Family Diversity

Legal change

Economic change

Feminism

Technological advances

Immigration

Norms + values

Secularisation

Confluent love - Value individualism - rise in confluent love and freedom in relationships

Pure relationships - relationships that benefit both parties that are ended when they no longer do

Self identity is explored through relationships - rise in serial monogamy - rise in instability

1991 - 2001

marital partnerships = 82% still married

cohabitation = 61% still cohabitating/now married

5 ways modern families are now diverse (CLOGS):

• Cultural diversity - differing cultural values and beliefs (division of labour, secular/not, individualist/not)

• Life stage diversity - stage in family life that a particular family has reached (trad. nuclear family → empty nest family → singledom)

• Organisational diversity - differences in family structure (division of labour)

• Generational diversity - differing norms based on age (number of siblings has decreased)

• Social class diversity - affects resources available to them (division of labour, parenting style/time, latchkey children)

Neo-Conventional Family - dual earner family and joint conjugal roles

Rapoport over exaggerates family diversity (nuclear family still aspired to, most marriages continue until death, cohabitation usually a stepping stone for marriage)

Most people don’t live in an alternative family long-term (divorced people remarry)

47% of children now born outside marriage

1971-2012 - women’s average age of the birth of their first child rose to 28.1 years

1964-2010 - average amount of children 2.95 → 1.94

Predicted that ¼ of women born in 1973 will be childless at 45

• Decline in stigma due to shifts in norms and values

• Increase in cohabitation

• Economic factors - expense of children and marriage

• Legal change - women now work and go to university

Make up 22% of all families with children (~1 in 4)

90%+ = lone-mothers

Pre-1990s largest single mother demographic was divorced mothers. Post 1990s - never married mothers

Lone parent families 2x as likely to be living in poverty

• Decline in stigma

• Increase in divorce due to legal change and decline in stigma

• Secularisation

• Individualism

• Rise in feminism

• Mostly mothers as: courts usually award custody to mothers, men may be less willing to cut back on working to care for the children

Proffessional women were able to supprt their children without the father’s involvement

Account for ~10% of families with dependent children

4% - children form both parents prior marriage

85%- child(ren) form the mothers prior marriage

11% - child(ren) from the fathers prior marriage