The Decline of the American Family( 1960-1990): A Review and Evaluation
The problem of family decline in America is still a matter of discussion in academic circles. Authors of the recently published publications adhere to the habitual position for many: the decline of the family is a myth, the family is only changing.
My opinion is exactly the opposite: I see the decline of the family and I think it's time to sound the alarm, especially if you pay attention to the consequences for the children. In today's discussions, it often goes unnoticed that the decline of a recent family is a completely new phenomenon - an extraordinary and extremely serious one. At the beginning of the XX century.widespread belief was that the reproductive function of the family would reach full realization and would indicate the nature of our era. For example, the famous Swedish feminist Ellen Kee published the book "The Age of the Child", in which she claimed that in the 20th century,attention will be focused on the rights of children and, most importantly, on the right of the child to have a happy and reliable home and loving parents. American historian Arthur W. Calhoun turned to this topic in the first serious "History of the American Family", published in 1917-1919."In general, it is undeniable that America has entered the" age of the child "... As it should be in a civilization with a great future, the child becomes the center of life."
By the middle of the century, more than in any other period of history, some American children grew up in strong families with two parents.
But since the 1950s. The situation regarding children, having moved to the periphery of national attention, has worsened. Over the past 30 years, with great speed, we are moving away from the family and the culture that puts the child at the center of life. At the end of XX century.it became clear that the early forecasters were far from the truth.
A sudden and rapid change in the situation with regard to family and children, which began in the 1960s, caught many researchers unawares. At present, differing in the evaluation of social consequences, scientists of different ideological trends view this change as important and profound. According to liberal authors, since the 1960s. Americans are witnessing acute problems affecting the very essence of the forms, ideals and role expectations that were inherent in the family over the past century and a half. They are echoed by conservative researchers: "Social commitments and principles that guided the behavior of the American nation for centuries were thrown back with carelessness, which is staggering."
How did the family in America change over the past 30 years? Below, I propose an answer to this question with the help of the latest statistics and recent sociological surveys. The presented data compare the family situation in the late 1980s - early 1990s.with the situation in the late 1950s - early 1960s. I affirm: the data indicate that during this period there was an unprecedented decline of the family as a social institution. Families have lost their functions, social power and power over their members. They decreased in size, they lost stability, their life time decreased. People have become less willing to invest time, money and energy in family life, preferring to spend it all on themselves. Moreover, in American society and culture there has been a weakening of the concentration of attention to children and the family. The value of surnames as a cultural value has diminished.
What exactly is the institutional essence of a family that is in decline? Before answering this question, it is necessary to make a reservation. In recent years, the term "family" has been used in such vague senses that an explanation of its use is of particular importance. Alas, but the term "family" took an almost opposite meaning. For example, according to some, the concept of "family" should extend not only to the traditional family, but also to the homosexual couple living together. Discussions about the essence of the family continue today in classrooms, conferences and legislative institutions throughout the country.
Family is something "good".The problem lies in the fact that we all want to be involved in this "good".That's why the concept of "family" has become a concept of "sponge" with many meanings: it can be attached to two friends living together, to people working in the office, to the local mafia group and to the family of the whole human race. I want to limit this term to its most common meaning of a home group, in which people usually live together in a house and act as a unified whole, which is manifested in the division of economic resources and domestic activities.
Within this meaning, I do not use the term "family" solely for parents and children. I define the family as a relatively small home group of relatives( or people who are in relationships similar to relatives), consisting of at least one adult member and one dependent. This definition is intended for an intergenerational community, which includes( or once included) children or adults suffering from some kind of defect, sick, elderly and other dependents. It is also intended for single parent families, pivotal families, unregistered couples, homosexual unions and all other types of families if they have dependents.
The proposed definition is not universal and can not satisfy everyone. Undoubtedly, someone will want me to include a married couple in it without dependents. But it is important to distinguish between simply intimate relationships between adults( their duration does not matter) from the group that arises when there are children or other dependents;This significant point is missed by researchers who define the family as socially conditioned relationships. Conservatives will bemoaning the fact that the focus is not the traditional nuclear family. Liberals will object to the concentrated definition of the home group, arguing that parents should not live together. And there is a fear that the definition is not wide enough to include many family forms known in other cultures, for example consisting of several related groups living under the same roof in a complex household. However, if the definition is very broad, it will be less significant. A home group of relatives is what most people understand by family.
The home group of relatives should be considered as a group performing certain functions for the society. These functions, as chewed in almost every textbook on marriage and family, include: the birth and socialization of children, the provision of family members with work and attention, the sharing of economic resources, especially shelter, food and clothing, sexual regulation.
If the institution of the family decays - this means that family related groups do not perform those functions that satisfy the corresponding social needs. Consider the changes in the American family over the past three decades.
Number of Children. Today, the family has fewer children than before, due to the fact that it values children and wants to do more for each child. But at a certain stage of declining fertility the number of children becomes a problem. .
Since the late 50's.the birth of children, installation on children quickly began to lose popularity. In the late 1950's.an average of 3.7 children in all life. Thirty years later, this figure was reduced by almost half: in 1990, the total fertility rate was 1.9 children, which is lower than the figure necessary for the replacement of generations at 2.1 and below the relatively low fertility levels observed in the first half of the century.
This change is associated with a dramatic and perhaps historically unprecedented decline in positive feelings about paternity and maternity. Between 1957 and 1976,the percentage of men considering paternity as the most important value declined from 58 to 44%, and perhaps today this percentage is even lower. Between 1970 and 1983,the proportion of women seeking "to be a mother and raise their children" declined from 53 to 26%.In less than two decades( from 1962 to 1980), the percentage of American mothers who maintained that "all couples should have children" declined by almost half - from 84 to 43%.
Because of these values, the proportion of children in the population has decreased: if in 1960, children under 18 years of age accounted for more than one third of the population, their number has now fallen to one-fourth. However, this can not be a cause for concern about the beginning of depopulation in America: the growth of our population is mainly due to immigration, and new immigrants are prone to more childhood than the indigenous population. At the same time, the continuing decline in the number of children in the family and in the population structure is largely due to the inadequate attention of our society to children and the sociocultural depreciation of children in the overall picture of life.
Married roles. First, the roles of husband and wife, inherent in the traditional nuclear family, have changed. The cultural ideal - the division of spheres in which women are housewives, wives-mothers, and husbands - breadwinners of the family, - today is actually over. In 1960, 42% of all families had a single breadwinner. By 1988, this number had been reduced to 15%.According to a recent study, 79% of American adults believe that "two wages are needed to support a family today."And only 27% would prefer to return to a family with "one parent, constantly engaged with children."In 1960, only 19% of married women( who had husbands) with children under the age of 6 were employed fully or partially or were looking for work. By 1990, this figure was 59%.Overall, in 1990, women's employment was 57%, compared to 38% in 1960. It should be noted that between 1960 and 1988, the proportion of men aged 65 and older among the workforce declined from 33 to 16%.at the age of 55-64 years - from 87 to 67%.)
The structure of the family and the breakdown of marriage. Our society, abandoning the role of the wife in the traditional nuclear family, shakes the main core of the family - the parents who stay together all their life. In other words, we not only reject the traditional family, but the family itself in general - we splash out the child together with the water. Although the two tendencies do not necessarily have a causal relationship, they have been associated for a while with each other. In 1960, 88% of children lived with two parents, in 1989 - only 73%.In 1960, 73% of all children lived with their own parents who were in their first marriage, in 1990 - 56%.
The type of family that has replaced the traditional family is a single family. Recently, the number of single-parent families is growing rapidly( almost 90% of them are headed by women).In 1960, only 9% of all children lived with one parent. By 1990, the number of children living with one parent had jumped to 24%.
One of the main factors contributing to the growth of the number of families with one parent is the growing number of divorces and the attitude towards divorce as an ordinary event.
8 1960 in the United States for 1000 existing marriages, there were 9 divorces, in 1987 - 21. In 1960, the ratio of the number, divorced and married was 35. By 1988, this figure rose to 133.
For women, the probability of divorcegrew from 20% in 1960 to 45% in 1980. Some researchers believe that the probability of disintegration of the first marriages concluded today is 60%.
In 1900, only 2% of children lived with a divorced parent and 3.4% with a parent who was never married. In 1974, for the first time in American history, the number of marriages ending in divorce exceeded the number of marriages that ended as a result of the death of one of the spouses. According to the 1980s, marriages that broke up due to the death of one of the spouses accounted for 22% of the marriages that disbanded as a result of the divorce.
Today, children are only an unimportant deterrent in divorce.
The proportion of people who disagree with the fact that "when there are children in the family, parents should stay together even if they do not get along", increased from 51 in 1962 to 82% in 1985.
Another reason for the growing number of familiessingle parents - an increase in the number of extramarital births. In 1960, only 5% of all births occurred in unmarried mothers( 22% of blacks).In 1990, the figure reached 24%( 62% for Blacks).This is the highest national level of extramarital births ever recorded in the United States. Since children from broken families, compared to children from strong families, are much more likely to create an unstable marriage, the future in this regard is not very encouraging.
Marriage. The widespread "postponement" of marriage is another significant change in the modern family. At the average age at first marriage at 24.1, young women in 1991 were married, almost four years older than their mothers( the average age of the first marriage in 1960 was 20.3).Thus, from 1960 to 1990, the proportion of women aged 20 to 24 who were never married has more than doubled - from 28.4 to 62.8%, for women from 25 to 29, the growth is even higher - from 10, 5 to 31.1%.
A further decrease in the number of marriages is expected. One of the reasons for this is the attitude to the insolvent in marriage that has changed significantly in recent decades. In 1957, 80% of the population agreed with the statement: "If a woman does not marry, then it is sick, neurotic or immoral."By 1978, 25% of the population thought so. Nevertheless, part of the population that intends to marry remains significant - 90%.
But at the same time it is necessary to take into account the change in the nature of the marriage.
Today, marriage is understood as a path to self-realization. Self-realization of one person requires the presence of another, and the partner in marriage is chosen, basically, to be a personal companion. In other words, marriage becomes deinstitutionalized.
Life outside the family."Care" from marriage leads to the growth of independent separate residence before marriage and in extramarital cohabitation. A survey conducted in 1980 showed that 70% of high school students plan to move from their parents' home before marriage. In 1950, only 17% of unmarried women aged after 25 years had their own household, in 1980 - 60%.This trend is maintained and intensified by the unstable situation in the family throughout childhood.
Along with the high divorce rate and the separate residence of the elderly, early departure from home is an important factor underlying the rapid growth of extra-household households and non-family living. Household demographic( housekeeping that is held by him / her, living alone or with one or more people with whom he / she does not have a kinship relationship) accounted for 29% of all households in 1990, compared to 15% in 1960. About 85% of extra-households are made up of only one person.
The number of extramarital cohabitation( or unmarried couples of the opposite sex living together) has increased. In particular, the declining level of marriages is compensated by the increasing level of extramarital cohabitation. Unmarried couples make up a small part of all households( 3.1% in 1990), but their number is growing. In 1990, the number of households of unmarried couples( 2,856,000) increased compared to 1960.(439.000) 6 times. Since the late 60-ies. The number of first marriages preceded by cohabitation increased from 8 to 50%.
It is obvious that a non-family household, being an alternative to family life, contributes to the flight of young people from it. Life before marriage away from home changes attitudes and values of young people, especially women, is not in favor of the family. In-session experience can make it difficult to shift from concentrating on one's own affairs to the needs and desires of other family members( especially children).Cohabitation does not perform well as a trial marriage or a system that prepares for a strong marriage through "screening" of those who, during cohabitation, have discovered that they do not fit together. Most likely, the absence of obligations in the non-family household leads to a lack of commitment in marriage.
Family changes as the decline of the family. Many researchers do not want to admit that the family is in decline. They prefer to talk about "change" leading to "diversity."This may seem like a simple terminological evasion, but in fact it leads to a serious terminological discrepancy.
The problem is not only that the family as an institution is in decline, but also that the special family form - the traditional nuclear family - is in decline. And this is the basis of the ideological conflict. Hegemony of the traditional nuclear family in the 50's.contributed to the emergence of a modern women's movement. Strongly resisting the long dominance of men, as well as eliminating women from the labor market, the women's movement viewed the traditional nuclear family in very negative aspects. Today, most researchers, including myself, share the views of the women's movement in favor of an equal family form and real economic independence for wives. From this point of view, the departure from the traditional nuclear family is regarded as progress, and not as a decline.
Talk about the decline of the family in this context is perceived as an endorsement of the discredited form of the family, in which the woman is subjected to pressure. However, we should not link the scientist, empirically concluded that the family as an institution is in decline, with the ideology of conservatives or feminists.
The weakening of the traditional family form and the weakening of the family as an institution must be different. In the end, theoretically, the family can become a more stable institution, retaining its more equal form. For me, the term "decline" is important, because it best reflects the quality of change, clearly indicating that the family as an institution is weakening. The main reason for this may or may not be the family's departure from the traditional nuclear form, which requires further research. Those who believe that the family is not in decline, logically reasoning, must adhere to one of two positions: either that the family is growing stronger, or that its institutional strength in society remains unchanged. In my opinion, it is very difficult to justify any of these positions, if at all possible.
There are three key dimensions of the institution's strength( sustainability): 1) institutional cohesion, or the influence it has on its members;2) the effectiveness of the implementation of fundamental functions;3) influence in society on other social institutions. The data show that the family as an institution has weakened in all these dimensions.
First, individual members of the family became more independent and less connected group, therefore, the group as a whole became less cohesive. In a strong group, members are closely associated with it and basically follow its norms and values. Families have become weaker, less institutionalized in this regard. With the increase in the number of women in the labor market, for example, the economic interdependence of husbands and wives has greatly weakened. This leads, in general, to the weakening of conjugal unions, measured by the growth of divorces and disunions.
Weaken the bond not only between spouses, but also between parents and children. In the twentieth century, the decline of parental influence and authority is associated with the growing importance of peer groups and the media.
The fact that it is unable to fulfill its basic social functions for the reproduction and socialization of children, sexual regulation and economic cooperation testifies to the institutional decline of the family.
Data on the attenuation of the reproductive function are widely known. A quantitative expression of the ineffectiveness of socialization of children is: the level of absenteeism( absence) of fathers, a reduction in the amount of time that parents spend with their children, an increase in the loneliness of the child and the time spent in school or with peers "on the street."
The decline in family regulation of sexual behavior is a hallmark of the last 30 years. Against the desire of many parents, young people are increasingly entering pre-marital sex, and at an ever younger age. Sexual infidelity among married couples, according to most Americans, is growing.(We will make a reservation: it is difficult to substantiate this statement empirically.)
Such a function of the family as economic cooperation has undergone significant changes. The family increasingly recalls the business partnership between two adults( the number of joint bank accounts is decreasing, the number of marriage contracts is growing).Today, households with children make up only 35% of the total( in 1960 - 49%).Revenues in the majority of households are not allocated to children, as was the case in the family household, when children received certain content.
The third dimension of the institutional decline of the family is its loss of importance in society, influence on other institutions. In connection with the decline of agriculture and the growth of industry, the family lost the importance of the workplace and, with the growth of general education, lost the importance of the school. The state received the greatest profit from the transfer of the functions of the family. In recent years, public services have increasingly taken the family under their control, using strict state laws. The declarations that many of these schools are designed to promote equal treatment of family members, to protect children, etc., should not detract from the fact that the family has lost its power as an institution.
Evidence of family decline is that family life as a cultural value gives way to other values. Familyism is the identification of oneself with the family, devotion to it, mutual assistance, concern for preserving the integrity of the family, subordinating the interests of family members to the interests and well-being of the family group.
Although most Americans are still committed to the family ideal, the profamily influence as a social norm disappears.
I argue that the end result of each of the above trends is not only that the family is de-institutionalized, but also that people stop.give it its due. It is quite clear that in the age of the "I-generation", the individual personality comes first, not the family.
According to many researchers, the institution of the family has been in decline since the days of Adam and Eve. And in almost every era, they mourned the loss of the family, believing that its end is near. Why should we worry too much about the decline of the family in our generation? This question requires an answer.
The decline of the family can be functional and structural. Being once the only and multifunctional institution, the family lost its functions in due course in favor of such institutions as religion, education, work, government. These non-family institutions specializing in specific purposes were considered necessary to ensure effective and correct behavior in human relations. Education and work have become the last functions separated from the family.
In this sense, the decline of the family can be characterized as functional. Since the time of the multifunctional whole, the family has retained only two functions: growing children and providing family members with care and communication.
Moving from functions to structure, it can be noted that the family evolves cyclically. Originally, in the epoch-making epochs, families existed in the form of a nuclear whole, and then gradually evolved into complex units, co-located
of several nuclear families and several generations living together( the so-called "extended family").Today's small nuclear families can be seen as a diminished form of a large and complex family of the past. Structural losses of the family are, apparently, more troubling than functional changes, for most often they are the reason for statements about a structural crisis. The nuclear family becomes too isolated from relatives and left to itself;generations are divided. Those for whom continuity of generations is of great value, this is perceived as a real loss. However, for many, living together with parents( not to mention other relatives) is a problem.
Another structural change caused by the decline of the extended family is a decrease in the authority of the family. Almost everyone who has worried about the demise of the family in the past was a man, the main concern was the man's loss of power in the house. However, the decline of patriarchal power led to the growth of the status of a woman to the status of a citizen with equal rights.
In this sense, the decline of the power of men meant the growth of women's equality. Again, this is the form of family decline that is unlikely to cause concern to most members of society( and many certainly believe that the term "decline" here is highly inappropriate).
But in what case is the decline of the family really a concern? There are two dimensions that suggest that the current decline of the family is extraordinary and menacing. First. The unexpanded nuclear family is collapsing. A nuclear family can be seen as the last remaining of a traditional extended unit: all adult members of the family are divorced, except for two - husband and wife. The nuclear unit is so well-grounded: man, woman and child are an indivisible nucleus, the destruction of which is fraught with serious consequences.
The second. The danger of transferring the functions left behind by the family( raising children and providing family members with care) to other institutions. There are good reasons to believe that the family is the best institution to perform these functions, and if transferred to other institutions it is unlikely that they will be performed just as well.