Emergent Families in the Global Era

The Rise in New Family Arrangements

Families in Transition

• Distinction between household & family; all families comprise households, but not all households

are families

• The percentage of the U.S. population in family households declined from 85 percent of all

households in 1960 to 68 percent in 2003.

• Nonfamily households (a very diverse group) have increased significantly over the last 40 years

• Fastest growth among persons living alone (doubled from 13% in 1960 to 26% in 2000)

• Another major change is a decline in the percentage of households with children

• currently less than ¼ of households made up of married couples with children; change is

result of later age at marriage & shift toward smaller families; higher proportion of minority

households with children because of age structure & fertility rate

Global Trends, Individual Options, & the Decline of Marriage

• Five global trends in family formation:

• Women’s age of first marriage and first birth has risen, delaying the formation of families.

• Families and households are smaller.

• The rate of female-headed households has increased.

• Working-age parents are increasingly supporting older and younger dependents.

• Women’s labor force participation has increased while men’s has decreased, shifting the

balance of economic responsibility in families.

• Marriage is less central in organizing & controlling life transitions, individual identities, intimate

relations, living arrangements, childbearing, childrearing

• Declining proportions of adults are married; nonmarriage has increased in last three decades

(from 28% of adults in 1970 to 41.4% in 2004)

How to Think about Family Diversification

• Rethinking family categories

• New family types are no more “alternative” to what had preceded them than the 1950s

(traditional) type was to its historical predecessors

• More useful to think of all family forms in their own right with no family structure better than the

others

• The question of life styles

• Social & economic forces in society produce & require diversity in family life; what may seem

like “new lifestyles” of young mainstream elite are the same lifestyles that have previously been

defined as pathological, deviant, or unacceptable.

• Singlehood, heterosexual & homosexual cohabitation, & families separated by time & space

represent adaptations to particular social arrangements & to the times in which we are living

Single Life

“Single” refers to the never married, the divorced, the separated, and the widowed.

• Living alone has increased in all age groups (26% of population)

• 58% are women, 42% are men (faster increase among men)

• Now as many single households as households of married couples with children

• Approximately 10% of young men & women will never marry

The Singles Population

• Very diverse based on age, race, ethnicity, education, occupation, income, parental status,

marital status

• Voluntary stable singles: never married & satisfied, have been married but don’t want to remarry,

cohabitors who don’t intend to marry, lifestyles preclude the possibility of marriage

• Account for most of the increase in singles population

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Emergent Families in the Global Era

The Rise in New Family Arrangements Families in Transition

Distinction between household & family; all families comprise households, but not all households are families
The percentage of the U.S. population in family households declined from 85 percent of all households in 1960 to 68 percent in 2003.
Nonfamily households (a very diverse group) have increased significantly over the last 40 years
- Fastest growth among persons living alone (doubled from 13% in 1960 to 26% in 2000)
Another major change is a decline in the percentage of households with children
- currently less than ¼ of households made up of married couples with children; change is result of later age at marriage & shift toward smaller families; higher proportion of minority households with children because of age structure & fertility rate Global Trends, Individual Options, & the Decline of Marriage
Five global trends in family formation:
- Women’s age of first marriage and first birth has risen, delaying the formation of families.
- Families and households are smaller.
- The rate of female-headed households has increased.
- Working-age parents are increasingly supporting older and younger dependents.
- Women’s labor force participation has increased while men’s has decreased, shifting the balance of economic responsibility in families.
Marriage is less central in organizing & controlling life transitions, individual identities, intimate relations, living arrangements, childbearing, childrearing - Declining proportions of adults are married; nonmarriage has increased in last three decades (from 28% of adults in 1970 to 41.4% in 2004) How to Think about Family Diversification
Rethinking family categories
- New family types are no more “alternative” to what had preceded them than the 1950s (traditional) type was to its historical predecessors
- More useful to think of all family forms in their own right with no family structure better than the others
The question of life styles
- Social & economic forces in society produce & require diversity in family life; what may seem like “new lifestyles” of young mainstream elite are the same lifestyles that have previously been defined as pathological, deviant, or unacceptable.
- Singlehood, heterosexual & homosexual cohabitation, & families separated by time & space represent adaptations to particular social arrangements & to the times in which we are living

Single Life “Single” refers to the never married, the divorced, the separated, and the widowed.

Living alone has increased in all age groups (26% of population)
- 58% are women, 42% are men (faster increase among men)
- Now as many single households as households of married couples with children
- Approximately 10% of young men & women will never marry The Singles Population
Very diverse based on age, race, ethnicity, education, occupation, income, parental status, marital status
Voluntary stable singles: never married & satisfied, have been married but don’t want to remarry, cohabitors who don’t intend to marry, lifestyles preclude the possibility of marriage
- Account for most of the increase in singles population

Increase due to: women’s economic independence, marriage less necessary for happiness, sex outside marriage more acceptable, financial security of marriage undermined by high rates of divorce, social stigma of divorce decreasing Gender, Race & Class
Demographic and cultural factors combine to create a “marriage squeeze” that increases the number of single women over the life course. - The pool of eligible men shrinks as women age, especially for professional women. - In the total single population, women begin to outnumber men by age 35
Proportion of never married has increased for Whites, Blacks, & Hispanics
Long term singlehood is more positive for women than men (education, occupation, mental health) Experiencing Single Life
Although more singles than married persons report loneliness, research shows that many married individuals express loneliness similar to singles.
Unmarried majority in most major cities and six states
Newer singles groups formed for support rather than “matchmaking”

Heterosexual Cohabitation There are about eleven million people living with an unmarried partner in the United States. (9. million straight, 1.2 million gay)

Unmarried partner households increased 72% from 1990 to 2000
60% of all marriages formed in the 1990s began with cohabitation. The Rise of Cohabitation
Change from “morally reprehensible” to majority experience in two decades
- Later age at marriage, prevalence of premarital sex, new living arrangements after divorce & before remarriage, increasing individualism & secularization
- Trends in singlehood & living away from parents
- Lack of confidence in marital stability
- Economic & emotional benefits Who Are Cohabitors?
Cohabitors are no longer a distinct population, but some social characteristics are evident
- Contemporary cohabitors are primarily young adults. (highest rates in 25–34 age range)
- Sizable proportion are divorced (2/3 of cohabiting couples include at least one divorced person)
- Increasing proportion of cohabiting couples with children (2/5 of children spend some time living in cohabiting family during childhood)
Gender, Class, and Race
- Men view it more pragmatically, and women view it more as a step toward long-term commitment.
- Compared to married couples, cohabitors tend to be more egalitarian & have less traditional attitudes toward family life
- More common among those with less education & those with limited economic resources
- Cohabitation has risen in all racial groups
  - Unlike the large racial differences in marriage rates, there are modest racial differences in cohabitation rates: somewhat higher among African Americans & Hispanics than Whites Is Cohabitation a Prelude to Marriage or a Substitute for Marriage?
Both
Implications of cohabitation for marriage
- Cohabitation changes the meaning of “single”. (no longer means unattached living)
- Marriage is now a less specific marker for other transitions (sex, living arrangements, parenting)
- Cohabitation requires a new way of marking those unions that eventually become marriages.
- Premarital “divorces” keep the divorce rate from going even higher.
- Not all cohabitations are part of the marriage process.
Premarital cohabitation is associated with lower marriage quality & higher risk of divorce.

Families Separated by Time and Space Transnational Families

Families that have one partner living & working in one country while the other remains “back home” in the country of origin. (one or more members in the U.S. and one or more members in another country) - Extraordinary emotional, financial, physical stress - “parachute children” migrate for educational opportunities - New immigration pattern for women workers created by globalization - “Transnational motherhood” affects middle class women in receiving nations, migrant domestic workers, Third World women too poor to migrate Commuter Marriages & Other Long Distance Relationships
Spouses or partners maintain separate households as a way of solving problems in dual-career families. - View careers of both spouses as equally important; necessary accommodation rather than choice
Commuter arrangements are largely the result of women’s increased entry into professional occupations and changes in technology and the workplace.
Career & family characteristics influence commuting experience
- Adjusting couples, balancing couples, established couples
Gender
- Wives are more comfortable with the arrangement & tend to evaluate the arrangement less negatively

Emergent Families in the Global Era - American Family Change and Diversity - Lecture Handout, Exercises of Public Sociology

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