Throughout history motherhood has been an expected role for women, yet as other roles have been increasing in recent years this role has become less valued. Today the family is declining around the world, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the United States, as here the family has seen rapid change in the later part of the 20th Century. Popenoe sees this change as being rapid and unlike historical family change, carrying with it serious social consequences, especially for children (Popenoe, 1993). Others are not as alarmist by this trend, seeing the majority of changes as progress, especially for the status and empowerment of women (Stacey, 1993). However, this trend only benefits women in the developed world, as in less developed countries the cultural norms inhibit women’s rights making it difficult for them to survive outside a family setting (Bruce, 1992).
To appreciate the situation one needs to understand what ‘family’ means. This is important for legislative purposes in relation to the provision of benefits, and socially as it is a sponge concept, a warm term that everyone wants to be included in. In order to put his argument into context, Popenoe defines the family as a small domestic group of kin that live together in a household. It comprises of at least one adult and one independent that is intergenerational, who work as a cooperative unit, particularly through the sharing of economic resources in the pursuit of domestic activity (Popenoe, 1993). In addition he identifies the function of the family as being procreation, socialization of children, provision of care, affection, and companionship, economic cooperation, and sexual regulation (Popenoe, 1993). Today the carrying out of these functions and the character of the family unit has weakened, as the functions have become less important, and other institutions have taken over some of these roles.
At the turn of the century there was tremendous optimism in America, and people looked to the future and saw it as ‘the century of the child’ (Popenoe, 1993). By the mid-century the traditional nuclear family was well established, characterized by a heterosexual, monogamous, life long commitment between two adults who greatly valued childrearing. But since the 1950s this arrangement has deteriorated with the decline of the family and child centeredness. Popenoe points out the rise of adult only communities, massive voting down of local funds for education, and the general growth of the ‘no children allowed’ attitude (Popenoe, 1993).
At this time divorce and fertility decline were not new phenomena they simply accelerated. The impact of modernization on society was fewer children, as can be seen by Becker’s model. Couples valued their children more and wanted to do more for each child, and consequently they had fewer children. Furthermore, child bearing was losing popularity as women began to enter the labor force. In a New York Times survey about the most enjoyable things about being a woman, the response of ‘being a mother, and raising a family’ fell from 53% in 1970 to 26% in 1983 (Popenoe, 1993). The result was a fall in the average number of children women had from 3.7 in 1960 to 1.9 in 1990 (Popenoe, 1993). Women still want to have children, but many are waiting so long that their desires are never fulfilled. Consequently, the proportion of children has fallen from a third of the population in 1960, to a little over a quarter in 1990, and this changes the priority our society gives to children.
This trend has been accompanied by a rejection of the traditional nuclear family. The fastest change has been the increase in single parent families, from 9% in 1960 to 24% in 1990. Popenoe sees this as the result of the growing incidence and acceptance of divorce especially involving children. The factors behind this involve the growing affluence of women that has weakened the traditional economic bond, the higher psychological expectations of marriage today, secularization, and the stress of changing gender roles. These trends can be seen in the data:
Divorce has come to feed upon itself, and marriage has shifted from a social obligation to a path towards self-fulfillment. The result has been a retreat from marriage realized in the increase in independent living and cohabitation. Popenoe is concerned as the decline of the family can now be fully seen in demographic, institutional and cultural areas.
In terms of demographics there is a smaller percentage of households, these survive for a shorter period of time and constitute a smaller percentage of an average person’s life course, the time being replaced by other non-family groups (Popenoe, 1993). Institutionally the family is less cohesive, as the rise of working women has enabled them to become less dependent, weakening the marital unit. Parents are also less able to spend time with children, and subsequently the parent-child bond has also declined, and along with it has gone parental influence and authority. This has led to a family unit that is less able to perform Popenoe’s functions: there is less procreation and socialization of children, there is more younger premarital sex and sexual infidelity, and marriage is more fragile as it is mainly based on the provision of affection and companionship. Lastly there is the cultural aspect that has seen the shift from familisim towards a society that is more concerned with self-fulfillment and egalitarianism (Popenoe, 1993). It appears that the family is deinstitutionalizing, and people are disinvesting in it, as the family unit has lost power to the workplace, the school, and the state.
Popenoe admits that the decline of the family is not necessarily a concern in relation to the fact that the functions can, and are, performed by other institutions that enable greater productivity and increased standards of living, as well as it has enabled greater independence for women. His concern refers to the consequences of the break up of the nuclear family and the impact this has on children. In contrast, Stacey believes that Popenoe is off the mark by portraying this trend in a negative light that stigmatizes those people who do not fall into his traditional family ideal.
Stacey objects to Popenoe’s interpretation of the situation because she deems his definition of ‘family’ not viable because she believes that the family is not a an institution, “it is an ideological symbolic construct that has a history and a politic (Stacey, 1993).” As a result his definition is ephemeral because of the race, class, gender, and sexual diversity it has occluded and the inequalities it has exacerbated. Besides attacking Popenoe’s argument Stacey goes on to point out that women are choosing divorce due to the lack of benefits they receive from the traditional nuclear family. The problem stems from a truly egalitarian marriage not being possible for the majority as feminists see stable marriage depending upon systematic form of inequity, and this poses a dilemma for democracy.
Stacey continues by criticizing the alarmists for confusing symbols with reality and misdiagnosing the social sources of contemporary family distress, for instance she points to studies that show that the emotional hostility before divorce is most damaging to children. She postulates that policies need to mitigate the unnecessarily injurious effects of divorce and single parenthood, through such methods as equity of pay, provision of universal health, prenatal, and child care, and better sex education. Due to their misinterpretation of the problem Stacey believes that policy suggestions from the likes of Popenoe are misguided, as they are unhelpful to children, because by trying to champion the traditional nuclear family, one stigmatizes all those who do not fit the model. Consequently, Stacey argues that the ideology of the family must be buried, and instead a new social environment must be established in which diverse family forms can sustain themselves with dignity and respect.
The decline of the family in the United States and other developed countries has served to increase Women status and their independence; the costs are being born by the children. The situation is different in less developed countries, because as Bruce argues women’s roles, especially motherhood, is under valued. This stems from the assumptions that males are the primary wage earner and decision maker for the household, women’s income is seen as supplemental, and their unpaid labor is of limited economic value. However, in reality women do make considerable economic contributions.
Firstly their unpaid labor is very significant. For example, in Nepal when one includes women’s non-cash work it increases their contribution to household income from 27% to 50%, and in the Philippines this correction puts women’s contribution 10% higher than men’s (Bruce, 1992). Women also work harder than their male counter parts, and studies have shown that men actually add to rather than share a women’s workload. For instance, in Ghana women who do the least work do not have a man, and who do the least work do have a woman (Bruce, 1992). Furthermore, male unemployment, underemployment, and national debt reduction programs have increased the pressure on women to earn an income.
This modest income may constitute the primary source of household support as males may have other obligations (other women), or problems that make them unreliable such as drinking, the culture may expect it to be this way, and males retain income for their own personal use. As a result women contribute a greater proportion of their income to household income, for example: In many countries it is part of the culture for woman to have a lack of control over their own income. But the situation is even worse for those women who find themselves outside of a family unit.(Bruce, 1992)
There is a definite rise in single parenthood in less developed countries, and this worsens the mother and child’s economic conditions by stigmatizing them and reducing their status. This arises from several situations. For example, Widowhood is common due to the demographics of marriage, but there are no support networks to help, possessions and inheritance often return to the male’s kin. In India in 1991 there were 30 million widows, and the mortality rates are 86% higher than married women of equivalent ages (Bruce, 1992). As a result there has been a ‘feminization of poverty (Bruce, 1992),’ with the poorest quartiles comprised of women and their children.
Bruce argues that any solution needs to confront the paradox where families that rely upon women to take on increasing responsibility for family support and to function as good wives and mothers, also undermine women in their efforts to fulfill these roles. They are doubly discriminated against on the basis of their gender and their normatively ascribed family roles. There must be preservation and expansion of women’s earning opportunities and the legal recognition of women’s economic rights as individuals (Bruce, 1992). But the removal of gender bias from economic policy is not enough, motherhood has to be given more value, and women need to be able to control their own sexuality and fertility.
The decline of the family is a phenomenon that is occurring across the globe with different consequences. In developed countries it is viewed as progress through the increased independence of women, enabling them greater freedom to choose partners and leave unfulfilling unions. The cost is born by the children who have to adjust to new and dynamic ‘family’ units. In contrast women in less developed countries do not enjoy the same status as their developed counterparts, and the decline of the family makes them more vulnerable, due to the lack of support and other options available to them.
Bibliography:
David Popenoe, "American Family Decline, 1960-1990: A Review and Appraisal" in Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 55, No. 3, August 1993, pp. 527-542.
Judith Stacey, "Good Riddance to "The Family": A Response to David Popenoe" in Journal of Marriage and the Family, Vol. 55, No. 3, August 1993, pp. 545-547.
Judith Bruce, "The Economics of Motherhood", in Families in Focus: New Perspectives on Mothers, Fathers and Children, Judith Bruce, Cynthia B. Lloyd and Ann Leonard (editors) Population Council, New York, 1992, Chapter 2, pp. 25-48.