Explain How Family Structure Has Changed Over The Last 100 Years

Analyse how family structure has changed over the last 100 years

Not even 100 years ago the ‘normal’ family was a nuclear family. This consists of a married couple with children. Now, because of declining marriage rates, increasing divorce rates, singletons, single parent families and many other factors, what is considered to be the ‘normal’ family structure has changed. Whereas before, a nuclear family was virtually the only family structure that existed, now there are several different structures that are becoming increasingly common. Some of these include a blended family, extended family or same sex parent families.

Marriage rates

Over the last 100 years marriage rates have massively declined for a number of reasons. According to The Guardian, since 1981 alone, marriage rates have fallen by a third. One of the reasons for this drop is due to the independence that women have gained in the latter half of the last century. Women are more financially independent than they were a century ago. Women don’t feel pressured to get married anymore because they can earn the same amount of money as man can and therefore don’t need to depend on a husband for financials. This has changed the family structure by decreasing the amount of families as a whole because some women don’t want to marry and start as family and they don’t feel the pressure to anymore.

In addition to this, more and more couples are co-habiting because they either cannot afford to get married or chose not to do so.

There has been a large increase in same sex couples in the last few decades, which has added to the decrease in marriage rates because up until recently, same sex couples, could not legally get married. However, same sex couples are allowed to adopt, which then creates another new family structure: same-sex

families.

Divorce rates

Divorce rates have dramatically risen over the previous century – mainly because there is no longer a stigma associated with becoming divorced. In addition, the laws before the 20th century made it harder to get a divorce. One hundred years ago divorce would not be an option for a woman as a woman simply would not be able to support herself – now a woman can which is possibly why ¾ of divorces are filed by women.

Another factor that contributes to the rise is secularisation. Traditional religions do not condone divorce, for example, the catholic charge forbids divorce and will not re-marry divorcees. The decline in people who follow a religion means that there isn’t that barrier stopping them from getting a divorce.
Over the last 100 years there has been a huge rise in the amount of reconstituted families – the reason for this is linked to the rise in divorce rates. People are getting married and creating families then getting divorced later in life. In some cases some people get remarried therefore creating a reconstituted family. This is a common situation in today’s age however 100 years ago it was unheard of because of the stigma associated with divorce.

Feminists would argue that because of the patriarchal society that we live in women file for divorce because they want to get away from the male domination within a marriage. Another argument is that women compare themselves with the way they’re treated in their working environment (valued) and the way they are treated at home (undervalued) – this influences them to become discontent and may cause problems in a marriage, leading to divorce.

The effect that the decline in marriages and rise in divorces has had on family structure is the rise in co-habitation, same sex relationships, singletons and single parent families.

Singletons

Since 1961 the number of people living on their own has trebled. This can be linked to the rise in divorces – children tend to stay with the mother leaving the father to live on his own. It could also be the matter of the death of a partner or of choice. This is because 10% of single households are in a relationship but choose not to move in with their partners.

The effects that this has had on family structure are that more children (40%) are being born outside of marriage, which is becoming increasingly common, as there is no longer as much of a stigma associated with it as there was 100 years ago. The other effect it has is that some people aren’t having children at all whereas before, most people did have children because it was a woman’s sole role in a family to raise the children.
Single parent families

Single parent families are now considered the norm however 100 years ago it was virtually unheard of. In 2013 there was 1.9 million single parent families in the UK alone.