Recent Changes in the Family
Increased family diversity
Increasingly families are now found in all sorts of different shapes and sizes - reconstituted (step) families, single parent families, nuclear families, extended families, adoptive families … This is one of the reasons that it is often difficult to define the term “family” and is known as family diversity.
Divorce
Changing social attitudes, increased life expectancy, secularisation, changes in the law and the increased financial and social independence of women are all seen as reasons for a huge rise in the divorce rate over the past 50-100 years. The rise has not been even and, if you look at a graph, you can link some of the changes to social events and legal changes.
The increase in divorce has been one reason for the increase in family diversity in the UK - there are now more Lone parent families and step-families as a result.
Click to find out more about changes in divorce and reasons for divorce.
Marriage, Cohabitation and Childbearing
Over the past 30 years patterns of marriage, cohabitation and childbearing have changed dramatically.� The number of first marriages has dropped overall, the number of second marriages has increased and the number of people cohabiting has increased.� Women are now waiting longer to have children - often wanting to have a career first - and are tending to have fewer children.
Have a look at some of the Changing patterns in the family and reasons for those changes.
Single person Households
There are rapidly increasing numbers of single person households in the UK - they used to be almost entirely made up of elderly people, but increasingly now younger people are choosing to move out of home and live by themselves. This is also linked to the decrease in first marriages and also the later age at which people get married, as this was traditionally when people moved away from home. It can also be linked to the increase in the number of people going to university as this often means that they move away from home.
Test your knowledge of some of the changes in the family.
One Response to 'Recent Changes in the Family'
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
on July 7th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
Hi Ruth
Here are a couple of articles I have used this year for both exams and coursework which students have found both challenging and enlightening.
‘Lost Horizons’ an adaptation of the recent work by Geoff Dench, Kate Gavron and the late Michael Young which can be used for a number of topics including class, race and family, Guardian 8/2/06.
‘When marriage is a crime’ Judith Kneen, Guardian 28/3/06.
‘Champagne,pedicures,and a place in history for the Belfast brides’. Angelique Chrisafis,Guardian 19/12/05.