The Family and Household Transition

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Chapter 10

• The Family and Household Transition

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Chapter Outline

• What Is The Family And Household Transition?
• Proximate Determinants Of Family And Household
  Changes
• Changing Life Chances

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What is the Family and Household Transition?

• The increasing diversity in family and household
  structure occasioned by people living longer,
  with fewer children born, increasingly in urban
  settings, and subject to higher standards of
  living, all as part of the demographic
  transition.
• Households no longer depend on marriage for their
  creation, nor on death to dissolve them, and
  children are encountered in a wide array of
  household and living arrangements.

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The Family and Household Transition

• Promotes a diversity of family and household
  types because
• People are living longer, are more likely to be
  widowed or divorce, and less likely to marry
  early and begin childbearing.
• Women do not need to begin childbearing at a
  young age.
• An increasingly urban population has options
  besides marriage and family-building.

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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
  others well-being.

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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.

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Family Demography

• Concerned largely with the study and analysis of
  family households
• Their formation
• Their change over time
• Their dissolution

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Households Have Become Increasingly Diverse in
the United States
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Racial/Ethnic Differences in the of Family
Households with Children that are Mother-Only
Families, U.S.
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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.

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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.

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Difference in Age of Brides and Grooms Declines
as of Women Married at Ages 1519 Goes Down
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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Education

• In 2000
• 84 of both men and women were high school
  graduates.
• About one in four Americans had graduated from
  collegewith men still being more likely than
  women to be in that category.

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U.S. Educational Attainment Has Increased
Significantly
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U.S. Educational Attainment Has Increased
Significantly
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Countries Where Illiteracy Rate Among Young Women
is 10 Higher Than for Young Men, 2001
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Better Educated Workers Have Higher Incomes
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Better Educated Workers Have Higher Incomes
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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.

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Occupational Distributions for Males and Female
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Occupational Distributions for Males and Female
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Occupational Distributions for Males and Female
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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.

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Median Net Worth is Highest for Older Married
Couples in the United States
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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.

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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.