The American Family

50 years of change

Change…The American family has

undergone tremendous change in the last 50 years.

Some argue that family life has seriously deteriorated.

Others view family life as diverse, resilient and adaptive to change.

Causes of changesEconomyMale/female roles Civil rightsCultural attitudesImprovements in health and

longevity

Economic Influences Consider the life of a young woman reaching

adulthood in the 1950s or early 1960s. Such a woman was likely to marry straight out of high school or to take a clerical or retail sales job until she married. She would have moved out of her parents' home only after she married, to form a new household with her husband. This young woman was likely to marry by age 20 and begin a family soon after. If she was working when she became pregnant, she would probably have quit her job and stayed home to care for her children while her husband had a steady job that paid enough to support the entire family.

Economic Influences, cont.

In the early 00’s, a young woman is not likely to marry before her 25th birthday. She will probably attend college and is likely to live by herself or with roommates before marrying. She may move in and out of her parents' house several times before she gets married. She is likely to marry and have at least one child, but the sequence of those events may be reversed. She probably will not drop out of the labor force after she has children, although she may curtail the number of hours she is employed to balance work and family. She is also much more likely to divorce and possibly even to remarry compared with a young woman in the 1950s or 1960s.

Economics Influences, cont.

In the 1970’s, changes in the economy (unemployment, recession) moved both parents into the labor force, creating a need for child care.

Success in the labor market became more dependent on education. Attaining this education increased the number of “singles” and moved the age of marrying and having children higher.

Male/Female Roles Families today have increasingly equal roles

for men and women. The traditional, gender-based organization of

home life (in which mothers have primary responsibility for care of the home and children, and fathers provide financial support) has not disappeared, but women today can expect to be employed while raising children, and men will likely be called upon to share in childrearing and household tasks.

Dual-Income Family Cultural attitudes are adapting accordingly. Sixty-two percent of the public, and 72 percent of adults under 30, view the ideal marriage as one in which husband and wife both work and share child care and household duties; back when Jimmy Carter was president, less than half of the population approved of the dual-income family, and less than half of 1 percent of husbands knew how to operate a sponge mop.

Working Women The share of mothers employed full or part time has quadrupled since the 1950s and today accounts for nearly three-quarters of women with children at home. The number of women who are their families’ sole or primary breadwinner also has soared, to 40 percent today from 11 percent in 1960.

Fewer Marriages By 2000, 22 percent of adult white women and 42 percent of adult black women had never married.

Single-parent-plus-children households are on the rise. As late as 1960, at the height of the Baby Boom, married families made up almost three-quarters of all households; but by the census of 2000 they accounted for just 53 percent of them, a decline that seems to have continued in the past few years.

Status of Same-Sex Marriage

Same-sex marriage is legally recognized in some jurisdictions within the United States and by the federal government. Seventeen states[a] and the District of Columbia have legalized same-sex marriage.

Public Opinion on Gay Marriage

A Washington Post/ABC News poll from February–March 2014 found a record high of 59% of Americans approve of same-sex marriage, with only 34% opposed and 7% with no opinion. The poll also revealed that 53% of the population in the States that currently do not allow same-sex couples to marry approve of same-sex marriage.

Civil RightsAfter 1960, with the civil rights movement and

women's liberation movement, women and minorities gained legal protections in the workplace and discriminatory practices began to recede.

Attitudes toward family behaviors also changed. People became more accepting of divorce, cohabitation, and more tolerant of changed gender roles and of mothers working outside the home.

Society became more accepting of a variety of family configurations and lifestyles.

Cultural ChangesIn the 1960’s and 70’s societal attitudes

stressed personal freedom, self-fulfillment, and individual choice in family commitments.

People began to expect more out of marriage and to leave bad marriages if their expectations were not fulfilled.

Such cultural changes led to later marriage and more divorce.

Health and Longevity For Americans born in 1900, the average life

expectancy was just below 50 years. Early decades of the 20th century brought such

tremendous advances in the control of communicable diseases of childhood that life expectancy at birth increased to 70 years by 1960.

By 1998, life expectancy at birth was nearly 77 years. An American woman who reached age 65 in 1998 could expect to live an additional 19 years, on average, and a 65-year-old man would live another 16 years.

Health and Longevity, cont. Increased life expectancy means extended

years spent in family relationships. Today’s couples are much less likely to

experience the death of one spouse early in their older years.

All family members today have more years together as adults now than they did during the early 1900s. Mothers and daughters spend nearly two-thirds of their years together as adults.

Siblings will spend more of their relationship as adults than when life expectancy was shorter.

Health and Longevity, cont.

Longer lives (along with lower birth rates) mean people spend a smaller portion of their lives parenting young children.

More parents live long enough to be part of their grandchildren's and even great grandchildren's lives.

Adults often are faced with caring for extremely elderly parents about the time they are beginning to experience their own health difficulties.

Family Planning

Wide availability of contraception.Roe v. Wade in 1973 ensures that women

can have abortions and connects the ruling to the right to privacy in the 14th amendment. This effectively blocks many state restrictions on abortions.

Declining Birth Rates

The nation’s birthrate today is half what it was in 1960, and last year hit its lowest point ever. At the end of the baby boom, in 1964, 36 percent of all Americans were under 18 years old; last year, children accounted for just 23.5 percent of the population, and the proportion is dropping, to a projected 21 percent by 2050.

Declining Birth Rates (Cont.)

The national fertility total currently barely reaches its replacement level; fluctuated between 2.0 and 2.1 children per woman over the past quarter century; by 2000 non-Hispanic white women were averaging just 1.8 children. Among all groups it was only the Hispanic women—who are at a total fertility rate of 2.5 children—who are above the replacement level.

Fewer Women Reproducing

Fewer women are becoming mothers — about 80 percent of those of childbearing age today versus 90 percent in the 1970s — and those who reproduce do so more sparingly, averaging two children apiece now, compared with three in the 1970s.

Higher Child Costs

According to the Department of Agriculture, the average middle-class couple will spend $241,080 to raise a child to age 18. Factor in four years of college and maybe graduate school, or a parentally subsidized internship with the local theater company, and say hello to your million-dollar bundle of joy.

Fewer Married Mothers

As steep as the fertility decline has been, the marriage rate has fallen more sharply, particularly among young women, who do most of the nation’s childbearing. As a result, 41 percent of babies are now born out of wedlock, a fourfold increase since 1970.

Declining Birth Rates

The nation’s birthrate today is half what it was in 1960, and last year hit its lowest point ever. At the end of the baby boom, in 1964, 36 percent of all Americans were under 18 years old; last year, children accounted for just 23.5 percent of the population, and the proportion is dropping, to a projected 21 percent by 2050.

Health and Longevity, cont.

Longer lives (along with lower birth rates) mean people spend a smaller portion of their lives parenting young children.

More parents live long enough to be part of their grandchildren's and even great grandchildren's lives.

Adults often are faced with caring for extremely elderly parents about the time they are beginning to experience their own health difficulties.

Conclusions?Recent years have seen a

quieting of changes in the family, or at least of the pace of change

Family life is still evolving—and new norms may be emerging about the concept of “family”.

RESOURCES

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/26/health/families.html?_r=0

“American Families” Suzanne M. Bianchi and Lynne M. Casper Population Bulletin, Vol. 55, No. 4, Dec. 2000 http://www.ameristat.org/Content/NavigationMe

nu/PRB/AboutPRB/Popluation_Bulletin2/American_Families.htm