The Realities of Life in Wealthy Society in the UK - Essay Example

FAMILY AND ITS ROLE IN SOCIETY FAMILY AND ITS ROLE IN SOCIETY Insert name: Insert course code: Instructor’s name: 8 November, 2010. Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 1.0 Introduction 3 2.0 The realities of life in wealthy society 4 3.0 The family and politics or government 4 4.0 The family and its role in the society 5 5.0 How family influences associational diversity and power 8 6.0 The future generation 9 7.0 British Functionalism 9 8.0 Conclusion 10 References: 11 1.0 Introduction The family can be defined as a private enclave that requires protection from the encroachment of the public sphere so as to fulfill its role as a haven of psychic renewal for the breadwinner. The family in as society originates as a biological unit and not an economic; and the more wealthy people have, the personal preferences and social considerations rather than economic calculation have come to determine the selection of marriage partners, and the more too has the family been stripped down to its fundamental core of parents and children. However, in an individualistic system, the family is entrusted with economic responsibilities that are of great significance to the welfare and progress of the wealthy society. A family is the basic spending unit, whose decisions determine whether increasing wealth will raise the quality of life or debase it. In British culture, nuclear families are not only the largest single household unit in British society, but they still occupy a fundamental ideological position (Storry, 2007 p. 135). Currently, the British population entails 51 per cent female and 49 per cent male subjects. However, the largest group of women is intense in the over-sixty age group and thus do not reveal the gendered composition of the entire populace. Currently the gender responsibilities are turning out to be in one way or another more flexible and the two-parent, patriarchal family unit is increasingly becoming less prevailing. The new social movements are the ones to blame for the decline in customary relations life as well as conformist gender functions. Thus there is need to clearly understand the role of family in the society. This paper will discus the role of family is the society in the context of British culture (Storry, 2007 p. 135). 2.0 The realities of life in wealthy society Britain is composed of wealthy families and thus poses distinct realities. The realities of life in the wealthy society are far different from the simple model on which any other social philosophy is based. Far from being simple and easily comprehensible to the average person, the British society is one of tremendously complex and has high interdependence between people each of whom is specialized on small part of the process of production, distribution as well as exchange. The British society is characterized by irregular, unpredictable growth and change; in fact, its fundamental dynamic principle is growth through change, change introduced by any person or firm that sees a profit in it. It is this freedom to introduce change that keeps the British standard of living rising. Complexity and dynamic change are the characteristics of the wealthy society and the source of its wealth (Cunningham-Burley p. 19). 3.0 The family and politics or government There are costly policies and interventions the have been generated concerning the familial realities. Thus the family life has been constrained by unreal expectations and evaluations which prevent the ambiguous assessment of realities as well as the development of norms that reflect the real families. There has been indirect control of family life from the economic sphere of society, and especially from the private policies of employers and the public policies of government. Taxation as well as welfare directly affect the flow of resources from society to families, and thus set the parameters of individual family decisions in matters of matrimony, childbearing as well as child-rearing, education, and residence and so on. Parents, whether married or single, need to adjust their family’s life as well as their reproductive decisions to long-term employment or professional plans. This is because the family has no protection or provisions fro the hiring and promotion of personnel in both public and private sectors. At the edge of poverty, the effect of economic conditions on families is more direct and persuasive. Policies regarding the minimum wage, health insurance as well as unemployment substantially determine the capability or inability of non-skilled, two-wage earner families to support themselves above the poverty line (Cowan, 1993 p. 18) 4.0 The family and its role in the society The family is entrusted with economic responsibilities that are of crucial importance to the welfare and progress of the wealthy society. It is the basic spending unit, whose decisions determine whether increasing opulence will raise the quality of life or debase it; the income it has to spend is obtained by selling the services of its members as well as their properties, so that its decisions in this regard determine both its income and the efficiency with which its human and non-human capital is utilized; and it determines the amount and type of education acquired by its children, so that collectively it determines the size and quality of the stock of human capital bequeathed to the next generation. There are three main roles of family in a society: The family as a consuming unit: With the frequent changes and rising of living standards, it is not easy to grow rich without difficulties and it requires a continual process of learning to improve one’s tastes and standards, to budget one’s income, to invest wisely in the complex consumer capital products the comprise a modern high standard of living as well as managing one’s property and oneself efficiently (Johnson, 1982 p. 48). The family as an income-earning unit: This is done by selling the services of both its human and non-human capital. For the family to make the most of the opportunities of the wealthy society, it needs the knowledge of the opportunities as well as the capacity to move resources to the most profitable opportunity. Knowledge has the peculiarity that once it is there any number of people can use it and thus can be of great profit to the society if it collects it and places it at the disposal of families, even though no individual family would find it worthwhile to collect it (Johnson, 1982 p. 49). As a unit of income-earner, the family is the key enabler of creating sustainable developments. Family makes sustainable development possible by connecting to the population. The family is first and most fundamental place where production and spending acquire meaning. This is because family members are human beings and thus require material things to survive and develop. It is this demand to attain and use commodities along with services that give explanations of the reasons for money matters and function that the family plays within. Since persons develop while in the family, then it can be said that the individual, as the financial representative, will be better en suite to contribute the largest part to society when the family is being supported by the financial system within which he or she works. Also, family consumption needs give rise to economic activity and also affects economic production, exchange as well as consumption by influencing its members (Loveless and Holman, 2007 p. 57). Family as the source of the future stock of human capital: in a wealthy society, it is not the norm of the family to provide on-the-job training for children destined to inherit a family craft, business or profession. On the contrary, the family prepares its children to seek employment in a specialized economy where their value will depend on the skills and talents they have to offer - which in turn depends on their education. Education is a form of investment to the family since it calls the family to support the child and forego the money it could earn for the family if it did not go to school (Johnson, 1982 p. 49). The family plays a significant role as a safety valve to minimize social pressures on the individual – pressures that have swiftly increased in the modern world. In the process of performing this and other functions, the family unit protects communal steadiness as well as security. A strong, stable and enlightened family offers a safety net for male, female and kids as well as safeguarding the society. By satisfactorily accomplishing its key role of bearing, rearing, and teaching children, the family contributes to intensification of intercultural conversation and exoneration, as it remains the primary foundation where the initial impersonation of the humankind can be created apart from increasing the ability of generating relations with others (Johnson, 1982 p. 49). The problems faced by the modern world and other challenges cannot be solved or addressed without using the family as a strategic tool for social reconstruction and development. As the British society changes, there is need to coordinate national and international family programs so a to ensure the safety of the family, as the basic social unit, and making sure that it receives the utmost protection and assistance by society and the state (Loveless and Holman, 2007 p. x). 5.0 How family influences associational diversity and power For the proper functioning of a pluralistic democracy, associational diversity and power are crucial. The family supports associational diversity through providing the associational setting within which individuals can develop differentiated opinions, passions as well as interests. Also, the family supports associational power by providing children with a full opportunity to experience an association firsthand as well as developing the cognitive models and skills necessary to form and sustain other associations. For a society to sustain associational diversity it must first secure a sufficient supply of individuals who are willing and able to join with others who share their opinions, interests and passions as well as others who differ significantly from those held by many others. The family provides both individuals who are willing and able to associate with others and individuals who posses distinct opinions, interests as well as passions. The family setting has a considerable consequence on an individual’s development (Herring, 2003 p. 100). 6.0 The future generation Due to the new socio-economic system, the families are demanded to change so as to adapt with the transformations. The family along with other elements of the society must change to become god and also to fit in the new socio-economic system. The family has to transform itself to contribute towards changes in other parts of the society. Also the state has to put into motion several family changes. As the nuclear families continues to become more independent, there will be so many families of single parents in the future generations. There is increased level of divorce and this is affecting the psychology of the children as well as their education. Thus the future generation will face many hardships in trying to bring up a family. As self-determination rights are extended to the younger generation, the institutional prerogatives of the family will be eroded (Cowan, 1993 p. 19). 7.0 British Functionalism The main tenet of functionalism is that social and cultural features are supposed to be explained mainly by their useful functions to the people as well as to the society (by the benefits they confer to groups and individuals). Since humans are above all social beings who live in families, major aspects of their culture and society serve to help individuals meet their needs and contribute to the maintenance of the society itself. According to British functionalists, the key purpose of culture is to serve human biological, psychological as well as social needs. According to these functionalists, human society is perceived as a living organism in which each organ has a function to fulfill that contributes to the life of the whole body. Just as organisms cannot survive for long unless their organs function properly, so a society cannot persist unless its various institutions play their proper roles in social life (Peoples, and Bailey, 2008 p. 74). 8.0 Conclusion Close family relations can be extended beyond to change the environment outside when young people in the next generation starts assuming their roles in society. In fact, the family is the most significant institution that keeps the contemporary British society from falling. However, major changes which have influenced the British family are related to the decrease in the birthrate, the abolishment of institution of the dowry, and migration (Sussman and Hanks, 1996 p. 492). The changing patterns of fertility, childbearing and childrearing as well as presumptions concerning engagement in the labour market, without regard of parenting status, have led to tensions for family as they seek to combine caring work and paid employment (Cunningham-Burley p. 19). However, warm family relations can be extended to change the environment outside. References: Cowan, P.A. 1993. “Family, self, and society: toward a new agenda for family research”. UK, Routledge, 1993 Chhokar, J. S. and House, R. J. 2007. Culture and leadership across the world: the GLOBE book of in-depth studies of 25 societies. UK, Routledge. Cunningham-Burley, S. 2005. Families in society: boundaries and relationships. Bristol, The Policy Press. Herring, D.J. 2003. “The public family: exploring its role in democratic society”. PA., University of Pittsburgh Press. James Peoples, J. and Bailey, G. 2008. Humanity: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology. London, Cengage Learning. Johnson, H.G. 1982. On Economics and Society: Selected Essays. Chicago, University of Chicago Press. Loveless, A. S. and Holman, T. 2007. The Family in the New Millennium: The place of family in human society. Westport, Greenwood Publishing Group. Storry, M. 2007. British cultural identities. UK, Routledge. Sussman, M. B. and Hanks, R. S. 1996. Intercultural variation in family research and theory: implications for cross-national studies, Volume 2. UK, Routledge. Read More