Revision summary
Urban work favours smaller or differently crowded households. Joint family as process often survives as extra-household kin. Gender ideology lags behind residence change. Class splits the urban family into salaried nuclear and migrant huddle. Yogendra Singh’s modernization of tradition fits better than simple nuclearisation.
Model answer
Copper italics in this answer — like this — are the key facts. Each one is unpacked in the Facts & figures rail.
Introduction
Industrialisation and urbanisation have shrunk many co-resident households and stretched kin across mill, slum, and metro. Family as lineage and duty has changed more slowly than the roof.
Body
Household impact
- Factory and office housing favour smaller conjugal households, which A. M. Shah would count as household change.
- I. P. Desai’s jointness continues as remittance, ritual, and elder duty among split units, a modified extended family.
- Informal industrial labour may crowd kin into slum rooms, which is urbanisation without a suburban nuclear ideal.
Kinship and gender
- Karve’s regional patterns mix in the city; cross-cousin and village exogamy both meet classifieds and caste matrimony sites.
- Leela Dube’s Seed and Earth still organises who inherits the village plot while daughters work in town.
- Age at marriage and some love choice rise, beside dowry inflation.
Class split
- Salaried nuclear homes and migrant joint-like messes are both urban family structures.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD IU[Industry city] --> HH[Smaller or crowded households] IU --> EX[Extended duty remittance] SK[Seed line caste] --> EX
Conclusion
Industry and city change family mainly as household form and as women’s double shift. The Indian family as caste kinship adapts rather than becoming a Western isolate.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Broadly compare the kinship system of North and South India.
Next question on this syllabus topic (2015 · Q2(c)). View answer →
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Did the factory create the nuclear family in India?
It encouraged conjugal residence for some. Caste marriage and natal duty continued.
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Is the village family unchanged?
No. Remittance and missing men change the village household too.
Same topic · past papers
UPSC has asked this before
These previous-year questions sit on the same topic. Open one to practise the earlier ask.
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2025 · Q6(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
Discuss the trend of urbanization in India. Do you think that Industrialization is the only precondition of urbanization? Give you arguments -
2021 · Q3(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Discuss the changing dimensions of family structure in urban India
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Q1(d) · UPSC Mains 2024 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks · Solution
Do you think that family bondings are being affected by the changing kinship patterns in India? Comment.
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