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Life in America
BREAKUP OF THE FAMILY
Can we reverse the trend?
“What is needed is anew social movement that stresses a lasting,
monogamous, heterosexual relationship which includes the procreation of
children”
By David Popenoe
1
2
As a social institution, the family
has been "in decline" since the
beginning of world history. It
gradually has been becoming weaker
through losing social functions and
power to other institutions such as
church, government, and school. Yet,
during the past 25 years, family decline
in the U.S., as in other industrialized
societies, has been both steeper and
more alarming than during any other
quarter century in our history.
Although they may not use the term
decline, most scholars now agree
though for many this represents a
recent change of viewpoint -- that the
family has undergone a social
transformation during this period.
Some see "dramatic and unparalleled
changes," while others call it "a
veritable revolution."
I believe, in short, that we are
witnessing the end of an epoch.
Today's societal trends are bringing to
a close the cultural dominance of the
traditional nuclear family -- one
situated apart from both the larger kin
group and the workplace, and focused
on procreation. It consists of a legal,
lifelong, sexually exclusive,
heterosexual, monogamous marriage,
based on affection and companionship,
in which there is a sharp division of
labor (separate spheres), with the
female as full-time housewife and the
male as a primary provider and
ultimate authority, Lasting for only a
little more than a century, this family
form emphasized the male as "good
provider," the female as "good wife
and mother, " and the paramount
importance of the family for
childbearing. (Of course, not all
families were able to live up to these
cultural ideals.) During its heyday, the
terms family, home, and mother ranked
extraordinarily high in the hierarchy of
cultural values.
3
In certain respects, this family
form reached its apogee in the middle
of the 20th century. By the 1950's -fueled in part by falling maternal and
child mortality rates, greater longevity,
and a high marriage rate -- a larger
percentage of children than ever before
were growing up in stable, two-parent
families. Similarly, this period
witnessed the highest-ever proportion
of women who married, bore children,
and lived jointly with their husbands
'until at least age 50.
4
In the 1960's, however, four
major social trends emerged to signal a
widespread "flight" from both the ideal
and the reality of the traditional nuclear
family: rapid fertility decline, the
sexual revolution, the movement of
mothers into the labor force, and the
upsurge in divorce. None of these
changes was new to the 1960's; each
represents a tendency that already was
in evidence in earlier years. What
happened in the 1950's was a striking
acceleration of the trends, made more
dramatic by the fact that, during the
1960's they had leveled off and, in
some cases, even reversed direction.
5
First, fertility declined in the U.S.
by almost 50% between 1960 and
1989, from an average of 3 children
per woman to only 1.9. Although
births have been diminishing gradually
for several centuries (the main
exception being the two decades
following World War II), the level of
fertility during the past decade was the
lowest in U.S. history and below that
necessary for the replacement of the
population.
6
A growing dissatisfaction with
parenthood is now evident among
adults in our culture, along with a
dramatic decrease in the stigma
associated with childlessness. Some
demographers predict that 20-25% of
today's young women will remain
completely childless, and nearly 50%
will be either childless or have only
one offspring.
7
Second, the sexual revolution has
shattered the association of sex and
reproduction, The erotic has become a
necessary ingredient of personal wellbeing and fulfillment, both in and
outside of marriage, as well as a highly
remarkable commodity. The greatest
change has been in the area of
premarital sex. From 1971 to 1982
alone, the proportion of unmarried
females in the U.S, aged 15-19 who
engaged in premarital sexual
intercourse jumped up from 28 to 44%.
This behavior reflects a widespread
change in values; in 1967, 85% of
Americans condemned premarital sex
as morally wrong, compared to 37% in
1979.
8
The sexual revolution has been a
major contributor to the striking
increase in unwed parenthood.
Nonmarital births jumped from five
percent of all births in 1960 (22% of
black births) to 22% in 1985 (9,0% of
black births). This is the highest rate of
nonmarital births ever recorded in the
U. S.
9
Third, although unmarried
women long have been in the labor
force, the past quarter century have
witnessed a striking movement into the
paid work world of married women
with children. In 1960, only 1 9% of
married women with children under
the age of six were in the labor force
(39% with children between 6 and 17);
by 1986, this figure had climbed to
54% (68% of those with older
children).
10
Fourth, the divorce rate In the
U.S. over the past 25 years (as
measured by the number of divorced
persons per 1,000 married persons) has
practically quadrupled, going from 35
to 130. This has led many to refer to a
divorce revolution. The probability that
a marriage contracted today will end in
divorce ranges from 44 to 66%,
depending upon the method of
calculation.
11
These trends signal a widespread
retreat from the traditional nuclear
family in its dimensions of a lifelong,
sexually exclusive unit, focused on
children, with a division of labor
between husband and wife. Unlike
most previous changes, which reduced
family functions and diminished the
importance of the kin group, that of the
past 25 years has tended to break up
the nucleus of the family unit -the bond
between husband and wife. Nuclear
units, therefore, are losing ground to
single- parent households, serial and
step- families, and unmarried and
homosexual couples.
12
The number of single-parent
families, for example, has grown
sharply -the result not only of marital
breakup, but also of marriage decline
(fewer persons who bear children are
13
14
getting married) and widespread male
abandonment. In 1960, only nine
percent of U.S. children under 18 were
living with a lone parent; by 1986, this
figure had climbed to nearly onequarter of all children. (The
comparable figures for blacks are 22
and 53%.) Of children born during
1950-54, only 19% of whites (48% of
blacks) had lived in a single-parent
household by the time they reached age
17. For children born in 1990,
however, the figure is projected to be
70% (94% for blacks).
The psychological character of
the marital relationship also has
changed substantially over the years.
Traditionally, marriage has been
understood as a social obligation -- an
institution designed mainly for
economic security and procreation.
Today, marriage is understood mainly
as a path toward self-fulfillment. One's
self development is seen to require a
significant other, and marital partners
are picked primarily to be personal
companions. Put another way,
marriage is becoming
deinstitutionalized. No longer
comprising a set of norms and social
obligations that are enforced widely,
marriage today is a voluntary
relationship that individuals can make
and break at will. As one indicator of
this shift, laws regulating marriage and
divorce have become increasingly
more lax.
As psychological expectations
for marriage grow ever higher, dashed
expectations for personal fulfillment
fuel our society's high divorce rate.
Divorce also feeds upon itself: With
more divorce, the more "normal" it
becomes, with fewer negative
sanctions to oppose it and more
potential partners available. In general,
psychological need, in and of itself, has
proved to be a weak basis for stable
marriage.
15
Trends such as these have
dramatically reshaped people's
longtime connectedness to the
institution of the family. Broadly
speaking, the institution of the family
has weakened substantially over the
past quarter-century in a number of
respects. Individual members have
become more autonomous and less
bound by the group, and the latter has
become less cohesive. Fewer of its
traditional social functions are now
carried out by the family; these have
shifted to other institutions. The family
has grown smaller in size, less stable,
and with a shorter life span; people are,
therefore, family members for a
smaller percentage of their lives. The
proportion of an average person's
adulthood spent with spouse and
children was 62% in 1960, the highest
in our history. Today, it has dropped to
a low of 43%.
16
The outcome of these trends is
that people have become less willing to
invest time, money, and energy in
family life. It is the individual, not the
family unit, in whom the main
investments increasingly are made.
17
These trends are all evident, in
varying degrees, in every industrialized
Western society. This suggests that
their source lies not in particular
political or economic systems, but in a
broad cultural shift that has
accompanied industrialization and
urbanization. In these societies, there
clearly has emerged an ethos of radical
individualism in which personal
autonomy, individual rights, and social
equality have gained supremacy as
cultural ideals. In keeping with these
ideals, the main goals of personal
behavior have shifted from
commitment to social units of all kinds
(families, communities, religions,
nations) to personal choices, lifestyle
options, self-fulfillment, and personal
pleasure.
Social consequences
18
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20
How are we to evaluate the social
consequences of recent family decline?
Certainly, one should not jump
immediately to the conclusion that it is
necessarily bad for our society. A great
many positive aspects to the recent
changes stand out as noteworthy.
During this same quarter-century,
women and many minorities clearly
have improved their status and
probably the overall quality of their
lives. Much of women's status gain has
come through their release from family
duties and increased participation in
the labor force. In addition, given the
great emphasis on psychological
criteria for choosing and keeping
marriage partners, it can be argued
persuasively that those marriages today
which do endure are more likely than
ever before to be true companionships
that are emotionally rewarding.
This period also has seen
improved health care and longevity, as
well as widespread economic affluence
that has produced, for most people, a
material standard of living that is
historically unprecedented. Some of
this improvement is due to the fact that
people no longer are dependent on
their families for health care and
economic support or imprisoned by
social class and family obligation.
When in need, they can now rely more
on public care and support, as well as
self-initiative and self- development.
Despite these positive aspects,
the negative consequences of family
decline are real and profound. The
greatest negative effect of recent
trends, in theopinion of nearly
everyone, is on children. Because they
represent the future of a society, any
negative consequences for them are
especially significant. There is
substantial, if not conclusive, evidence
that, partly due to family changes, the
quality of life for children in the past
25 years has worsened. Much of the
problem is of a psychological nature,
and thus difficult to measure
quantitatively.
21
Perhaps the most serious problem
is a weakening of the fundamental
assumption that children are to be
loved and valued at the highest level of
priority. The general disinvestment in
family life that has occur- red has
commonly meant a disinvestment in
children's welfare. Some refer to this as
a national "parent deficit." Yet, the
deficit goes well beyond parents to
encompass an increasingly less childfriendly society.
22
The parent deficit is blamed all
too easily on newly working women.
Yet, it is men who have left the
parenting scene in large numbers.
More than ever before, fathers are
denying paternity, avoiding their
parental obligations, and absent from
home. (At the same time, there has
been a slow, but not offsetting, growth
of the "house- father" role.)
23
The breakup of the nuclear unit
has been the focus of much concern.
Virtually every child desires two
biological parents for life, and
substantial evidence exists that childrearing is more successful when it
involves two parents, both of whom
are strongly motivated to the task. This
is not to say that other family forms
cannot be successful, only that, as a
group, they are not as likely to be so.
This also is not to claim that the two
strongly motivated parents must be
organized in the patriarchal and
separate-sphere terms of the traditional
nuclear family.
24
Regardless of family form, there
has been a significant change over the
past quarter-century in what can be
called the social ecology of childhood.
Advanced societies are moving ever
further from what many hold to be a
highly desirable child-rearing
environment, one consisting of a
relatively large family that does a lot of
things together, has many routines and
traditions and provides a great deal of
quality contact time between adults
and children; regular contact with
relatives, active neighboring in a
supportive neighborhood, and contact
with the adult world of work; little
concern on the part of children that
their parents will break up; and the
coming together of all these
ingredients in the development of a
rich family subculture that has lasting
meaning and strongly promulgates
such values as cooperation and sharing.
Agendas for change
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27
What should be done to
counteract or remedy the negative
effects of family decline? This is the
most controversial question of all, and
the most difficult to answer. Among
the agendas for change that have been
put forth, two extremes stand out as
particularly prominent in the national
debate. The first is a return to the
structure of the traditional nuclear
family characteristic of the 1950's; the
second is the development of extensive
governmental policies.
Aside from the fact that it
probably is impossible to return to a
situation of an earlier time, the first
alternative has major drawbacks. It
would require many women to leave
the workforce and, to some extent,
become "de-liberated," an unlikely
occurrence indeed. Economic
conditions necessitate that even more
women take jobs, and cultural
conditions stress ever greater equality
between the sexes.
In addition to such
considerations, the traditional nuclear
family form, in today's world, may be
fundamentally flawed. As an indication
of this, one should realize that the
young people who led the
transformation of the family during the
1960's and 1970's were brought up in
1950's households. If the 1950's
families were so wonderful, why didn't
their children seek to emulate them? In
hindsight, the 1950's seem to have
been beset with problems that went
well beyond patriarchy and separate
spheres. For many families, the
mother-child unit has become
increasingly isolated from the kin
group, the neighborhood and
community, and even from the father,
who worked a long distance away.
This was especially true for women
who were fully educated and eager to
take their place in work and public life.
Maternal childrearing under these
historically unprecedented
circumstances became highly
problematic.
28
Despite such difficulties, the
traditional nuclear family is still the
one of choice for millions of
Americans. They are comfortable with
it, and for them it seems to work. It is
reasonable, therefore, at least not to
place roadblocks in the way of couples
with children who wish to conduct
their lives according to the traditional
family's dictates. Women who freely
desire to spend much of their lives as
mothers and housewives, outside of the
labor force, should not be penalized
economically by public policy for
making that choice. Nor should they be
denigrated by our culture as secondclass citizens.
29
The second major proposal for
change that has been stressed in
national debate is the development of
extensive governmental programs
offering monetary support and social
services for families, especially the
new "non-nuclear" ones. In some
cases, these programs assist with
functions these families are unable to
perform adequately; in others, the
functions are taken over, transforming
them from family to public
responsibilities. This is the path
30
31
followed by the European welfare
states, but it has been less accepted by
the U.S. than by any other
industrialized nation. The European
welfare states have been far more
successful than the U.S. in minimizing
the negative economic impact of
family decline, especially on children.
In addition, many European nations
have established policies making it
much easier for women (and
increasingly men) to combine work
with childrearing. With these successes
in mind, it seems inevitable that the
U.S. will (and I believe should) move
gradually in the European direction
with respect to family policies, just as
we are now moving gradually in that
direction with respect to medical care.
There are clear drawbacks,
however, in moving too far down this
road. If children are to be served best,
we should seek to make the family
stronger, not to replace it. At the same
time that welfare states are minimizing
some of the consequences of decline,
they also may be causing further
breakup of the family unit. This
phenomenon can be witnessed today in
Sweden, where the institution of the
family probably has grown weaker
than anywhere else in the world. On a
lesser scale, it has been seen in the
U.S. in connection with our welfare
programs. Fundamental to successful
welfare state programs, therefore, is
keeping uppermost in mind that the
ultimate goal is to strengthen families.
While each of the above
alternatives has some merit, I suggest a
third one. It is premised on the fact that
we cannot return to the 1950's family,
nor can we depend on the welfare state
for a solution. Instead, we should strike
at the heart of the cultural shift that has
occurred, point up its negative aspects,
and seek to reinvigorate the cultural
ideals of family, parents and children
within the changed circumstances of
our time. We should stress that the
individualistic ethos has gone too far,
that children are getting woefully
short-changed, and that, over the long
run, strong families represent the best
path toward self-fulfillment and
personal happiness. We should bring
again to the cultural forefront the old
ideal of parents living together and
sharing responsibility for their children
and each other.
32
What is needed is a new social
movement whose purpose is the
promotion of families and their value
within the new constraints of modern
life. It should point out the supreme
importance to society of strong
families, while at the same time
suggesting ways they can adapt better
to the modern conditions of
individualism, equality, and the labor
force participation of both women and
men. Such a movement could build on
the fact that the overwhelming
majority of young people today still
put forth as their major life goal a
lasting, monogamous, heterosexual
relationship which includes the
procreation of children. It is reasonable
to suppose that this goal is so pervasive
because it is based on a deep-seated
human need.
33
The time seems right to reassert
that strong families concerned with the
needs of children are not only possible,
but necessary.