nuclear family

Definition of Nuclear Family

(noun) A type of family unit that consists of two parents and their child(ren) who live apart from their extended family.

Examples of Nuclear Family

• The Obamas: Barack and Michelle and their children Malia and Sasha.
• The Simpsons: Homer and Marge and their children Bart, Lisa, and Maggie.

Nuclear Family Pronunciation

Pronunciation Usage Guide

Syllabification: nu·cle·ar fam·i·ly

Audio Pronunciation

International Phonetic Alphabet

• American English – /ˈnukliər ˈfæməli/
• British English – /ˈnjuːklɪə ˈfæmɪli/

Usage Notes

• Plural: nuclear families
  
• The definition of a nuclear family varies, some limit the term to only biological (consanguineal) children of a couple while others include stepchildren and adopted children (e.g., blended family).
• An individual can be part of more than one nuclear family. For example, an individual can be a child in a family of orientation and a parent in a family of procreation.
• Nuclear families are created in part due to primogeniture, or the tradition of inheritance going to the oldest male in the family.
• A privatized (privatised) nuclear family (also called isolated nuclear family) coined by Michael Young (1915–2002) and Peter Willmott (1923–2000) in The Symmetrical Family (1973), based on research in England, refers to a nuclear family that is separated from any extended family and thus self-reliant.
• A nuclear family typically resides in a neolocal residence.
• A conjugal family is similar to a nuclear family, but a conjugal family does not require children.
• Also called:
  • elementary family

Related Quotations

• “Families of orientation, procreation, and cohabitation provide us with some of the most important roles we will assume in life. The nuclear family roles (such as parent, child, husband, wife, and sibling) combine with extended family roles (such as grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, and in-law) to form the kinship system” (Strong, Devault, and Cohen 2011:19).
• “In American society, the basic kinship system consists of parents and children, but it may include other relatives as well, especially grandparents. Each person in this system has certain rights and obligations as a result of his or her position in the family structure. Furthermore, a person may occupy several positions at the same time. For example, an 18-year-old woman may simultaneously be a daughter, a sister, a cousin, an aunt, and a granddaughter. Each role entails different rights and obligations. As a daughter, the young woman may have to defer to certain decisions of her parents; as a sister, to share her bedroom; as a cousin, to attend a wedding; and as a granddaughter, to visit her grandparents during the holidays” (Strong, Devault, and Cohen 2011:19).
• “The results suggest that when municipal-led gentrification programs privilege families, they are based on prior beliefs about the economic and social roles that families play in neighborhoods. Thus, we should expect policies that emphasize familification—the process of neighborhood change by families moving in—to be an increasingly common approach in cities where the nuclear family is symbolically significant in the local culture” (Goodsell 2013:862).
• “When male-headed nuclear families are uncritically accepted as normative (by native informants as well as anthropologists, who are usually also native informants), all other kinship patterns are relegated to a lower status as extensions of or exceptions to the rule. Yet, we know that “fictive kinship” and extended matrifocality are crucial to the survival and reproduction of some kinship systems. Among Afro-Americans, for example, friends are often turned into brothers, sisters, aunts, and cousins, a tactic that increases social solidarity under conditions of economic and social fragmentation. And a pattern of “informal matrifocality” is now emerging throughout the American class structure among the rapidly increasing  population of women and children living without males in  their households” (Rapp 2004:124).

Additional Information

• Family and Kinship Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
• Word origin of “nuclear” and “family” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
• Harris, C. C. 1984. The Family and Industrial Society. London: G. Allen & Unwin.
• Ware, Lawrence, Moira Maconachie, Malcolm Williams, Joan Chandler, and Brian Dodgeon. 2007. “Gender Life Course Transitions from the Nuclear Family in England and Wales 1981–2001.” Sociological Research Online 12(4):1–12. doi:10.5153/sro.1544.

Related Terms

• extended family
• family
• family life cycle
• family of orientation
• family of procreation
• fictive kin
• individual
• marriage

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References

Goodsell, Todd L. 2013. “Familification: Family, Neighborhood Change, and Housing Policy.” Housing Studies 28(6):845–68.

Rapp, Rayna. 1987. “Toward a Nuclear Freeze?: The Gender Politics of Euro-American Kinship Analysis,” Pp. 119–31 in Gender and Kinship: Essays toward a Unified Analysis, edited by J. F. Collier, S. J. Yanagisako, and M. Bloch. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

Strong, Bryan, Christine DeVault, and Theodore F. Cohen. 2011. The Marriage and Family Experience: Intimate Relationships in a Changing Society. 11th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning.

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Cite the Definition of Nuclear Family

ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “nuclear family.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved June 5, 2023 (https://sociologydictionary.org/nuclear-family/).

APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)

nuclear family. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/nuclear-family/

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “nuclear family.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed June 5, 2023. https://sociologydictionary.org/nuclear-family/.

MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)

“nuclear family.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 5 Jun. 2023. <https://sociologydictionary.org/nuclear-family/>.