Nuclear Family — on the decline

Nuclear Family — on the decline June 7, 2011

From The Daily:

Who has something to say about these numbers and partial explanations?

For the first time, the percentage of households headed by married couples has dropped below 50 percent, according to 2010 U.S. Census figures released yesterday.

Husbands and wives represented 48.4 percent of all American households, slightly less than 2000 figures, and continuing a decades-long decline in “traditional” families, which in 1950 constituted 78 percent of all households.

Married couples with children under age 18 dropped to 20.2 percent, from 24.1 percent in 2000, and a long way from 40.3 percent in 1970.

The changing face of America’s nuclear family has many causes, and none is simplistic, experts said….“We’re now seeing the implications of the independence that was brought about by the women’s movement. Women are better educated. They’re much more independent and don’t feel they have to get married for financial stability,” said William Frey, a senior demographer at the Brookings Institution.

“The idea of a ‘traditional’ family is a throwback,” Frey told The Daily. “Only one-fifth of all households anymore meet that definition and it just keeps shrinking.”…

Another contributor is hard economic times.

“Non-marriage is more common among lower-income and minority populations,” Besharov said. “They’re more apt to live together than get married,” because of financial hardships and precarious employment issues.


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