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Examine the reasons for the increase in family and household diversity in the last 40 years
(24 marks, 10 A01, 14 A02)

Family and household diversity is the change in patterns among the various family and household types that exist because of factors such as secularisation, changes to legislation, changes in women's position, changing attitudes
In the past 40 years the family structure within the UK has changed quite dramatically for example the number of traditional nuclear families has been steadily declining and in their place the single parent and reconstituted family type have increased in number, also people are living much longer lives so people are able to …show more content…

This piece of legislation has given women the ability to seek out work that previously only catered for men for example manual jobs such as engineering. Another act passed by parliament to improve the position of women within society was the Equal Pay Act 1970, this piece of legislation allowed women to receive the same pay as their male counterparts for the exact same job, this gave women the opportunity to bring in a highly stable wage which in turn could allow them and their family to be financially supported regardless of whether the woman was married or belonging to a single parent family. This has contributed to greater family diversity within the UK over the past 40 years. In 2002 same sex couples gained the ability to to adopt a child under their names, then in 2004 the Civil Partnership Act was introduced which allowed same sex couples to have a legal binding to the state effectively giving them the same legal rights as a heterosexual couple. Perhaps the most striking piece of legislation that is currently in the process of being written into law by parliament is the