Types of families |NUCLEAR FAMILY|JOINT FAMILY|THREE GENERATION FAMILY |Functions of the family |FAMILY IN HEALTH AND DISEASE |SOCIAL AND CULTURAL FACTORS| COMMUNITY MEDICINE

1. Types of families
Dr . k. Archana
MBBS, MD
Assistant Professor
Community Medicine Department

2. 1. NUCLEAR FAMILY
• The nuclear or elementary family is universal in all human societies. It
consists of the married couple and their children while they are still
regarded as dependents. They tend to occupy the same dwelling
space. In the nuclear family, the husband usually plays a dominant
role in the household.

3. NUCLEAR FAMILY Cont…
• The absence of grandparents, uncles, aunts and near
relatives places a greater burden on the nuclear family in
terms of responsibilities for child rearing.
• The husband-wife relationship is likely to be more intimate
in the nuclear family than in the joint family. The term
"new families" has come recently into vogue, it is applied
to those under 10 years duration and consists of parents
and children.
• The concept is important in view of studies relating to
family planning.

4. 2. JOINT FAMILY
• The joint or extended family is a kind of family
grouping which is common in India, Africa, the Far
East and the Middle East. It is more common in
agricultural areas than in urban areas. The orthodox
Hindu family in India is a joint family. As a price for
education, urbanization and industrialization, we are
losing the joint family system.

5. JOINT FAMILY Cont…
• It consists of a number of married couples and their children who live
together in the same household. All the men are related by blood and
the women of the household are their wives, unmarried girls and
widows of the family.
• All the property is held in common.
• All the authority is vested in the senior male member of the family.
He is the most dominant member and controls the internal and
external affairs of the family.

6. • The merit of the joint family system is that it is based
on the motto : "union is strength". There is a sharing
of responsibilities practically in all matters which gives
the family a greater economic and social security, It
provides economic and social security to the old, the
helpless and the unemployed.
JOINT FAMILY Cont…

7. 3. THREE GENERATION FAMILY
• The three generation family is confused with the joint
family. It is fairly common in the west. This tends to be
a household where there are representatives of three
generations. It occurs usually when young couples are
unable to . find separate housing accommodation and
continue to live with their parents and have their own
children.

8. Functions of the family
• Residence
• Division of labour
• Reproduction and bringing up of children
• Socialization
• Economic functions
• Social care

9. FAMILY IN HEALTH AND DISEASE
• There are certain functions which are relevant to health and health
behaviour, and are important from the medical-sociology point of
view.

10. 1. CHILD REARING
• The way in which child rearing is undertaken differs
enormously from society to society, and from time to
time, depending upon factors such as capital
resources, level of knowledge, state of technology and
system of values. It is important to note that patterns
of child care (e.g., feeding, nutrition, hygiene, sleep,
clothing, discipline, habit training) are passed on from
one generation to another. In many societies, child
care is socially determined by tradition.

11. 2. SOCIALIZATION
• By socialization is meant teaching the young the values of
society and transmitting information, culture, beliefs,
general codes of conduct, by example and precept, in order
to make them fit for membership in the wider society of
which the family is a part. Organizations such as schools
and religious places perform cultural functions for the
introduction of the young into adult society. The young are
persuaded, given punishments, rewards for good
behaviour - all these vary from time to time.

12. 3. PERSONALITY FORMATION
• This is even a more latent function. It is an area in which
sociology comes closest to psychology. The capacity of an
individual to withstand stress and strain and the way in which he
interacts with other people is to a large extent determined by his
early experience in the family, mainly with the father, mother
and siblings who provide the earliest and most immediate
component of the child's external environment. The family acts
as a "placenta" excluding various influences, modifying others
that pass through it and contributes some of its own in laying the
foundation of physical, mental and social health of the child.

13. 4. CARE OF DEPENDANT ADULTS
• (a) Care of the sick and injured
• (b) Care of women during pregnancy and child birth
• (c) Care of the aged and handicapped

14. 5. STABILIZATION OF ADULT PERSONALITY
• The family is like a "shock absorber" to the stress and
strains of life. The stress could be injury, illness, births,
deaths, tension, emotional upsets, worry, anxiety,
economic insecurity and the like. In such situations,
the family provides an opportunity, both for adults
and children, for release of tension so that the
individual can attain mental equilibrium and strive to
maintain a stable relationship with other people.

15. 6. FAMILIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TO DISEASE
• Certain diseases such as hemophilia, color blindness,
diabetes and mental illness are known to run through
families. Schizophrenia, psychoneurosis and some forms of
mental deficiency are also known to have a familial
incidence. The family is often the playground also for such
communicable diseases as tuberculosis, common cold,
scabies, diphtheria, measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox,
dysentery, diarrhea, and enteric fever. These diseases are
known to spread rapidly in families because of the common
environment which the family members share.

16. 7. BROKEN FAMILY
• A broken family is one where the parents have separated,
or where death has occurred of one or both the parents.
Separation of the child from its father (paternal separation)
and separation of the child from both of its parents (dual-
parental separation) are important factors in child
development. Children who are victims of broken families
early in their childhood have been found sometimes to
display in later years psychopathic behaviour, immature
personality and even retardation of growth, speech and
intellect.

17. 8. PROBLEM FAMILIES
• Problem families are those which lag behind the rest of the
community. In these families, the standards of life are
generally far below the accepted minimum and parents are
unable to meet the physical and emotional needs of their
children. The home life is utterly unsatisfactory. The
underlying factors in most problem families are usually
those of personality and of relationship, backwardness,
poverty, illness, mental and emotional instability, character
defects and marital disharmony. These families are
recognized as problems in social pathology.

18. SOCIAL AND CULTURAL FACTORS
• It is now widely recognized that cultural factors are deeply involved in
all the affairs of man, including health and sickness. Not all customs
and beliefs are bad. Some are based on centuries of trial and error
and have positive values, while others may be useless or positively
harmful. Some of these cultural factors, hallowed by centuries of
practice, have stood in the way of implementing health programmes.
Where a change of behaviour was involved, the resistance of the
people was maximum in accepting new programmes. Information
about these factors, i.e., customs, cultural mores, habits, beliefs and
superstitions is still woefully lacking. A brief account of the cultural
factors relating to health and sickness, as observed in India.

19. Reference:
• K Park. Textbook of Preventive and Social Medicine. 23rd edition. Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh, India :
Banarsidas Bhanot ; 2015

20. Thank You