A Study of Family Typology and Values :An Indian Perspective

The present investigation endeavored to examine the various family typologies of Indian urban upper middle class society. Also, an attempt was made to ascertain the relationship between these family typologies and the values of the youth belonging to these families. For this purpose the study was conducted on around 1000 college students (age range 18-21 years). Out of these, 350 students (Males= 164 and Females= 195 ), belonging to upper middle class socio-economic status families and only to normal cohesive family typology were selected for further study. Results revealed that most of these Indian families emerged to be normal cohesive, though with a trend for altruistic, egoistic and anomic tendencies, respectively, in order of incidence. Clear cut trends were observed from the correlations between the values of the youth and their respective three family typologies (i.e. cohesive- egoistic, cohesive- altruistic and cohesive- anomic). Meaningful gender differences were also observed and were indicative of the present day transient Indian society.