Chapter 10
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Chapter 10 The Family and Household Transition
Chapter Outline • Defining Family Demography And Life Chances • The Family And Household Transition • Proximate Determinants Of Family And Household Changes
Chapter Outline • Changing Life Chances • The Intersection Of Changing Life Chances And The Family And Household Transition
Families • In virtually every human society, people have organized their lives around a family unit. • A family is any group of people who are related to one another by marriage, birth, or adoption. • Family members share a sense of social bonding: the mutual acceptance of reciprocal rights and obligations, and of responsibility for each other’s well-being.
Households • People who share a housing unit are said to have formed a household. • A family household is a housing or residential unit occupied by people who are related to one another. • A nonfamily household is a housing unit that includes a person who lives alone, or consists of people living with nonfamily coresidents.
Family Demography • Concerned largely with the study and analysis of family households: • Their formation • Their change over time • Their dissolution
Household Composition and Family Structure • Total number of households in the United States increased from 63 million in 1970 to 106 million in 2000. • Within that increase was a change in the composition of the American household. • Married couples with children have become less common.
Demographic Transition Promotes Diverse Families • Because people are living longer they are likely to be widowed, are more likely to divorce, and less likely to marry early and begin childbearing. • Pressure to have children is relieved by the decline in fertility. • An increasingly urban population is presented with many options besides marriage and family-building.
Differences in Households with Children that are Mother-Only Families
Delayed Marriage • Early marriage is one of the most important mechanisms preventing women from achieving equality. • When a girl marries at a young age, she is drawn into a life of childbearing and family-building that makes it difficult for her to contemplate other options in life. • This is one reason why high fertility is closely associated with low status for women.
As % of Women Married 15-19 Declines, Difference in Age of Brides and Grooms Declines
Cohabitation in the U.S. • In 1970: • Average age at marriage for women was 20.3. • Number of cohabiting couples was 500,000. • Ratio of cohabiting to married couples was 1 to 100.
Cohabitation in the U.S. • In 2000: • Average age at marriage for women was 25.1. • Number of cohabiting couples was 3.8 million. • Ratio of cohabiting to married couples had jumped to 6 per 100.
Divorce • In the U.S. in 1857, there was a 27% chance that a husband aged 25 and a wife aged 22 would both be alive when the wife reached 65. • For couples marrying in the early 21st century, the chances have risen to 60%. • 5% of marriages contracted in 1867 ended in divorce. • Estimate is that half the marriages contracted 1970 will end in divorce.
Education • In 1940: • Less than one in four Americans 25 or older graduated from high school. • Women were more likely than men to graduate. • Approximately 5% of men and less than 4% of women were college graduates.
Education • In 2000: • 84% of both men and women were high school graduates. • About one in four Americans had graduated from college—with men still being more likely than women to be in that category.
Women in the Labor Force • Since 1940, the rates of labor force participation have risen for women, while declining for men. • Women represent 50% of all workers, but they are still concentrated in administrative support, sales, and service occupations.
Poverty Threshold • In 2002, the poverty threshold for a single person under 65 was $9,359. • Between 1960 and 1973, the % of Americans living below the poverty level was cut from 22% to 11%. • The poverty level has never again been as low as 11% nor higher than 15%; it was 12% in 2002.
Benefits of Marriage • Married couples have higher household income, • Married couples save more of their income. • Married couples have more wealth. • Married men and women live longer, and engage in fewer high-risk behaviors.
Benefits of Marriage • Children are better off financially than those in a one-parent family. • Children are less likely to drop out of school, less likely to have a teenage pregnancy, and less likely to be “idle” as a young adult than children in a one-parent family. • Married couples have sex more often and derive greater satisfaction from it than the unmarried do.
