What is the function of family in society

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The role of a family in a society is essentially to teach children skills, morals and values that will help them become better people and will, in turn, allow them to be productive in society.

While children learn skills, values and ethics from other places later on in life, such as school, work and friends, the family is the first place where they gain a sense of morality and what is considered right and wrong. Children are exposed to the influence of their parents, and siblings if they have them, as well as their grandparents and other extended family members. Through frequent interactions with family members, children learn to emulate their parents’ beliefs of what constitutes commendable, acceptable and deplorable behavior in the larger society. The values that families instill in children are shaped in several ways, which includes the parents’ personal upbringing, their geographic location and religion.

Types of Families Around the world, family structures and family values are largely shaped by the broader community, and even by the state, region or country in which a family is located. The type of family in which a child is raised also shapes his or her values, which in turn influences how that child interacts in society and what his or her concept of gender roles are. A matrilocal family, for instance, is a nuclear family headed by a female without the presence or involvement of a male father. Children raised in this environment may have a more favorable perception of the role of women as contributing and equal members in society. Children raised in traditional patriarchal settings, in contrast, may develop beliefs that men are superior and natural providers for their families. These environments, in turn, shape how children respond to the role of men and women in the workforce and in domestic settings.

Biological Roles of Families In societies, family units have both a biological and sociological function. Biologically, reproduction that produces families makes them contribute directly to the growth and future continuity of their surrounding societies. Over time, a person’s role and function in a family changes to accommodate those obligations to continue evolving the surrounding society. A newborn child, for example, starts out in his or her family as a being who is attended to and cared for by other, older family members. As the child ages, he or she begins taking on responsibilities like chores and tasks.

Children are also taught appropriate behaviors, social norms and etiquette as they begin to interact with the surrounding society. When children grow up, they eventually follow in their parents’ and grandparents’ footsteps of being caregivers and providers. They eventually assume their parents’ role of having children of their own, and they in turn pass along those same traits, values and moral ethics that their parents bestowed on them. Children also develop some of their own values and ethics based on personal life influences such as work, religion and friends.

Religion Another factor that influences the family’s role in society is religion. Catholic families, for example, raise their children to accept beliefs historically associated with the Catholic religion. Religious teachings are part of the child’s life growing up, and he or she in turn applies those values to interactions with community members, work associates and other members of society.

Conflict theorists agree that the family serves the important functions just listed, but they also point to problems within the family that the functional perspective minimizes or overlooks altogether.

First, the family as a social institution contributes to social inequality. Because families pass along their wealth to their children, and because families differ greatly in the amount of wealth they have, the family helps reinforce existing inequality. As it developed through the centuries, and especially during industrialization, the family also became more and more of a patriarchal unit (since men made money working in factories while women stayed home), helping to reinforce men’s status at the top of the social hierarchy.

Second, the family can also be a source of conflict for its own members. Although the functional perspective assumes the family provides its members emotional comfort and support, many families do just the opposite and are far from the harmonious, happy groups depicted in the 1950s television shows. Instead, they argue, shout, and use emotional cruelty and physical violence. We return to family violence later in this chapter.

The conflict perspective emphasizes that many of the problems we see in today’s families stem from economic inequality and from patriarchy. The problems that many families experience reflect the fact that they live in poverty or near poverty. Money does not always bring happiness, but a dire lack of money produces stress and other difficulties that impair a family’s functioning and relationships. The Note 10.9 "Applying Social Research" box discusses other ways in which social class influences the family.

Conflict within a family also stems from patriarchy. Husbands usually earn more money than wives, and many men continue to feel that they are the head of their families. When women resist this old-fashioned notion, spousal conflict occurs.

Social Class and the Family

A growing amount of social science research documents social class differences in how well a family functions: the quality of its relationships and the cognitive, psychological, and social development of its children. This focus reflects the fact that what happens during the first months and years of life may have profound effects on how well a newborn prospers during childhood, adolescence, and beyond. To the extent this is true, the social class differences that have been found have troublesome implications.

According to sociologist Frank E. Furstenberg Jr., “steep differences exist across social classes” in mothers’ prenatal experiences, such as the quality of their diet and health care, as well as in the health care that their infants receive. As a result, he says, “children enter the world endowed unequally.” This inequality worsens after they are born for several reasons.

First, low-income families are much more likely to experience negative events, such as death, poor health, unemployment, divorce, and criminal victimization. When these negative events do occur, says Furstenberg, “social class affects a family’s ability to cushion their blow…Life is simply harder and more brutish at the bottom.” These negative events produce great amounts of stress; as Chapter 2 "Poverty" discussed, this stress in turn causes children to experience various developmental problems.

Second, low-income parents are much less likely to read and speak regularly to their infants and young children, who thus are slower to develop cognitive and reading skills; this problem in turn impairs their school performance when they enter elementary school.

Third, low-income parents are also less able to expose their children to cultural experiences (e.g., museum visits) outside the home, to develop their talents in the arts and other areas, and to otherwise be involved in the many nonschool activities that are important for a child’s development. In contrast, wealthier parents keep their children very busy in these activities in a pattern that sociologist Annette Lareau calls concerted cultivation. These children’s involvement in these activities provides them various life skills that help enhance their performance in school and later in the workplace.

Fourth, low-income children grow up in low-income neighborhoods, which often have inadequate schools and many other problems, including toxins such as lead paint, that impair a child’s development. In contrast, says Furstenberg, children from wealthier families “are very likely to attend better schools and live in better neighborhoods. It is as if the playing field for families is tilted in ways that are barely visible to the naked eye.”

Fifth, low-income families are less able to afford to send a child to college, and they are more likely to lack the social contacts that wealthier parents can use to help their child get a good job after college.

For all these reasons, social class profoundly shapes how children fare from conception through early adulthood and beyond. Because this body of research documents many negative consequences of living in a low-income family, it reinforces the need for wide-ranging efforts to help such families.

Sources: Bandy, Andrews, & Moore, 2012; Furstenberg, 2010; Lareau, 2010