I have new briefing paper out today with the Council on Contemporary Families, titled “Family Diversity is the New Normal for America’s Children.” I’ll post news links soon. In the meantime:
I’m happy to provide high quality graphics.
Let me know what you think!
Reports and commentary:
- There Is No Longer Any Such Thing as a Typical Family, by Belinda Luscombe in Time.
- Unlike in the 1950s, there Is No ‘Typical’ U.S. Family Today, by Brigid Schulte in the Washington Post.
- The Average American Family No Longer Exists, by Lois Collins at the Deseret News.
- The ‘Leave It to Beaver’ Family Has Been Left Behind, by Tierney Sneed in US News.
- The ‘Normal’ American Family Is a Myth, by Stephanie Pappas in LiveScience and Yahoo! News.
- ‘Typical Families’ No Longer Exist, and That’s Actually Pretty Awesome, by Lucia Peters in Bustle.
- To Bolster the American Family, We Need to Get a Grip on What It Is, by Mary Sanchez in Kansas City Star (and McClatchy syndicates).
- Study Finds There Is No ‘Typical’ Family. Does Even Homework Have to Change? by Nina Shapiro in Seattle Weekly.
- 7 Stunning Ways Life Was Different in the 1960s, by Bella DePaulo in Psychology Today.
- Why There No Longer Is A ‘Typical’ American Family, interview with Jeremy Hobson on WBUR’s Here and Now [mp3 audio file]
- ‘Normal’ family structure on the decline, Maryland professor finds, by Joe Zimmerman in The Diamondback.
- The end of marriage: Sitcom nuclear families are not coming back, by Susan Reimer in The Baltimore Sun.
Family Inequality 
This is terrific! I’m wondering about a category that isn’t included in your chart about women ages 30-34. It’s not married, with a BA, employed, with kids. Is that category just so small that it’s not reportable?
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Professor Cohen, If my previous comment was too snarky, let me rephrase ( I wish you can add more Marxist perspective to your demopgraphic models):
1. The population, which was overwhelmingly white and which followed a traditional structure in 1960, has become more varied; the impact on the family structure due to the change in racial structure is significant. The Black and Hispanic families from some 33% of the present day population, have become significantly diverse in family structure. The racial contribution of family structural differences was identified as early as in 1964.
2. The breakdown in family structure is driven by a growing inequality; with the poor being not able afford to form traditional families; they aspire to choose a traditional family model, but not financially able to do so.
3. Economics, in particular, globalization and outsourcing of jobs, has led to a long economic tail, and it is a principal culprit in this inability to afford family structure.
4. Unchecked immigration has contributed, both directly (job displacement) and indirectly (poorer immigrants choosing to mimic the family structure of poorer segments of the population) to a breakdown of traditional family structure.
5. In contrast, the winners of economic wars have chosen to mimic traditional family models; see the marriage rates of highly educated, and the battles for gay marriage. If the intact family is not a model to emulate, why gay marriage?
6. The process is non-linear; with more members added to non-traditional family models growing poorer; and having no choice but choose the broken family model; and becoming still poorer. In contrast, people who stay with stable family models have grown richer, but smaller in numbers. This accentuates inequality. Both, Immigration and capitalism are drivers of this non-linear cycle.
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Vijay;
“with the poor being not able afford to form traditional families; they aspire to choose a traditional family model, but not financially able to do so.”
If poverty were the reason that people were unable to form traditional familes, we would have seen single-parent/broken families skyrocket during the Great Depression. They did not. Another cause is at root here – that is of a change in personal values.
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Correct; but the social mores and economics have changed considerably since the great depression.
During the great depression years, the man was considered to be the sole source of income, an the family had to follow him whatever be his economic status. Social security, medicaid and TANF has made this less necessary.
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Phil,
This isn’t directly related since you’re talking about the diversity of family structures, but it is slightly related because it deals with interracial families.
What do you think of this blog post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-was-taking-pictures-of-my-daughters-but-a-stranger-thought-i-was-exploiting-them/2014/08/29/34831bb8-2c6c-11e4-994d-202962a9150c_story.html
On one hand, I very much understand why the author was upset and the intrusion he and his daughters felt; on the other, human trafficking is a very real issue, and approaching the women themselves to make sure they are ok seems like a good approach. If it’s the wrong approach, what’s a better solution? I don’t think “mind your own business” is a good alternative.
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Thanks, I did see that and was also a little conflicted. In the end I think the person who intervened was off base because what trafficker would take pictures like that in public in front of many strangers? Seems odd. However, that incident does resonate with this larger point about family diversity because when there are so many family roles it’s harder to use the circumstantial cues to figure out what’s going on.
For interpersonal interactions, this requires kindness and openness on all sides. For example, in 1960 if a person saw a Black woman playing with White children in a city park, it was pretty safe assuming she was their babysitter. Now one would have to recognize that it’s uncertain – and both strangers have to find a way to interact without creating unnecessary offense or conflict.
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Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I think that your point re: approaching interactions with kindness and openness is spot on, particularly with, as you note, the increasing diversity of family structures, roles, etc.
Though, I do think that traffickers could take pictures in public since not all instances of trafficking are the ones where women and/or children are locked and “kept under key” so to speak. I’m not an expert in trafficking but in my understanding, many women are tricked into being trafficked – promised one thing, confronted with the reality of something else (for example, the promise of a domestic job in a city and having the trafficker “lend” money for the woman to go for this other job, but then realizing once that person arrives, it is sex-based work and they have to work off the debt). Additionally, much of trafficking could involve psychological and physical abuse (in places where bruises are not visible) that keep women in those situations. A parallel would be a domestic violence situation – an abusive husband could presumably take ‘happy’ pictures of his wife on a cruise ship while still abusing her in the privacy of their own home. Similarly, a trafficker could provide incentives, e.g. in the form of a cruise, for women they are trafficking. Again, I don’t know the empirics but these are some of the circumstances that came to mind.
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Fair enough. But as I look at the pictures, it’s hard to believe someone could think that. Really the only thing you have to base your suspicion on is the race difference between the father and the daughters. That’s a very low standard of evidence for deciding to intervene in such a serious way.
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I doubt there ever was a ‘typical family’. I note that that has been no mention of adoption and baby trafficking which surely are important elements in the changes in family structure. I understand there are around 1 million adoptees in America these days, surely a group to study?
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It is important not to exaggerate conformity in the past. I don’t want to go beyond the categories I use here – with regard to these categories there clearly was a typical family in 1960. There were of course other differences below the surface, and adoption is one of them. There used to be more adoption than there is now, because single motherhood and abortion were not realistic options for most people, but adoption was discussed less (and not counted by Census at that time). Adoption now is less common but more visible. Baby trafficking may be a problem now but if so it is very rare in the US, demographically.
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“Adoption now is less common but more visible. ”
UNTRUE. I provide data from NVSS for child births and from two references for adoption by year. The references are:
1. Maza, P.L. (1984). Adoption trends: 1944-1975. Child Welfare Research Notes #9.
2. Flango, V. and Flango, C. (1994). The flow of adoption information from the from the states. Williamsburg,VA: National Center for State Courts.
BIRTHS BY YEAR
1950 3,632,000
19523 3,913,000
19533 3,965,000
19543 4,078,000
1955 4,104,000
19563 4,218,000
19573 4,308,000
19583 4,255,000
19593 4,295,000
19603 4,257,850
19613 4,268,326
19623 4,167,362
19633 4,098,020
19643 4,027,490
19653 3,760,358
19663 3,606,274
19674 3,520,959
19683 3,501,564
19693 3,600,206
19703 3,731,386
19713 3,555,970
1972 3,258,411
1973 3,136,965
1974 3,159,958
1975 3,144,198
1976 3,167,788
1977 3,326,632
1978 3,333,279
1979 3,494,398
1980 3,612,258
1982 3,680,537
1983 3,638,933
1984 3,669,141
1985 3,760,561
1986 3,731,000
1987 3,829,000
1988 3,913,000
1989 4,021,000
1990 4,179,000
1991 4,111,000
1992 4,084,000
1993 4,039,000
1994 3,979,000
1995 3,892,000
1996 3,899,000
1997 3,882,000
1998 3,941,553
1999 3,959,417
2000 4,058,814
2001 4,025,933
2002 4,021,726
2003 4,089,950
2004 4,112,052
2005 4,138,349
2009 4,131,019
ADOPTIONS BY YEAR
Year Number of States Reporting Reported Total Estimated Total
1944 22 16,000 50,000
1951 33 36,732 72,000
1955 39 54,589 93,000
1957 46 71,934 91,000
1958 47 76,095 96,000
1957 46 71,934 91,000
1958 47 76,095 96,000
1959 47 82,537 102,000
1960 50 95,682 107,000
1961 52 108,733 114,000
1962 52 117,662 121,000
1963 50 122,944 127,000
1964 52 133,106 135,000
1965 51 139,222 142,000
1966 51 148,995 152,000
1967 51 154,166 158,000
1968 48 155,734 166,000
1969 49 161,295 171,000
1970 49 163,231 175,000
1971 50 159,844 169,000
1972 37 99,552 153,000
1973 41 112,849 148,000
1974 41 107,874 138,000
1975 40 104,188 129,000
1992 127441
1993 123222
1994 122500
1995 121600
1996 124393
1997 126000
1998 125600
1999 128560
2000 129000
2001
The reason why adoption has stagnated because it has witched from a “Related Persons” Mode to a More Bureacratic State Court System/Social services mode. With the state court system as the driver, adoptions have become goals that are targets to be attained, and not based on needs. Today, there is a waiting list of 10 years for adoptions in most states.
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