14 Family Demography

Shalini Singh and Gautam Kshatriya

Contents:

    1.      Family Demography- Introduction

2.      History of Family Studies

3.      Household and Family Demography

4.      Measurement of Family and Household Structure and Size

5.      Family in India

5.1 Changes in Families in India

5.2 Family according to Indian Constitution

6.      Family Characteristics

7.      Alternate Family Pattern

8.      Marriage and Divorce

9.      Interpersonal Relationship

9.1 Marital Relationship

9.2 Child- Parent Relationship

9.3 Sibling Relationship

9.4 Mother in law and daughter in law relationship

10.  Problems faced in Family Relationships

10.1 Marital Problems

10.2   Marital adjustment versus maladjustment

10.3   Family Violence

10.4 Migration and displacement of the family

Summary

    Learning Objectives:

• It is an attempt to understand the demographics involved in family system
• It makes us understand the family types and characteristics
• It highlights the various interpersonal relationships within the family system

    1.      Introduction- Family Demography

Family demography is the study of families and households. Persons sharing a housing unit or part of a housing unit and sharing food and possibly other essentials for living tend to be part of the same household while a housing unit is a house, an apartment, a mobile home, a group of rooms, or a single room that is occupied as a separate living quarter. Individuals sharing a housing unit and not sharing food and other essentials for living represent different households, e.g. unrelated students sharing a flat. A family is a particular type of household whereas household members are related by marriage and parents and children related by blood or adoption form a family. A family is often defined without the strict co-residence criterion and is a group of people (social unit) related by marriage or by blood or adoption, irrespective of place of residence and the group is usually referred to as kin. Marriage often but not always includes formal or legally sanctioned marriage and common-law marriage (consensual union). A household may consist of a single family, several families (e.g. extended family), or a family (families) and unrelated persons (e.g. lodger).

2.    History of Family Studies

The study of the family can be traced since 1950s as a part of historical demography. In France and later in England historically demographers used to carry out village censuses and linked individual marriage, and burial entries to reconstruct families (Henry, 1953; Laslett and Wall, 1973; Wrigley et al., 1997) and the technique was termed as family reconstitution. Family and demography emerged as the subfield of demography in the 1980s. The International Union for the Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP) was instrumental and established a Scientific Committee on Family Demography and the Life Cycle in the year 1982 with the objective to promote research in the emerging subdiscipline and to also give a visibility within the scientific community. It was the first Scientific Committee of the IUSSP, established a year after Becker’s landmark book “A treatise on the family” was published in the year 1981, which was an overview of the application of economic theory to explain family life. The IUSSP committee also prepared a volume representing the state-of-the-art of family demography (Bongaarts et al., 1987) covering the major areas ( marital, family status and family life cycle, kin models and household projection models). The book also explained the measurement and estimation of these variables. In 1984 the Netherlands Interuniversity Demographic Institute (NIDI) under the auspices of the European Association for Population Studies (EAPS) organized a workshop on household demography with an emphasis on modelling. The workshop resulted in a volume that covered different perspectives on and approaches to household modelling and different policy areas that need information on households (Keilman et al., 1988). The book was followed by another a few years later (van Imhoff et al., 1995). In the 1980s a number of excellent papers were published reviewing accomplishments and challenges that remained to be addressed (e.g. Burch, 1979; Brass, 1983; Bongaarts, 1983; Teachman et al., 1987). The very active research in family and household demography in the 1980s also resulted in methods and software for the production of family status life tables and household projections. As society is evolving, family and household demography is evolving too. In the early days, demography was not directly concerned with the functioning of families and households but with their structure and the processes that take place or unfold over time and produce events that alter their structure. With the gradual disappearance of borders that separate disciplines in the social and behavioral sciences, the study of the functioning of these groups is no longer viewed as a subject of social psychology and sociology, but increasingly also as a subject of demography. It includes topics such the mutual influence of family and household members, role configurations, the division of labour and the distribution of power, communication between members, domestic violence, and self-efficacy and empowerment of members. Today household and family demography studies the size, structure and functioning of households and families. It addresses also the processes that produce the events that alter the structure. Relations between members receive particular attention, not only the nature of the relationship but also the content.

3.   Household and Family Demography

Family  Demography  is  concerned  largely  with  the  study  of  analysis  of  family  households:  its formation, its changes over time and its dissolution.

Household and family demography is concerned with:

(1)  the size and composition of households, families, and related groups;

(2)  their variation among nations and among subgroups within nations (differential size and structure);

(3)  variation over time, both secular changes and variation over the life cycle;

(4)  the determinants of change and variation, both demographic (age structure and the basic demographic processes of fertility, mortality, marriage and divorce, and migration) and socioeconomic determinants (such as income or wealth, occupation, industry, rural or urban residence, and culture);

(5)  socioeconomic consequences of household variation and change (for example, patterns of child care, age and sex roles, intergenerational relations, isolation, and dependency among the elderly);

(6)  demographic measures and models of household and family structure and change.

Family may be broadly defined as a unit of two or more persons united by marriage, blood, adoption, or consensual union, in general consulting a single household, interacting and communicating with each other (Desai, 1994). Figure 1 shows the conceptual framework of family structure in India. Right from ancient times, family, caste, and community have dominated the entire texture of Indian society. Family has been the dominating institution both in the life of the individual and in the life of the community. There was virtually no scope to exit without being a member of a family. According to Census of India (Ministry of Home Affairs, 1991), Indian families comprise largely of nuclear family structure with joint families forming about a fifth of the total households (Census of India, 1981). Kolenda (1987) reviewed the various studies on structures of families in India (see Table 2). She classified the families into several types of family structures: Single member households (a man or woman in one household), nuclear pair (only married couple), nuclear family (a married couple with or without children) and forms of nuclear family (broken nuclear — a fragment of a former nuclear family, e.g., a widow with unmarried children living together; supplemented nuclear — a nuclear family plus one or more unmarried / separated / widowed relatives of the parents, other than married children), collaterally extended (two or more married couples among whom there is a sibling bond, normally brothers plus their unmarried children), supplemented collateral joint (a collateral joint family with unmarried, divorced, widowed relatives, typically such supplemented relatives are the widowed mother or widower father or an unmarried sibling), lineal extended (two couples between whom there is a lineal link, usually between parents and married son or married daughter), supplemented lineal joint (a lineal joint family plus unmarried, divorced or widowed relatives who do not belong to either of the lineally linked nuclear unmarried brother), lineal collateral joint (three or more couples linked lineally or collaterally, typically, parents and their married sons plus the unmarried children of the couple), supplemented lineal collateral joint (a lineal collateral joint family plus unmarried, widowed, separated relatives who belong to none of the nuclear families lineally and collaterally linked) and an unclassified category.

4.    Measurement of Family and Household Structure and Size

Structure- The measurement of household and family structure centers around the evolution of the simplest, or rudimentary form, the nuclear group of an adult couple and their children to a more complex structures seen as a result of additions of other kin (parents of the couple, grandchildren, uncles, etc., i.e., any non-nuclear kin) or the addition of unrelated persons such as servants. A related notion also concerns the extent to which adults other than husband-wife couples tend to maintain separate households. A large increase in such separateness, especially among young adult males and older women, as the “rise of the primary individual” (Kobrin, 1976). Measures of household and family complexity can be classified into two broad categories, based on the type of data used.

• The first uses information on relationships among persons in the household, based on an explicit census or survey item on relationship to household head.
• The second class of measures, in the absence of a direct question on relationship, uses other, more routine information either as a basis for inferring, or as a proxy for relationship data (Burch, 1976).

To the first class belong measures expressing household or family complexity in the form of ratios showing the frequency of various kinds of relatives or non-relatives per household or family. Extensive use was made of these ratios in a pioneering article by Siegel (1963). Traditionally, census tabulations of relationship data have not been fully cross-tabulated with age, sex, and marital status or with socioeconomic characteristics of the head or of other household members.

Uses of Relationship Data

• Relationship data are also used in the computation of “headship” rates, the ratio of heads to population, often for specific age, sex, or marital status categories.
• Proportions of persons who are heads of household or family are in effect inverse measures of complexity, since the more persons who head their own households, the fewer remain to add to the complexity of households and families of others (Burch, 1976). Since minor children virtually never head their own households, headship rates are confined to the adult population (United Nations, 1973a, 1973b).
• A third use of relationship data is for the development of typologies of families and households. Apart from occasional tabulations of households and families by number of generations, most typologies are based on Le Play’s classic distinction among nuclear/conjugal, stem, and consanguine/extended families. These typologies differ considerably, however, in basic concepts and in the degree of detail, and there is no standard system (Castillo et al., 1968).

    5.      Family in India

Family in India is often understood by a homogeneous unit with strong coping mechanisms which is basic, cohesive and integral unit of the larger social system. Families are considered as large and culturally intensive due to presence of plurality in forms varying with class, ethnicity and individual choices. The members in the family are bounded by interpersonal relationships in wide network of social relationships. Family is considered as the basic unit of study in various disciplines of social sciences such as sociology, psychology, economics, anthropology, social psychiatry, social work or human development because of its role in generation of human capital resources. It also acts as the first line defense in maintaining their survival, health, education, development and protection. It has the major potential in providing stability, emotional bonding, socialization and support.

5.1 Changes in Families in India

Families in India are experiencing vast changes which is leading to the disruption of peace among its members. There has been an evident increase in divorce and separation rates. Domestic violence, inter-generational conflicts, social problems of drug abuse, juvenile delinquency etc are some of the most common emerging problems and have indicated the inability to cope with the pressures of the modern life. Despite of all the stress and strain , majority have seemed to adjust, survive and adopt to the changing social norms, values and structures of the changing society.

Family studies in India are viewed within the institutional framework of particular society. In each society, families vary in their extent of adjustment to accept norms owing to the family interaction pattern and external forces.

5.2 Family According to Indian Constitution

Various personal laws are framed for families belonging to different religions. Each religious communities have its own personal law which covers matters of marriage and divorce, adoption, maintenance, guardianship and custody of children, and inheritance and succession. These laws are often As these laws are governed by traditional patriarchal draw from the respective religious norms, they often perpetuate traditional patriarchal norms, and slow down the process of reforms.

Article 44 of the Indian Constitution states that “The State shall endeavor to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India” attempts to enact family laws applied to family practices of all Indians. The various family laws exists as a myraid policies for family and its members. These are Child Marriage Restraint Act, 1929; the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1972; Special Marriage Act, 1974; Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961, and provisions made in the Criminal Procedure Code and Indian Penal Code. Thus, there exist myriad policies for the family and its members. However, separate policies for family size, family laws, housing, children, youth, and so on, have independent objectives. In the absence of an overall family policy with explicit goals for the family, these policies affect the family in diverse ways with sometimes contradictory and negative outcomes.

Figure 1- Diagram of the conceptual framework of family structure. From Conceptual frameworks for understanding family. Enhancing the role of the family as an agency for social and economic development (Unit for Family Studies Report, pp. 16-41), by Desai, 1994, Bombay, India: TISS. Copyright 1994 by Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Deonar, Bombay –400 088, India.)

6.    Family Characteristics

Most of the demographic characteristics, socio-religious beliefs and practices influence the nature of the Indian family system and also reflect the changes taking place in it. The Indian family is by and large patriarchal in structure (Kapadia, 1982). In a patriarchal family set up, all male members, that is, husband, elder brother and father, perform duties like decision making for the rest of the family, and their physical and moral protection. This patriarchal set up is changing slowly towards equalitarian interaction among the educated, urban middle classes, and also among some rural set ups (Mullatti, 1995). Even in matrilineal and matrilocal cultures patriarchy seems to be prevalent in the form of power held by the brother and not by the women herself. Patriarchal structure – roles, responsibility, control, and distribution of resources within the family are strictly determined by age, gender and generation. The establishment of the family system is believed to be mainly for the fulfillment of religious obligations like ancestor worship, begetting a male child and passing social religious traditions to the next generation. Patriarchal families continue to be patrilineal and patrilocal; and the lineage is based on the father’s family. The Hindu Code Bill of 1954-1956 (as cited in Pylee, 1979) has introduced a few changes in this system by allowing some share of the property to the daughter, inter-religion and –caste marriage rights, equal rights to women with respect to adoption, divorce, and remarriage. One of the few surviving bastions of women power are the Khasis of Meghalaya with a matrilineal system of family. The power, wealth, and rights of inheritance are vested in the women. Basaiawmoit (1987), however, found that with passage of time the matrilineal system has undergone dramatic change due to education, technology and politics. The younger generation is raising the issue to move towards some form of patrilineal system though the elders feel the existing matrilineal form should continue (Saiborne, 1995). A significant aspect noted is the new economic order merging with the traditional pride in jointly owned property. Today’s big business houses like the Tata and Birla are all family ventures. So instead of the breaking of joint families due to urbanization and industrialization, more joint families are found in urban business communities (Desai, 1980). Married brothers may have separate houses, but run a common business and meet regularly at a variety of family rituals. Hence, a large number of families in India are described as being functionally joint, with separate residence. In rural India, though agriculture is the main occupation, there are not many large land holdings. This, and modern education and other related factors, make it difficult to maintain joint families (Mullatti, 1995).

7.    Alternate Family Pattern

The term ‘alternate family pattern’ suggests family patterns that result from personal circumstances outside one’s control (death of a partner, infertility) or from certain socioeconomic conditions such as male migration and work participation of women. In such circumstances people are forced to adapt family patterns that suit their conditions. Such families are, therefore, not mere lifestyle experimentations but come out of certain circumstances (Bharat, 1994). In the Indian context, most family variations that are prevalent today are a result of such personal or socio-economic circumstance. Experimental or chosen life styles like living without marrying and being childless voluntarily are restricted to an extremely small group of people. The unwritten rule was, and still is, that all marriages must result in children and preferably male children (Gulati, 1995). The following may be considered the most commonly observed family variations in India: single parent families, female headed households, dual earner/career families, childless families, and adoptive families. The range of family variations seems limited. In the West, the family patterns reflect experimentation with lifestyles and seeking of alternatives to existing patterns. In contrast, the Indian family variations suggest adaptation to socio-economic and personal circumstances that is necessary for survival.

8.    Marriage and Divorce

According to the traditional Hindu view, marriage is a sacrament. A number of studies have been conducted in an attempt to examine the impact of modern trends represented by formal education, urbanization, and industrialization. Changing patterns are being observed in areas such as age at marriage, inter-caste marriage, arranged versus love matches, matching horoscopes. Inter-religious marriages do take place in India and there is a special law to support such marriages. However, they are extremely small in number. For the vast majority of people, marriage is always within one’s religious group, and the family also, therefore, prevails within it. These religious groups have evolved since the turn of this century as legal, and some even as constitutional, entities and this has important consequences for the nature of marriage and family in each of them. Although one of the directive principles of state policy laid down in the constitution determines that the state shall endeavor to secure for the citizens a uniform civil code throughout the territory of India, there is as yet no uniform law of family and marriage for all religious groups. There is enormous social and cultural diversity, hence the gap between law and custom within each religious group. The major mate selection pattern continues to be arranged by elders and parents even among highly educated urban communities and castes, although gradual change is observed here too. The mean age of marriage for men is 23.5 years and women is 18.4 years, the difference being 5.1 years (see Table 3). Higher age of groom is suggestive of more power, experience and better economic status. The age difference between male and female varies substantially (Mullati, 1995).

9.    Interpersonal Relationships

9.1 Marital and Parental Relationships

Husband-wife relationship is the basic and most important amongst the network of relationships on which the whole family revolves. The healthy relations between them facilitates and helps in performing their roles effectively and also helps in the proper socialization of the children. On the other hand, marital conflict leads to familiar disorganization and has negative consequences on the upbringing of children. Thus, the quality of interaction between a husband and a wife is very important for the functioning of the whole family.

9.2 Parent-Child Relationships

Parent-children conflicts occurs with regards to individual freedom and double standards giving greater freedom to sons than daughters. In India Parents tend to discriminate among boys and girls not only in terms of reinforcing speech, activity and play, food, education and other material possessions in India. Indian society senses a girls as a family liability as they get less autonomy and freedom from parents than boys

9.3 Sibling Relationships

Sibling relationship is among the most unique and close human relationships as siblings sharing a common genetic heritage and common early experience within the family. Exchange patterns of emotional support are established among the siblings during the growing years. Sibling relationship is also marked by discord when paternal authority is weak or absent. The severe sibling violence was found to be more prevalent among boys. Moreover , younger children are often victimized by an older sibling Thus, children recognized that aggression against younger siblings is wrong. As joint family system is one of the basic features of Indian society, it becomes essential to consider the cordial and conflicting relationship between secondary relatives.

9.4 Mother-in-Law and Daughter-in-Law Relationships

The mother-in-law is said to occupy a dominant position and plays an important role in the social life of the daughter-in-law. This is one area where very few studies have been done and it has been reported that mother- in-law keeps a severe control over the daughter in law. The elder woman were found to control the younger which lead to a disruption of unity among brothers; the younger finds the elder to be intolerably demanding and dominating. The relationship of women with sisters-in-law is another area which has dearth of studies although it is of great significance in a joint household.

10. Contemporary Issues : Problems Faced in Family Relationships

10.1 Marital problems

A background of patterns of marital interactions, roles, and power in India is essential before we review research on marital problems. However, studies on family in India have generally concentrated on the joint family, with a patriarchal structure. Consequently, marital interaction, role, and power have received scant attention.

Marital adjustment versus maladjustment

Marital adjustment is the state of accommodation which is achieved in different areas where conflict exist. A severe effect of certain demographic characteristics such as age differences, duration of marriage, education, occupation, socio-economic status, and number of children was seen on marital adjustment. The analysis indicates that age difference between husband and wife highly contributed towards marital adjustment. Secondly, differences in educational level of the spouses were more evident in the maladjusted couple. Husbands, on the other hand, attached greater importance to satisfaction with and a favorable evaluation of themselves in the provider role and their spouses in the kinship roles.The main reasons behind the unsatisfactory relationship were lack of time to interact freely with husband and lack of time to provide adequate love and care for their children. The other reasons were physical and mental exhaustion due to heavy and never ending work, indifferent attitudes of their husbands and in-laws towards their over work and inability both of them to gain control over the women workers earnings. A mental adjustment of rural and urban couples in relation to their personality in terms of extroversion, neuroticism, and psychotism takes place (Mohan and Singh, 1985). The analysis showed that rural couples were better adjusted than urban. Dominance among the spouses can be seen in order to identify personality factors such as intelligence and extroversion with reference to adjustment in marriage.

10.2 Family Violence

Family violence is a complex concept encompassing wife abuse, child abuse, and elderly abuse. Pagelow defined family violence as “any act of commission or commission by family members and any condition resulting from such acts and inaction which deprive other family members of equal rights and opportunities and/or interfere with their optimal development and freedom of choice.” Heife, Pitanguy, and Germaine (1994, describe violence against women as “any act of verbal or physical force, life threatening deprivation directed at an individual women or girl that causes physical and psychological harm, humiliation or arbitrary deprivation of liberty that perpetuates female subordination.”

10.3 Migration and Displacement of the Family

Women and Children are both affected by Migration as male migrates either alone or with them. The kinship network is broken and the traditional skills are no longer useful in the urban economy. However, it has also been suggested that rather than family disintegration, male migration lead to a more capable and self confident women. Nevertheless, it has been observed that after the return of the emigrant husbands, although the wives continue to participate in decision making, the execution of major household activities was taken over by their male counterparts.

Summary

• Family has been recognized as a basic unit of society and is a link between individual and community.
• The structure of the family continues to be patriarchal. A number of changes have been observed in the patterns of marriage such as age at marriage, inter-caste marriage, etc.
• A relative increase is noticed in divorce cases in urban areas. It was quite common in the past but at that time families were more stable and provided adequate security in terms of physical, social and emotional needs.
• Current trends indicate that there is a definite change in the basic system of family, especially the role of elders and disharmony in husband-wife relationship. Divorce rates are testimony to the increasing fragility of husband-wife relationship.
• Migration has major implications on women and children. Although children in several set-ups, women, and the elders have been the subjects of various studies, investigations on the family as a whole are clearly very limited.
• There seems to be a general paucity of applied family research in India. Thus it is important to deliberate whether these studies can be considered applied in nature – applied research is oriented towards outcome, rather than concepts, and it begins o the premise of usefulness and application. There is, therefore, a need to bring together under one umbrella, all research efforts which focus on specific aspects of family with the aim of influencing family practices and family policy development.

    References & Suggested Readings

• Bongaarts, J., Burch, T., & Wachter, K. W. (1987). Family demography: methods and their application.
• Olsen, R. J. (1990). Family Demography: Methods and Their Applications. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 85(409), 269-271.
• Keyfitz, N., Lee, R. D., Arthur, W. B., & Rodgers, G. (1987). Form and substance in family demography.
• Berquó, E., & Xenos, P. (1992). Family systems and cultural change.
• van Imhoff, E., Kuijsten, A., Hooimeijer, P., & van Wissen, L. J. (Eds.). (2013). Household demography and household modeling. Springer Science & Business Media.
• Arnold, F., Choe, M. K., & Roy, T. K. (1998). Son preference, the family-building process and child mortality in India. Population studies, 52(3), 301-315.
• Astone, N. M., Nathanson, C. A., Schoen, R., & Kim, Y. J. (1999). Family demography, social theory, and investment in social capital. Population and development review, 25(1), 1-31.
• Parsons, T. (1949). The social structure of the family.
• Bean, L. L., & Weeks, J. R. (1993). Population: An Introduction to Concepts and Issues.
• Duncan, T. E., Duncan, S. C., & Strycker, L. A. (2013). An introduction to latent variable growth curve modeling: Concepts, issues, and application. Routledge Academic.
• Burch, T.K. (1982), Household and Family Demography: A Biblioraphic Essay, Population Inde, Vol. 45(2), pp. 173-195.