Alternative Family Forms

Most families across the continents are still composed of a married couple who, at some point, raise children. However, recently our society has displayed greater diversity in family life.

1. Single-parent Families: Single-parent families result from divorce, death or an unmarried woman’s decision to have a child. Single parenthood increases a woman’s risk of poverty because it limits her ability to work and to further her education. The converse is also true: poverty raises the odds that a young woman will become a single mother (Trent 1994). In many single-parent families, mothers turn to their own mothers for support. The rise in single parenting is tied to a declining role for fathers and the growing importance of grandparenting. Research shows that growing up in a single-parent family usually disadvantages children.
2. Cohabitation: Cohabitation is the sharing of a household by an unmarried couple. In global perspective, cohabitation is a long-term form of family life, with or without children, is common in Sweden and other Scandinavian nations. Cohabitation is gaining in popularity in the other continents as well. Cohabitation tends to appeal to more independent-minded individuals as well as those who favour gender equality (Brines and Joyner 1999). Most couples cohabit for no more than a few years, about half then deciding to marry and half ending the relationship. Mounting evidence suggests that living together may actually discourage marriage because partners become used to low-commitment relationships. When cohabiting couples with children separate, the involvement of both parents, including financial support, is far from certain.
3. Lesbian and Gay Couples: In 1989, Denmark became the first country to lift its legal ban on same-sex marriages. This change offered social legitimacy to lesbian and gay couples and equalized advantages in inheritance, taxation and joint property ownership. Norway (in 1993), Sweden (1995), the Netherlands (2001) and Canada (2003) have followed suit.
4. Singlehood: Recently, more people are deliberately choosing to live alone. Various economic, social, cultural and political factors may be attributed to singlehood.

References

Beck,U. and E.Beck-Gernsheim. 1995. The Normal Chaos of Love. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Weitzman, L. 1985. The divorce revolution. New York: Free Press.

Glenn, Evelyn Nakano. 1986. “Gender and the Family.” Pp.348-380 in Analyzing Gender: AHandbook of Social Science Research, edited by Beth Hess and Myra Marx Ferree. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Thorne, Barrie. 1993. Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Eitzen, D. Stanley, and Maxine Baca Zinn. 2004. In Conflict and Order, 10th ed; Boston MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Ember, Melvin, and Carol, R. Ember. Anthropology. 6th ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991.

Etzioni, Amitai. “How to Make Marriage Matter.” Time. Vol. 142, No. 10 (September 6, 1993): 76.

Furstenberg, Frank F; Jr; Andrew Cherlin. Divided Families: What Happens to Children When Parents Part. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University press, 1991.

Gerstel, Naomi. Divorce and Stigma. Social problems. Vol. 43, No. 2 (April 1987): 172-86.

Greenspan, Stanley I. The Four-Thirds Solution: Solving the Child-Care Crisis in America. Cambridge, Mass.: Perseus, 2001.

Popenoe, David. Can the Nuclear Family Be Revived? Society. Vol. 36, No. 5 (July/August 1999): 64-79.

Roesch, Roberta. Violent Families. Parents. Vol. 59, No. 9 (September 1984): 74-76, 150-152.

Trent, Katherine. “Family Context and Adolescents’ Expectations about Marriage, Fertility, and Nonmarital Childbearing.” Social Science Quarterly. Vol. 75, No. 2 (June 1994):319-39.