• Identify what you consider to be the major changes in family form over the las
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• Identify what you consider to be the major changes in family form over the last fifty years. Compared to fifty years ago, how would you assess the importance of families for people living in the US? Have changes been for the better or not, in your opinion? Why? • Identify what you consider to be the major changes in family form over the last fifty years. Compared to fifty years ago, how would you assess the importance of families for people living in the US? Have changes been for the better or not, in your opinion? Why?Explanation / Answer
The American family has undergone fundamental changes over the last five decades. By definition, a traditional family is a married couple and their child or children. Families back in the day usually had a stay at home mother and a father who usually worked outside of the home. It was common that couples who usually lived together were married. Today, married woman with children have careers outside of their homes, also the father can be the stay at home dad. Some people chose to live as common-law partners instead of getting married, but its pretty much the same thing. The structure of families is also changing, as single parents are becoming the majority. Also, woman and men share the role of head of the family. Blended families are families made up of different races, come together and make a family. They are most common as a result of divorces or separation. Extended families are made up of different generations that live together as a family. Family formation patterns are also changing. Increasingly, both men and women want to first establish themselves in the labour market before founding a family. Hence, the age of mothers at first childbirth has risen and with it the probability of having fewer children than previous generations. Many women remain childless. Birth rates have fallen and life expectancy has increased, so there are fewer children and more grandparents than before. Changing family structures, lower fertility rates and ageing populations have led to a growing share of households without children. Two-parent households are on the decline in the United States as divorce, remarriage and cohabitation are on the rise. And families are smaller now, both due to the growth of single-parent households and the drop in fertility. The last 50 years have seen a dramatic rise in divorce (the U.S. has the highest of any industrialized nation), cohabitation rather than marriage. As a result of these changes, there is no longer one dominant family form in the U.S. Parents today are raising their children against a backdrop of increasingly diverse and, for many, constantly evolving family forms. By contrast, in 1960, the height of the post-World War II baby boom, there was one dominant family form. At that time 73% of all children were living in a family with two married parents in their first marriage. By 1980, 61% of children were living in this type of family, and today less than half (46%) are. The declining share of children living in what is often deemed a “traditional” family has been largely supplanted by the rising shares of children living with single or cohabiting parents. Due to time limit,any remaining questions can be asked as another question,they will be answered,thankyou for your cooperation.
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