitation, remaining single and having children outside marriage are all now regarded as acceptable.
In 1988 70% of respondents to the British social attitudes survey believed that couples who wanted children should get
married. By 2000 this had dropped to 54%.
Over the past 25 years survey methods have produced more reliable estimates with Hughes and Church (2010)
identifying an increase in cohabitation from 10% of couples in 1986 to 25% in 2006.
Around 25% of young people aged 25 – 29 now cohabit compared with around 18% in the mid 1990s.
The proportion of cohabiting couple families has increased significantly in the past 10 years from 9% to 15% of all
families.
The causes of the increase in cohabitation:
Reduced social pressure to marry
Lower levels of stigma attached to living with someone without being married
The wider availability of both birth control (contraception) and abortion
Smart and Stevens (2000) suggest 4 main reasons for recent upward trends in cohabitation:
Changing attitudes to marriage: these range from no interest in the institution of marriage itself to uncertainty about
whether a partner is ‘suitable’ for marriage
For some cohabitation represents a test for their partner to prove they can settle down gain and keep paid work and
interact successfully with the mother’s children. Before marriage, some males and females move into and out of
serial cohabitation – one cohabitation relationship followed by another
Many cohabiting parents are either unwilling to enter into a legal relationship or they believe it is easier to leave a
cohabiting relationship if it does not work out.
There may be a philosophical resistance to marriage influenced by feminist ideas with some people believing that
cohabitation leads to more equal relationships.
Criticism:
- Cohabitation is not legally recorded in the UK, so statistics are not very reliable
Causes of divorce
Patterns of divorce are affected by a range of social factors:
Legal change: each time divorce is made easier or cheaper the number of divorces increases.
Changes to the rules regarding divorce can create reliability problems. For example, the 1969 Divorce Reform Act in
the UK introduced ‘irretrievable breakdown of marriage’ as the only requirement for divorce
irretrievable breakdown of marriage – the ending of a marriage relationship for reasons other than the death of a
partner
Before 1969 one partner just had to find fault e.g., an affair (adultery) with the other.
We don’t know how many people before 1969 would have divorces if the new rules applied then.
Secularization means that many couples no longer regard marriage as a sacred institution that must be preserved.
There are fewer stigmas attached to divorce
Life expectancy in modern societies means that a marriage has longer to last which may place greater strain on a
relationship increasing the chances of divorce
Contemporary ideas about marriage are influenced by romantic identity (individualism).
Couples enter a relationship seeking to meet (fulfill) their personal interests in the partnership in 2 ways:
1. Romantic love: where the love given to a partner is unconditional but if one partner ‘falls out of love’ there is nothing
to hold the marriage together
2. Confluent love where love is not unconditional: one partner gives it in return for something else. For example, one
partner may marry because they believe this will enhance their social status. If this fails to happen or changes over time,
there is nothing to keep the couple together
Confluent love – refers to the idea of love being contingent; it is given return for something else
Marriage has increasingly become a search for personal happiness rather than a moral commitment, and this may
explain the increase in re - marriages.
Divorces are not unhappy with marriage they are unhappy with the person they married, so it is more likely to happen
when what someone expects to happen in a marriage doesn’t actually happen. This is because people have romanticized
ideas about love and family life but when they realize these ideas are un - realistic they choose divorce as a way out of
an unhappy experience
1. Equalizing the grounds (the legal reasons) for divorce between the sexes
2. Widening the grounds for divorce
3. Making divorce cheaper.
The widening of the grounds in 1971 to ‘irretrievable breakdown’ made divorce easier to obtain and produced a
doubling of the divorce rate almost overnight. The introduction of legal aid for divorce cases in 1949 lowered the cost of
divorcing. Divorce rates have risen with each change in the law.
Evaluation:
Although changes in the law have given people the freedom to divorce more easily, this does not in itself explain
why more people should choose to take advantage of this freedom.
To explain the rise in divorce rates we must look at other changes too which includes changes in public attitudes
towards divorce.
Juliet Mitchell and Jack Goody (1997) note that an important change since the 1 960s has been the rapid decline in the
stigma attached to divorce. As stigma declines and divorce becomes more socially acceptable, couples become more
willing to resort to divorce as a means of solving their marital problems.
In turn, the fact that divorce is now more common begins to ‘normalise’ it and reduces the stigma attached to it. Rather
than being seen as shameful, today it is more likely to be regarded simply as a misfortune.
Evaluation:
Despite these changing attitudes, family patterns tend to be fairly traditional. Most people still live in a family; most
children are brought up by couples; most couples marry and many divorcees re-marry.
Some sociologists have suggested that these changes have led to a ‘crisis of masculinity’ in which some men
experience anxiety about their role. The result of this could be an increase in domestic violence in an attempt to
reassert their traditional masculinity.
Secularisation
Some sociologists challenge whether secularisation is occurring, and point to the number of first-time marriages taking
place in a religious context, and the changes made by the Church of England to allow divorced people to remarry in
Church. This suggests that there is still a demand for religious weddings, even amongst those who have been divorced
before.
Functionalist sociologists such as Ronald Fletcher (1966) argue that the higher expectations people place on marriage
today are a major cause of rising divorce rates. Higher expectations make couples nowadays less willing to tolerate an
unhappy marriage.
Evaluation:
Despite today’s high divorce rates, functionalists such as Fletcher take an optimistic view - They point to the
continuing popularity of marriage. Most adults marry, and the high rate of re-marriage after divorce shows that
although divorcees may have become dissatisfied with a particular partner, they have not rejected marriage as an
institution.
Feminists argue that the oppression of women within the family is the main cause of marital conflict and divorce,
but functionalists ignore this. Although functionalists offer an explanation of rising divorce rates, they fail to explain
why it is mainly women rather than men who seek divorce.
Changes in the position of women
One reason for women’s increased willingness to seek divorce is that improvements in their economic position have
made them less financially dependent on their husband and therefore freer to end an unsatisfactory marriage.
The availability of welfare benefits means that women no longer have to remain financially dependent on their
husbands. These developments mean that women are more likely to be able to support themselves in the event of
divorce.
Evaluation:
Feminists also argue that the fact that women are now wage earners as well as homemakers has itself created a new
source of conflict between husbands and wives and this is leading to more divorces. Feminists argue that marriage
remains patriarchal, with men benefiting from their wives’ ‘triple-shifts’ of paid work, domestic work and emotion work.
- See high divorce rate as giving individuals the freedom to choose to end a relationship when it no longer meets their
needs and see it as a cause of greater family diversity.
- The decline of marriage and increase in divorce reflect the fact that we are part of a consumer society where
individual choice is central to life.
- The end of the ideology of the nuclear family is seen as good, and Postmodernists tend to reject the idea that the
traditional married nuclear family is better than other family forms, so these trends are not a significant problem for
either the individual or society.
- Judith Stacey (1996) argues that the traditional family has been replaced by several other family types. People no
longer feel bound by traditional ideas and expectations about marriage, lifelong monogamy, parenthood and family
life or traditional sexual identities. People are adopting new lifestyles as a result of rising divorce rates, cohabitation,
multiple partners, serial monogamy and birth outside marriage.
Functionalists:
- Argue that a high divorce rate does not mean that marriage as a social institution is under threat, and it's simply the
result of people's higher expectations of marriage today.
Late modernism
People still value marriage but changes in the social structure make it harder to start and to maintain stable
relationships – greater gender equality means it’s harder to please both partners, and the fact that both people have to
do paid work doesn’t help with the communication required to keep a relationship going or help with people getting
together in the first place.
People now delay getting married not only because of needing to establish a career first, but also because of the
increased cost of mortgages and weddings, and because of the increased fear of getting divorced – with cohabiting the
new norm before marriage.
New institutions also emerge to help us cope with the insecurities of modern relationships – marriage guidance and pre-
nuptial agreements are two of the most obvious.
Anthony Giddens and Ulrich Beck – argues that the decline in marriage is because people are less likely to get married
because of structural changes making life more uncertain.
People may want to get married but living in a late-modern world means marriage doesn’t seem like a sensible option.
Ulrich Beck argues that fewer people getting married is because of an increase in ‘risk consciousness’ – people see that
nearly half of all marriages end in divorce and so they are less willing to take the risk and get married.
Beck also talks about indivdualisation – a new social norm is that our individual desires are more important than social
commitments, and this makes marriage less likely.
Giddens builds on this and says that the typical relationship today is the Pure Relationship – one which lasts only as long
as both partners are happy with it, not because of tradition or a sense of commitment. This makes cohabitation and
serial monogamy rather than the long-term commitment of a marriage more likely.
• Different family and household forms, including nuclear, extended, lone-parent, reconstituted, same-sex families,
families of choice and single-person households.
Types of households
Household – 1 or more people living in a particular dwelling
All families are households while not all households are families
4 different types of household structures:
1. Single person households - where an adult lives alone either because of the death of a partner the breakdown of a
relationship or through personal choice
2. Couple households consist of 2 people without children:
Family definitions
- Popenoe (1988) suggests that a contemporary exclusive definition of family can encompass both single parents and
homosexual relationships. This can be useful for distinguishing between family and non–family groups
Criticism:
Excludes household forms e.g., single parent and homosexual (gay and lesbian) households that are families in many
modern societies
- Anthony Giddens (2006) - late modernist suggests an inclusive definition of family that focuses on kinship and the
general relationships that make families different from other social groups
Criticism of inclusive definition:
If the definition is too broad, it may include groups that most people would not normally consider to be families
Kinship – when the ties between people are related by descent (having a common ancestor, marriage and adoption.
Kin relationships can be based on:
2.Extended families
More common in the past
Now in decline because they seem less suited to life in modern industrial societies
Includes more relatives than the mother, father, and children unit of the nuclear family
The term can be used for all the relatives sharing a household that is living together under one roof
Sometimes nuclear families living close to each other in the same street or area can be called extended families
Extended families are a different type of family structure that takes two basic forms:
Vertically extended family - involves 3 or more generations (grandparents, parents, and children) living in, or close
to, the same household.
Matrifocal family: family that focused on women E.g., a female grandparent, parent, and children.
Patrifocal family: family structure focused on men.
Horizontally extended families: those with branches within generations, such as aunts and uncles, living with/ close
to each other
Both types of extended family exist in contemporary industrialized societies, but Gordon (1972) suggests that the norm
for this type is now the modified extended family.
In this form, wider family members stay connected both physically, through visits or exchanges of help and services, and
emotionally, via telephone and email, without necessarily having frequent personal contact.
Willmott (1988) further suggests 3 variations on the modified extended family:
Locally extended types involve 'two or three nuclear families in separate households' living close together and
providing mutual help and assistance.
Dispersed-extended types involve less frequent personal contact between family members.
Attenuated-extended types include 'young couples before they have children', gradually separating from their
original families.
Modified extended family - contemporary form of extended family: family members maintain contact but rarely live
near one another.
3. Single parent family – one parent and their dependent children/ child living together
Increase in the number of single parent families in modern industrial societies since the mid 20 th century
Causes of single parent families:
Divorce has become common, and it leaves one parent looking after the children
Women have greater financial independence. They are more likely to have qualifications that allow them to work to
support their family and they may be able to receive welfare benefits, so they do not need a man as a breadwinner
Some women now choose to raise children on their own, without the father around
4. Reconstituted/ stepfamily/ blended family – involves the breakup of one family and its reassembly as a new family
through marriage or cohabitation
Many variations of this family:
One/ both parents have been married before
One/ both partners have children who live in the new family/ with a previous partner
New relationships created by re - marriage:
step - parents
step - children
step siblings
step grandparents
This situation is new so the norms and values are not as clear and may need to be negotiated. For example, a
stepmother may not be sure to what extent she should correct bad behavior in the children of her husband and his
former wife, and the children may be unsure what authority this new person in their lives should have
Common law family – adult couple and children living together as a family without the adults being legally married
Divorce – legal dissolution of marriage
5. Same sex families – when 2 adults of the same sex (male/female) are raising their own adopted children
In the past same sex families were not accepted
Increasingly modern industrial societies allow some same sex couples to adopt children and have similar or the same
rights and responsibilities that opposite sex couples have. E.g., property rights and rights to welfare benefits
In the UK unions of two people of the same sex are formally recognized by a ceremony that creates a civil
partnership
Civil partnership - relationship between 2 people of the same sex that has been formally registered giving them similar
rights to married opposite sex couples
Statistics:
Lesbian couples are more likely to be accepted as parents than male homosexuals because of the perceived importance
of the motherly role that children need.
Women who have left their husband to live with someone of the same sex have found it easier to gain custody of their
child/ children in comparison to the past.
This is because:
Children raised by lesbian parents are no more likely than others to grow up gay suffering from bullying at school (US
and UK)
Parents' sexual orientation is seen as less important in deciding who should bring up children
Children brought up in some families are no different from children brought up in the opposite sex families in their
intelligence, gender roles, identities, and attitude to life
7. Families of choice - close relationships that are chosen rather than being given by blood relationships or through
marriage
The term has been used in situations where people freely choose to create a family like relationship with others
It was first used by Weston (1991) to describe how gay, lesbian and bi - sexual people were using the term family for
their social network
• The debate about the extent of family diversity and the dominance of the nuclear family.
1. In many countries family and household structures are more complex, broken up and diverse than ever before.
2. There is a wider range of family types and more diversity than in the past.
3. This has been exaggerated because many people live in nuclear families and others aim to do so, for example they
may hope to find an ideal partner to marry and have children with
4. Media representations of the family assume that the nuclear family is still the main or only kind of family
5. In many parts of the world cohabitation and same sex couples remain rare because they are still strongly
disapproved of for example for religious reasons
Greater diversity has come about for 3 main reasons:
Social changes such as relatively easy access to divorce have led to greater numbers of reconstituted/ single parent
families and single person households
Changing social attitudes such as greater social acceptance of single parent and same sex family structures have also
resulted in structural diversity
Increased life expectancy, more active lifestyles and changes to the welfare system have created changes within
family structures. These include a new style of grandparenting in which grandparents play a greater role in the care
of grandchildren
Brannen (2003) argues these trends have led to the beanpole family. Beanpole families arise in developed societies that
have low or declining birth rates and increasing life expectancy
With fewer children being born horizontal (intra–generational) family extensions are weak. At the same time higher life
expectancies lead to stronger, vertical extensions between grandparents, parents, children and grandchildren
A feature of contemporary societies is the growth of lone person households. Beaumont (2011) notes that nearly 1/3
(29%) of British households contain only 1 person – the 2nd most common household structure after 2 person
households (35%). Over the past 50 years 1 person households have increased around 2.5 times up from 12% in 1961.
Some of the reasons for growth of lone person households:
1. There are some older people living alone after their partner has died
2. There are more middle-aged people (usually men) living alone who have moved out of the family home after a
divorce
3. More people choose to live alone and can afford to do so. For women it has become acceptable to stay single rather
than marry which at one time would have been extremely difficult for financial and other reasons
4. More people have a university education which can often mean moving out of the family home and not returning
This trend towards more people living on their own may slow down if there is a shortage of suitable cheaper housing
1. Lone mothers cannot discipline their children properly. They leave boys without an adult male role model resulting
in educational failure delinquency and social instability
2. Such families are more likely to be poorer, becoming a burden on the welfare state and taxpayers. They rely on
high levels of welfare benefits which undermine the traditional family by discouraging men from working to
support their families encouraging a ‘dependency culture’ of living off welfare benefits.
New right argue that only marriage can provide a stable environment where you can bring up children
The new right claims that the cause of lone parent families is the collapse of relationships between cohabiting couples.
For example, Harry Benson (2006) analysed data on the parents of over 15,000 babies and found that over the first 3
years of the baby’s life the rate of family breakdown was much higher among cohabiting couples: 20% compared with
only 6% among married couples.
Harry Benson argues that couples are more stable when they are married because it requires a deliberate commitment
to each other whereas cohabitation allows partners to avoid commitment and responsibility. For example the rate of
divorce among married couples is lower than the rate of breakups among cohabiting couples.
New right and conservative politicians argument to support the view that both family and society are broken:
- Argue that only a return to traditional values including the value of marriage can prevent social disintegration and
damage to children
- They regard laws and policies such as easy access to divorce, gay marriage and widespread availability of welfare
benefits as undermining the conventional family.
Morgan's (2000) suggests cohabitation suffers from important flaws when compared to marriage:
Cohabiting relationships are more unstable and are less likely to last more than marriages
Cohabiting people have the same sexual behavior as single people as they may have other partners
Cohabitants with children who marry are more likely to divorce resulting in many cohabiting women become single
parents
Both women and children are at greater risk of physical and sexual abuse than they would be in married
relationships
Horwitz (2005) argues that within the traditional family, children and adults learn moral values that they can take into
wider social relationships so, the traditional nuclear families are seen as a vital source of both individual happiness and
social stability because they have a moral core that involves:
Argues that the extent and importance of family diversity has been exaggerated.
Chester sees the nuclear family as being dominant, but he recognises that the traditional nuclear family has changed
to what he calls a ‘neo-conventional’ family in which both spouses go out to work and the division of labour is more
equal and shared.
Chester argues that ‘family diversity’ is more about the lifecycle than people choosing to live in new family
arrangements.
Most people in single-person households are elderly widows/ younger/ divorced people who aspire to live in a
nuclear family.
Criticisms of Robert Chester:
The Rappoports (Chester, Rhona and Robert) argue that diversity is of central importance in understanding family
life today and believe that we have moved away from the traditional nuclear family as the dominant family type, to
a range of different types. Families in Britain have adapted to a society in which cultures and lifestyles are more
diverse.
Criticisms of new right:
1. Family life has become very diverse and there is no longer one dominant family type (such as the nuclear family).
This means that it is no longer possible to make generalisations about society in the same way that modernist
theorists such as Parsons or Marx did in the past.
2. There is little or no evidence that loneparent families are part of a ‘dependency culture’, nor that their children
are more likely to be delinquent than those brought-up in a two-parent family of the same social class.
3. Feminists argue that the traditional nuclear family favoured by the New Right is based on the patriarchal
oppression of women and is a fundamental cause of gender inequality. In their view it prevents women working,
keeps them financially dependent on men, and denies them an equal say in decision-making.
4. Rapoports see increasing family diversity as a response to people’s different needs and wishes, and not as
abnormal or a deviation from the assumed norm of the nuclear family.
5. Based on the idealized view of white, middle-class families as the desirable norm
6. Advocates for ‘one size fits all’ family that is no longer appropriate today
7. Ignores the darker side of traditional family life, making divorce more difficult. For example, it persuades some to
try make their marriage work which traps people into a loveless relationship characterized by violence and
abuse
1. Birth
2. Early childhood (being a baby)
3. Infancy (being a toddler)
4. Childhood (beginning with compulsory schooling)
5. Adolescence (being a teenager)
6. Young adulthood (18-29)
7. Adulthood (30-50)
8. Middle age (51-64)
9. Old age (officially begins with retirement)
10. Death
Major strengths of the life couse analysis:
1. It focuses on what family members themselves consider important, rather than what sociologist may regard as
important.
2. Looks at families and households from the viewpoint of the people involved and their meanings they give to their
lives, relationships, and choices to it is particularly stable for studying families in today’s postmodern/ late modern
society where there is more choice about personal relationships and more family diversity.
3. Shows how family structures are increasingly just a result of the choices made by their members
David Morgan:
Morgan argues that family diversity has increased as a response to society becoming more fragmented. He argues
that things like the family, friendships, and other forms of relationship have become less clear-cut and the
boundaries between them blurred because today’s society is more fragmented
He uses the concepts of family practices to describe how we create our sense of ‘being a family member’ through
actions such as feeding children or doing DIY.
He sees the family as ‘what people do’ rather than as a concrete ‘thing’ or structure.
David Cheal:
Argues that family diversity has increased because we now have more choice over the type of family we create. As a
result, the family life has become more diverse than ever.
He argues that in today’s postmodern society there is no longer one type of family that is dominant only multiple
families
Criticisms of David Cheal:
- Some sociologists point of the greater freedom of choice in relationships means a greater risk of instability since
these relationships are more likely to break up
Jeffrey Weeks:
He identifies the long-term shifting attitudes towards sexual and family diversity since the 1950s. These attitudes
have become more favorable towards issues such as cohabitation and homosexuality, so the family diversity has
increased.
Criticisms:
- Despite the changing attitudes towards family diversity, family patterns are still traditional.
- Most people still live in a family, most children are still brought up by couples, most couples marry and many
divorces re marry
Late modernist perspective
The individualization thesis – case study
Anthony Giddens & Ulrich Beck have been influenced by postmodernist ideas about today’s society and have applied
some of these ideas to understanding family life. They explore the effect of increasing individual choice upon families
and relationships and their views have become known as individualization thesis.
Individualization thesis - argues that traditional social structures such as class, gender and family have lost much of
their influence over people. In the past people’s lives were defined by fixed roles that largely prevented them from
choosing their own life course. For example, everyone was expected to marry and to take up their appropriate gender
role but in today’s society fewer people have to follow fixed roles.
According to the thesis we have now become freed or disembedded from traditional rules and structures leaving us
with more freedom to choose how we lead our lives.
Beck (1992) says the standard biography “you all of course” that people followed in the past has been replaced by the
“do-it-yourself" biography that individuals today must construct for themselves.
Postmodern contributions:
It draws attention to the many changes in family life and relationships in some modern industrial societies unlike the
older theories which still seem to be about times and places where these changes have not happened.
Open to recognizing the many ways people live their lives and that it can break away from a narrow focus on the
family to the wider subjects of relationships and personal lives
Criticisms of postmodernists:
They exaggerate the extent of changes and point out that most people for at least parts of their lives live in
conventional types of family
The nuclear family remains the goal of many, even if for more people than in the past marriage comes later and
does not last for life.
The greater diversity of family life is also a feature of more industrial societies; there is less diversity on the whole in
developing countries, in many of which strong family ties, often with strong pressure to marry young and for life and
with fairly fixed gender roles, remain strong.
Women rather men are the driving force behind changes in the family.
Women had often created new types of family that better suited their needs - many of the women had rejected
the traditional housewife mother role, as they had either worked, returned to education as adults, improved their
job prospects, divorced and re -married.
Stacey identified a new type of family “the divorce-extended family” – family members who are connected by divorce
rather than marriage, for example ex in laws, or former husband’s new partners.
Case study on divorce extended family by Judith Stacey:
Pam Gemma created a divorce extended family as she married young then divorced and cohabited for several years
before re – marrying.
Her second husband had also been married before and by the time the children of Pam’s first marriage were in their 20s
she had formed a divorce extended family with Shirley the woman cohabiting with her first husband. They helped each
other financially and domestically for example by exchanging lodges in response to the changing needs of their
households.
The case study shows how post-modernist families are diverse and that their shape depends on the active choices
people make about how to live their lives. For example, whether to get divorced, to cohabit or come out as gay etc.
Criticisms of post modern feminists:
- Relationships can be ended by either partner as with more choice comes more personal relationships being less
stable
- Contemporary Feminists disagree with Postmodern feminists, pointing out that in most cases traditional gender
roles which disadvantage women remain the norm.
- Even though the traditional patriarchal family was unequal and oppressive, it did provide a stable and predictable
basis for the family by defining each member’s role and responsibly
- The negotiated family may be more equal, but it is less stable, because it is characterised by greater equality.
1. Greater Gender Equality – women now expect equality both at work and in marriage which has challenged male
domination in all spheres of life.
2. Greater individualism – people’s actions are influenced more by calculations of their own self-interest than by a
sense of obligation to others.
The 2 trends have led to the rise of the negotiated family
Negotiated families – families that do not conform to the traditional family norm, but vary according to the wishes and
expectations of their members, who decided what is best for them by discussion. They enter the relationship on an
equal basis.
Functionalist:
Fletcher
New right:
Sees social policy negatively and believes that govts should intervene as little as possible. They are critical of social
policies that provide generous welfare benefits believing that they have undermined the nuclear family structure so they
only support social policies that support the self-reliant nuclear family as it is capable of caring for its own family
members.
Murray:
Argues that these benefits offer ‘perverse incentives’ - they reward irresponsible or anti-social behavior.
Argues that a generous welfare system creates dependency:
Council housing for unmarried teenage mothers – encourage teenage girls to get pregnant.
Welfare benefits families, especially lone parent – encourages some fathers to abandon their financial responsibilities
towards their families. The growth of lone parent families means boys grow up without a male role model and authority
figure which explains increases in juvenile male crime.
Murray advocates cutting welfare spending and placing tighter restrictions on those that are eligible. He is supportive
of the Child Support Agency - make absent fathers financially responsible for their children. He also encourages
polices that supports the nuclear family, e.g. taxes breaks for married rather than co-habiting couples.
Conservative Liberal Democrat Coalition Policy 2010 - 2015
1. Tax breaks for married couples (2010) to encourage this.
2. The Troubled Families Programme (2011) tackled families that had problems and were causing problems for the
community around them.
3. Major cuts in welfare to children’s services and the care of the elderly.