Breaking down the question
The question asks you to identify and discuss the new family forms that have emerged in developed societies. The word "discuss" signals that description is not enough; you should also explain the social forces driving these changes and comment on their significance.
The examiner expects a survey of forms that depart from the conventional nuclear model — single-parent, reconstituted, cohabiting, same-sex, dual-earner and single-person households — together with an account of why they have arisen. A good answer combines an accurate catalogue with sociological explanation, drawing on ideas such as individualisation and the transformation of intimacy. At 10 marks, balance breadth of coverage with analytical framing.
How to approach it
Begin by noting the baseline against which "new" forms are measured: the mid-twentieth-century ideal of the nuclear family — a married heterosexual couple with children and a gendered division of labour. The new forms represent a diversification away from this single model.
Then enumerate the principal forms with brief characterisation, and explain the drivers — rising divorce, women's employment, contraception, individualism, legal reform and changing values. Bring in theory: Giddens on the pure relationship and the transformation of intimacy, Beck and Beck-Gernsheim on individualisation. Our notes on types and forms of family provide fuller detail. Conclude by assessing whether this represents the decline of the family or its pluralisation.
Model answer
In developed societies the nuclear family — a married heterosexual couple with dependent children and a breadwinner-homemaker division of labour — has ceased to be the single dominant form. Instead there has emerged a plurality of family arrangements, often described together as the new forms of family.
Several are prominent. The single-parent family, headed usually by a mother, has grown with rising divorce, separation and births outside marriage. The reconstituted or step-family forms when divorced or widowed partners remarry, blending children from previous unions. Cohabitation, in which couples live together without formal marriage, has become widely accepted and often replaces or precedes it. Same-sex families, increasingly recognised in law through civil partnership and same-sex marriage, and supported by adoption and assisted reproduction, constitute a further form. Dual-earner families, where both partners work, have displaced the sole-breadwinner model, while single-person households and childless or "child-free" couples reflect the choice to live outside conventional family structures altogether. Living-apart-together relationships add yet another variant.
These changes are driven by identifiable forces: the entry of women into paid employment and the erosion of the gendered division of labour; reliable contraception separating sex from reproduction; liberalised divorce law; secularisation; and the spread of individualist values. Sociologists have theorised the shift. Anthony Giddens speaks of the pure relationship, sustained only so long as it satisfies both partners, and of a transformation of intimacy in which relationships become negotiated rather than given. Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim describe individualisation, whereby people increasingly construct biographies and intimate ties by choice rather than tradition.
How should this be read? Pessimists see the decline of the family and a loss of stability. A more balanced view holds that the family is not disappearing but pluralising — diversifying into many legitimate forms as it adapts to greater gender equality, personal freedom and changing values. The functions of care, intimacy and socialisation persist, even as the structures that perform them multiply.
Examiner's perspective
The examiner wants both an accurate inventory of new family forms and a sociological explanation of their emergence. Scripts that merely list arrangements, without accounting for the forces behind them, remain descriptive and score modestly.
Strong answers characterise each form briefly, connect the trend to concrete drivers such as women's employment, divorce reform and secularisation, and frame the discussion with theory — Giddens on the pure relationship and Beck on individualisation. A closing judgement, weighing the "decline of the family" thesis against the more defensible view that the family is pluralising rather than vanishing, demonstrates the evaluative command that lifts an answer at this level.