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.

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