Page 118 - DSOC201_SOCIAL_STRUCTURE_AND_SOCIAL_CHANGE_ENGLISH

Unit 4: Family

Similarly, Desai’s finding that with the increase in the educational level, jointness increases and Notes
nuclearity decreases also does not appear to be true. Probably, his finding is the result of the wrong
methodology used in his research study for finding out the educational level of the family. He had
taken the average education of the family on the basis of the average number of years of schooling
put in by the ‘non-educants’ members (that is, those adults and grown up children who are not likely
to take any further education). Thus, the total years of schooling put in by all these members divided
by the number of members was taken as the average education of the family. This method of assessing
the educational level of family is definitely questionable. Had he used the method generally used by
other scholars, he might have got different results. And even just for the sake of argument, assuming
that his above method of finding out the educational level of family was correct, why did the group
of families with graduate members show all the families nuclear and not a single family as joint? If
more education leads to preference for jointness, the ‘graduate families’ must have shown higher
number of joint families than the matriculate or non-matriculate families. On the basis of these
arguments, therefore, we do not feel like agreeing with Desai about the type of relationship he has
shown between education and family structure. We believe, education increases the choice for
nuclearity and not for the jointness.
Ross (1961) has said that the present occupations are such that they require special education, skill
and training. Therefore, to raise the living standard of their children from their own, parents always
remain ambitious for giving higher education to their sons, particularly in middle and upper class
families in the urban areas. Some of the poor parents are so ambitious that they try to give the highest
possible education to their sons even at the cost of their sufferings, sacrifice, and trials and tribulations.
Sometimes they deprive themselves of comforts and even food and clothes. In such cases, however,
if by chance their sons fail in examinations or do not reach up to the mark, they bring disappointments
to their parents. In a few such cases, parents keep on nagging their children and this becomes so
extreme that sons’ ability to succeed is crippled and they always break off from their parents. On the
other hand, there are some parents who, because of their poverty, are not very much ambitious about
their children’s education, but their children are extremely ambitious. They (children), therefore,
leave their parents and go to different towns and cities for education. To support themselves
economically, they take up tuitions or jobs. These children, thus, gradually are cut off from family
ties. After the marriage also, they continue to live in cities. This is how their education affects their
families (Ibid: 208-231). In the case of females also, the educated girls develop new attitudes towards
husband, children and family, and clash with their conventional-minded mother-in-law and insist
on separate households. All this shows the impact of education on family pattern. As the level of
education rises, the percentage of those in favour of the nuclear family increases and the percentage
of people who conform to the pattern of joint family living (in behaviour) decreases.
Urbanization

Urbanization is another factor that has affected the family. Urban population has grown at a faster
rate in our country in the last few decades. In the mid-eighteenth century, approximately 10.0 per
cent of the population in India were town-dwellers. During the nineteenth century, the number of
inhabitants of India’s towns grew ten-fold over a hundred years. In the twentieth century, while the
country’s entire population grew from 238 million in 1901 to 685 million in 1981, the number of town-
dwellers alone grew by 521.0 per cent. In 1961, the urban population constituted 17.97 per cent of the
total population which increased to 19.9 per cent in 1971, 23.34 per cent in 1981 and 25.72 per cent in
1991. The decennial growth rate of urban population in 1961 was 26.41 per cent which increased to
38.23 per cent in 1971, 46.14 per cent in 1981 and 36.19 per cent in 1991. In exact terms, the urban
population of India in 1961 was 78 million which increased to 109 million in 1971, 159 million in 1981
and 217 million in 1991.
The urban families differ from the rural families not only in composition but in ideology too. It has
already been stated that the nuclear family in urban areas is somewhat smaller than the non-urban
nuclear family, and that the urban-dweller is more likely to choose the nuclear family than the rural-
dweller. M.S. Gore (1968) has maintained that the urban families show a shift away from joint family
norms in their attitudes, role perceptions, and in their behaviour. For example, in the area of decision-

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