Diversity of the Family

?Family Diversity Term Papers If at that place is any one constant concerning the diversity of family and family structure in the united States everyplace the past one hundred years or so, it is change. approximately every familial characteristic one would choose to study from the average age at the time of send-off marriage, to the number of children per household, to the rate of divorcement has either risen significantly, declined dramatically, or both. What is certain is that the study of family diversity, and the evolution of such(prenominal) diversity in the United States is intriguing.The very structure and character of the American family has evolved significantly from 1900 to 2000. From a strong patriarchical start at the turn of the century, the American family evolved into what is now referred to as a companionate marriage up until the 1960s, when individuation began winning out over traditional family values. The divorce rate first rose and later fell, but left i n its wake a number of unmistakable trends. From 1970 to 1992 the number of single-family households in the United States increased from 13% to 32% .Cohabitation evolved from a fringe phenomenon reserved closelyly for hippies to a mainstream trend, with the number of heterosexual couples cohabitating outside of marriage up ten-fold since 1960. The number of households with children, in the mean time, has declined to just over a quarter of all households, falling from a high of 45% in 1972 to 26% in 1999. The most common household composition in the United States today is an unmarried couple without children.More than anything else, the very diversity in the types of families and households has increased by what seems like an order of magnitude. In what follows, I quiz and discuss the changes that affirm occurred in the diversity of family and familial structure in the United States over the past century. I begin with an examination of the evolution of family form. Next, I exami ne the diversity in family typology. I conclude with an examination of a categorisation of trends in family diversity.