The Changing Family

1
The Changing Family

• Family was traditionally defined as a group of
  people who are related to one another by blood,
  marriage or adoption, live together, form an
  economic unit bear and raise children
• Now families are defined as relationships in
  which people live together with commitment, from
  an economic unit care for any young consider
  the group critical to their identity

2
The Changing Family

• Kinship - a social network of people based on
  common ancestry, marriage or adoption.
• Extended family a family unit composed of
  relatives in addition to parents and children,
  all of whom live in the same household

3
The Changing Family

• Nuclear family a family unit composed of one or
  two parents their dependent children that lives
  apart from other relatives
• 1970s about 40 of families were nuclear
• 2000 23.5 of families are nuclear
• Are U.S. families declining?

4
The Changing Family

• Median age for marriage
• Women 1970s 20.8, 2000 25.1 years
• Men 1970s 23.2, 2000 26.8 years
• Less marriages
• 1950 78 households had a married couple
• 2000 52 households

5
The Changing Family

• Over 50 of marriages are preceded by a period of
  cohabitation
• Single parents households have increased
• For example, the number of single-father
  households increased by 62 between 1990 and 2000

6
The Changing Family

• Worldwide
• Divorce rates are rising
• Unwed mothers are increasing
• Feminization of poverty is increasing
• More women are entering the workforce than ever
  before
• http//www.divorcereform.org

7
The Changing Family

• Monogamy marriage between one woman and one man
• US marriage rate is 9 annually
• Serial monogomy married to several spouses over
  the lifetime but only one spouse at a time

8
The Changing Family

• Functionalist perspective
• Regulates sexual behavior reproduction
• Socializing educating children
• Providing economic psychological support
• Providing social status

9
The Changing Family

• Conflict perspective
• Family problems are caused by inequality within
  the family, the political, social economic
  arenas of society
• http//www.duluth-model.org

10
The Changing Family

• Symbolic interactionist perspective
• People are socialized to accept their societys
  form of the family as the acceptable norm
• Problems in families occur when spouses
  subjective impressions are discordant
• http//www.fivelovelanguages.com/

11
The Changing Family

• Singlehood
• 48.2 million adults have never been married
• Blacks 41 never married
• Latinos 33 never married
• Whites 25 never married

12
The Changing Family

• Among adult women
• Blacks 38 never married
• Latinas 25 never married
• Whites 18 never married

13
The Changing Family

• Research indicates that lower marriage rates
  among Black women are due to
• Black men have higher rates of mortality
• Black women are better educated than Black men
• Black men experience greater discrimination
• Homosexuality is higher in Black men than Black
  women
• Black men, more than Black women, marry members
  of other racial-ethnic groups

14
The Changing Family

• Why are people marrying later in life?
• Economic uncertainty
• Womens increasing participation in the labor
  force
• Sex outside of marriage has become more
  acceptable
• Contraception has improved
• Fear of divorce

15
The Changing Family

• Dual earner marriages
• Over half of all employed women hold full-time,
  year round jobs, an increase
• 2000, 76.6 of all women with a child under three
  were in the paid work force
• 2000, 74.2 of Black women with a child under age
  three were in the paid work force