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In Sum: From this brief review, you can see that race–ethnicity signifies little for under- standing family life. Rather, social class and culture hold the keys. The more resources a fam- ily has, the more it assumes the characteristics of a middle-class nuclear family. Compared with the poor, middle-class families have fewer children and fewer unmarried mothers. They also place greater emphasis on educational achievement and deferred gratification.

One-Parent Families Another indication of how extensively U.S. families are changing is the increase in one- parent families. From Figure 10.7, you can see that the percentage of U.S. children who live with two parents (not necessarily their biological parents) has dropped. The concerns— even alarm—that are often expressed about one-parent families may have more to do with their poverty than with children being reared by one parent. Because women head most one-parent families, these families tend to be poor. Although most divorced women earn less than their former husbands, about 85 percent of children of divorce live with their mothers (Aulette 2002).

To understand the typical one-parent family, then, we need to view it through the lens of poverty, for that is its primary source of strain. The results are serious, not just for these parents and their children but also for society. Children from one- parent families are more likely to have behavioral problems in school, to drop out of school, to get arrested, to have physical health problems, to have emotional prob- lems, and to get divorced (McLanahan and Sandefur 1994; Menaghan et al. 1997; McLanahan and Schwartz 2002; Amato and Cheadle 2005; Wen 2008). If female, they are more likely to have sex at a younger age and to bear children while still un- married teenagers.

Families Without Children While most married women give birth, about one of five do not (Dye 2008). This is double what it was twenty years ago. As you can see from Figure 10.8, childlessness varies by racial–ethnic group, with whites and Latinas representing the extremes. Some couples are infertile, but most childless couples have made a choice to not have children— and they prefer the term childfree rather than childless. Some decide before marriage that they will never have children, often to attain a sense of freedom—to pursue a career, to be able to change jobs, to travel, and to have less stress (Letherby 2002; Koropeckyj-Cox 2007). In many cases, the couple has simply postponed the date they were going to have their first child until either it was too late to have children or it seemed too uncomfort- able to add a child to their lifestyle.

With trends firmly in place—more education and careers for women, advances in contraception, legal abortion, the high cost of rearing children, and an emphasis on pos- sessing more material things—the proportion of women who never bear children is likely to increase. Consider this statement in a newsletter:

We are DINKS (Dual Incomes, No Kids). We are happily married. I am 43; my wife is 42. We have been married for almost twenty years. . . . Our investment strategy has a lot to do with our personal philosophy: “You can have kids—or you can have every- thing else!”

Many couples who are not childless by choice desperately want to have children, and they keep trying to do so. Coming to the soul-wrenching conclusion that they can never bear children, many decide to adopt. Some, in contrast, turn to solutions not avail- able to previous generations, the topic of our Sociology and the New Technology box on the next page.

318 C h a p t e r 1 0 M A R R I A G E A N D F A M I L Y

0

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

85%

1970 1980 1990 2000

78% 72%

69%

2010

70%

The percentage of children under 18 who live with

both parents

*Source: By the author. Based on Statistical Abstract of the United States 1995:Table 79; 2011:Table 69.

FIGURE 10.7 The Decline of Two-Parent Families

W hi te

A m

er ica

ns

La tin

as

25%

20%

15%

10%

5%

0

22.5%

14.4%

Af ric

an A

m er

ica ns

18.1%

As ian

A m

er ica

ns

16.4%

Source: By the author. Based on women ages 40–44 in Dye 2008.

FIGURE 10.8 What Percentage of U.S. Married Women Never Give Birth?