Blended Families- I wil pay $15 not $5

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Chapter 12 Family Life

Tracking the Trends: Family Life

In 2013, about half of all adults were married, the lowest share on record.

There have been corresponding increases for adults who have never married and for those who are divorced.

Q. Do you think that these trends are good for the country or not? Why?

Marital Status, 1960-2013

Married

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2013 0.675560538116592 0.64221810214056974 0.60966711470316137 0.58724770977042939 0.56232750474800486 0.53593723533032844 0.52684949158239736 Never Married

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2013 0.22041960281870596 0.24944547446485762 0.25865670512798139 0.26186044329042252 0.28074508593187197 0.3067296847306516 0.31413044783167199 Divorced

1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2013 2.2533632286995522E-2 2.8882521489971349E-2 5.7581417540919701E-2 7.8876705614907741E-2 9.30000842010 72183E-2 9.8084256363433556E-2 0.10159548286666695

Percentage of Population Age 15 and Older

What is a Family?

Family: The social institution that unites individuals in cooperative groups that care for one another, including any children

Nuclear Family: One or two parents and their children

Extended Family: Parents and children and also grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who often live close to one another and operate as a family unit.

What is a Family?

Families are built around marriage, a lawful relationship usually involving economic cooperation, sexual activity, and childbearing.

People today have a broader and more inclusive idea of what “family” means:

Single parent with a child

Married couple without children

Child being raised by a same-sex couple

Families of affinity

A Sociological Approach to Family Problems

Looks not at the behavior of individuals, but how family is shaped by a society’s standard of living and technology

How patterns of family life are linked to income, education, gender, and race

Living Together: Do We Need to Marry?

Cohabitation: The sharing of a household by an unmarried couple

From 500,000 in 1970 to 6.9 million today

650,000 same-sex couples

6.3 million heterosexual couples

About 6% of all households

In the U.S., 49% of people aged 25 to 44 cohabit at some point in their lives.

Living Together: Do We Need to Marry?

Critics of cohabitation

Less stable setting for raising children

Can put woman and children at risk

Men can lose legal right to raise their children

Supporters of cohabitation

Living together is a private matter

Meets the needs of a diverse society

Pattern of cohabitation

After 3 years, 40% of cohabiting couples marry, 32% continue to cohabit, and 28% split up.

Postponing Marriage

Men and women get married about six years later now than in 1950.

Women, 26.6 years old; men, 29.0 years old

Delaying marriage is a function of:

Spending more time in education

More women in labor force

Birth control technology and legal abortion

Economic conditions/uncertainty

Drop in overall childbearing

More freedom in forming relationships

Parenting: Is One Enough?

In 2013, 1 in 3 families with children under age 18 had just one parent in the household

More than twice the share in 1970

Most people believe children are best served with two parents in the home

Biggest problem is poverty

41% of children living with one parent are poor

More likely to become single parents themselves

Figure 12-1 Child Care Arrangements for Working Mothers

Half of the young children of working mothers receive care from a parent or other relative.

Back to Child Care Slide

Families, Race and Poverty

The Moynihan Report (1965)

African American families

72% of African American children are born to single mothers

47% of families headed by a single African American mother are poor

38% of all African American children grow up in poverty

Families, Race and Poverty

Liberals point out that single-parent families and poverty in the African American community are not so much family problems as they are economic and racial prejudice problems

William Julius Wilson: In a disadvantaged urban “underclass,” there are not enough jobs to allow men and women to support a family.

African American Families: A Closer Look

African American families face more challenges than white families

low income, racial prejudice, and discrimination

Strengths of African American families

Strong kinship bonds

Religious traditions

Multi-generation households

importance of grandmothers

Networks of mutual assistance

Conflict between Work and Family Life

Both parents work for income in 52% of U.S. families.

“Double shift:” women work for pay and do housework

Information Revolution: more people working from home, bringing workplace activities and concerns into the home

Child Care

Most married mothers are working mothers:

54% of those with infants

60% of those with preschoolers

70% of those with school-age children

Figures are higher for single mothers

Child care options depend on income

4.5 million “latchkey children”

U.S. government support for child care is the income tax deduction

To Child Care Chart

Divorce

Today’s divorce rate is four times what it was a century ago.

Figure 12-2 U.S. Divorce Rate, 1890 -- 2011

National Map 12-1 Divorce across the United States

No-Fault Divorce

In all states by 1985

Based on irreconcilable differences

Made divorces easier to obtain; reduced the cases of alimony

Affects family income if woman has fewer workplace skills

Supporters: Treats men and women as equals

Critics: Bring back alimony to help support the ex-partner (typically, the woman) who stayed at home

Too Much Divorce?

In global perspective, U.S. has the highest divorce rate in the world

More than four times higher than “low-divorce” nations such as Italy and Ireland

Figure 12-3 Divorce in Selected Countries

Too Much Divorce?

Conservatives are more critical of the high rate of divorce than liberals.

Divorce suggests a “me first” attitude

Liberals see divorce as a way out of unhappy or abusive marriages

Public is divided:

Is divorce too hard to get?

Sales

Too hard Too easy OK as is No opinion 0.33000000000000007 0.38000000000000006 0.22 7.0000000000000021E-2

Child Support

A cause of high poverty rates among children

$14 billion in child support is not paid

Courts award support to 49% of children

Of these, 57% receive only partial payment or no payment

Child Support

In comparing only non-custodial parents, women are less likely to make support

Function of women earning less than men

1998: Deadbeat Parents Punishment Act

Felony to refuse to provide support payments to a child living in another state

Remarriage: Problems of Blended Families

3 out of 4 people who divorce remarry, most within four years

More than 1/3 of all marriages are remarriages for at least one partner

Blended families: Families in which children live with some combination of biological parents and stepparents

Remarriage: Problems of Blended Families

Blended family problems

Children learn a new social environment

Parent and sibling relationships

Managing relationship with ex-spouse

Stepparent families have high rate of physical and sexual abuse

Greater likelihood for divorce than for couples in first marriages

Gay and Lesbian Families

2004: Massachusetts is first state to allow gay marriage

By 2015: 29 other states, plus D.C.

2013 Census data:

640,000 same-sex couples, 190,000 of which are married couples

1 in 4 couples are parents raising children

Same-sex marriage extends legal rights

hospital visitation, health insurance, child custody

Global Map 12-1 Legal Same-Sex Marriage and

Registered Partnerships in Global Perspective

Same-Sex Parenting

More than 1/3 of people who identify as LGBT have had a child at some point.

6 million U.S. children have an LGBT parent

Public opinion divided on gays raising children

Research shows little difference in parenting effectiveness

Problems due more to stigma than from family form itself

Brave New Families: High-Tech Reproduction

In vitro fertilization: uniting egg and sperm in a laboratory

Expensive; only 176,000 couples a year

Ethical and moral questions related to selection of physical and perhaps mental traits

Surrogate motherhood: One woman carries and bears a child for another

Legal questions over child support

Cultural Lag: scientific discoveries advance more quickly than our ideas about the acceptable ways to use them

Structural-Functional Analysis: Family as Foundation

Family is the most important social unit in society (Murdock, 1949)

Regulate reproduction

Secure setting for socialization

Units of economic cooperation

Provide emotional support to its members

The foundation of a healthy society

Criticism: Overlooks family conflict and violence; families contribute to social inequality

Symbolic-Interaction Analysis: Family and Learning

Family is based on and evolves out of the ongoing interaction among its members

Family plays a role in how we think about ourselves and society

Family life and experience varies from one group and individual to the next

Social-Conflict Analysis: Family and Social Class

Family is structured to benefit some and disadvantage others

Perpetuates capitalism and class inequality:

Engels: As the rich pass their money across generations (and other families transmit poverty), a society’s class system is reproduced in each new generation.

Feminist Analysis: Family and Gender

Family is linked to societal domination of women by men

Men have power when they are heads of households

Household wealth = men’s wealth

Engels: The family turns women into the sexual and economic property of men.

Conservatives: Traditional “Family Values”

The family as the core of a society

Instills basic values

Source of problems stem

from a break with traditional families

Rising divorce and cohabitation

Children are the ones who lose

Liberals: Many Types of Families

Support wide range of family forms

Poverty and domestic violence are the biggest problems

Increase support to families

Child care

Higher minimum wage

Pay women as much as men

The Radical Left: Replace the Family

Family perpetuates social inequality

Creates and maintains class stratification

Perpetuates gender stratification

Pushes same-sex couples to margins of society.

Society should

make child care a collective enterprise.

redefine marriage as equal partnership.