CAIE
Sociology
(9699)
2023
May/June Paper 22
Questions & Answers
Q1.
Short Answer
4 marks
Describe two reasons women are now marrying at a later age.
Model Answer:
Women are staying in education longer and therefore marrying later.
Explanation: Extended education delays entry into marriage.
Model Answer:
Women are pursuing careers and financial independence before marriage.
Explanation: Employment and economic independence reduce pressure to marry early.
Q2a.
Structured
8 marks
Explain two ways capitalism benefits from the role of women in the family.
Model Answer:
Women perform unpaid domestic labour, which reproduces and maintains the labour force at little cost to capitalism.
Explanation: This reduces the amount employers and the state must spend on workers' upkeep.
Model Answer:
Women socialise children into acceptance of hierarchy and obedience, helping to produce a compliant future workforce.
Explanation: Marxists argue the family helps reproduce capitalist ideology across generations.
Q2b.
Structured
6 marks
Explain two strengths of Marxist feminist views of the family.
Model Answer:
Marxist feminism highlights how the family can exploit women through unpaid domestic labour and emotional work.
Explanation: This is a strength because it draws attention to hidden inequalities within the family.
Model Answer:
It links family life to wider structures of capitalism, showing that gender inequality is connected to economic inequality.
Explanation: This provides a broader explanation than approaches that focus only on individual relationships.
Q3a.
Structured
10 marks
The family has experienced a loss of functions. Explain this view.
Model Answer:
The family has lost many of its traditional functions to other institutions such as education, the welfare state, and the health service.
Explanation: This is the core of the functionalist view of the loss of functions.
Model Answer:
For example, education now takes over much of the socialisation and training of children.
Explanation: Schools now perform tasks once mainly carried out by families.
Model Answer:
The welfare state and other agencies now provide support for the sick, elderly, and unemployed.
Explanation: This reduces the family's role in care and support.
Model Answer:
The family is also less important as an economic unit because production has moved out of the home.
Explanation: Industrialisation separated work from home life.
Q3b.
Structured
6 marks
Using sociological material, give one argument against this view.
Model Answer:
The family has not simply lost functions; instead, some functions have become more specialised and important, such as emotional support and primary socialisation.
Explanation: This challenges the idea that the family is no longer functional.
Model Answer:
Feminists argue that the family still performs key functions for capitalism, such as reproducing labour power and maintaining patriarchy.
Explanation: This suggests the family remains important rather than functionless.
Q4.
Essay
26 marks
Evaluate the view that social class is the main factor affecting the experiences of children in the family.
Model Answer:
Children's experiences are strongly shaped by social class because class affects income, housing, diet, educational opportunities, and access to leisure and cultural capital.
Explanation: This supports the view that class is a major influence.
Model Answer:
Middle-class children often benefit from more resources, parental involvement in education, and greater expectations of success, while working-class children may face material deprivation and fewer opportunities.
Explanation: These differences show how class can shape childhood experiences.
Model Answer:
However, gender also affects children's experiences, as boys and girls may be treated differently within the family through gender socialisation and unequal expectations.
Explanation: This is a key alternative factor.
Model Answer:
Ethnicity, family structure, and parental attitudes can also influence childhood experiences, so social class is not always the main factor.
Explanation: Evaluation should consider other influences alongside class.
Q5.
Essay
26 marks
Evaluate the view that increasing family diversity means the nuclear family is no longer dominant.
Model Answer:
Family diversity has increased through lone-parent families, reconstituted families, same-sex families, cohabitation, and childless couples, which suggests the nuclear family is less dominant than before.
Explanation: This supports the view that family forms have become more varied.
Model Answer:
Postmodernists argue that there is no single dominant family type because individuals now choose from a range of family forms based on personal preference.
Explanation: This directly supports the idea of declining nuclear family dominance.
Model Answer:
However, the nuclear family may still be the most common or culturally idealised family form in many societies.
Explanation: Dominance can refer to prevalence or social norms, not just diversity.
Model Answer:
New Right thinkers argue that the nuclear family remains the best and most stable family type, and policies and media representations may continue to privilege it.
Explanation: This is a strong counter-argument against the view.