| The state of the American family is a controversial issue, much debated by social commentators, politicians, and academic experts. A half-century ago, few observers seemed concerned. But since the 1960s, family life has changed greatly. Divorce is much more common; at current rates, about one in two marriages would end in divorce. Young adults are postponing marriage and often living with a partner prior to marrying. A growing number of children—currently about 30 percent—are born to mothers who are not married. And many more married women are working outside the home. In the second half of the twentieth century, an increasingly diverse range of family types have replaced the breadwinner-homemaker family that once predominated in the United States in the 1950s. The main trend of the American family is toward diversification of family forms rather than a single standard form. In the wake of these changes, public support rose in the 1980s and 1990s for new laws and government policies that would assist families. Family policy had become a major political issue. In the presidential campaigns of the 1980s and early 1990s, "family values" was a prevalent theme.The two different political positions stand out in the debate about the family: conservative and liberal .Both can agree on the growing diversity of American families. But, there is the dispute over how these changes should be interpreted and what, if anything, should be done by government.Political conservatives, who tend to be the pessimists, see recent changes as a proof that the American marriage and family are in crisis, and are declining in their traditional functions with very adverse effects on children. They turn their spotlight on the breakdown in the two-parent family, saying that rising divorce, illegitimacy, and father absence have put children at greater risk of school failure, unemployment, and antisocial behavior. Conservatives have held that these problems can be traced to cultural and moral weakening. The remedy is to restore religious faith and family commitment as well as to cut welfare payments to unwed mothers and mother-headed families.Political liberals, most of whom are the optimists, on the other hand, see recent changes as a reflection of the flexibility of marriage and family and the ability of these institutions to adapt to the increasing stresses of modern life. They believe that the marriage and family are not in a state of breakdown, but rather in a state of transition and change, and that they will survive and thrive. Liberals center their attention on the disappearance of manual jobs that throws less educated men out of work and undercuts their status in the family as well as rising hours of work among the middle class that makes stable two-parent families more difficult to maintain. They urge the federal government to make greater effort to provide childcare for employed parents, help teenage mothers finish school, and ensure that divorced fathers pay the child support they owe, and so forth.Taking the conservative and liberal arguments on the changing nature of the American family as the thread of analysis, the paper attempts to make a detailed, if not thorough, study of the causes of growing diversity in the American family in the latter half of the 20th century, and critically evaluate the debate between conservatives and liberals on the issues of the two-parent family and recent family-related policy as well.The distinctions between conservative and liberal on family diversity are crucial for understanding cotemporary American society. What's more, the United States is not the only country to have experienced significant family changes during the past few decades. Declines in marriage, rises in divorce, growth in the proportion of children born outside marriage, and increases in the labor force participation of women have all affected family life in China. It is also hopeful that we could draw important lessons by studying American family diversity.
|
PDF Full Text Request