Dissolution Of Family In Western Nations Research Paper

If dissolution is described as the weakening of kinship systems, marriage, and the significance of family ties because the claims of other institutions have taken on some of the tasks previously carried on within the household, then it can hardly be doubted that the family as a social institution has experience a decline. However, following this definition, we must conclude that the strength of the family has been waning for at least several centuries, along with the church and the community. The creation of a job-based economy, the growth of nation-states, and, more recently, the development of a global economy have eroded locally based institutions. Families are less likely to be fixed in a geographical place, to control job opportunities, and hence to be able to sponsor the next generation; accordingly, they are far less inclined to support the claims of extended family members. Moreover, state welfare systems have lessened the burden of caring for the elderly and distant relatives who might have called upon family assistance in times past. (Elaborations of this general argument can be found in Burch and Matthews (1987) and Thornton and Freedman (1983).)

At the same time, in other arenas the family has taken on added importance. For example, the family has grown as a center of emotional development and perhaps of personal identity as well (see, for example, Gillis 1996). There is little evidence that might suggest that entering parenthood is less important now than it was a century or two ago. It is difficult to establish that parents feel less responsibility for their children today or take on parental duties less deliberately. Indeed, it could be argued that intensity of kinship obligations to children replaced more extensive kinship ties during the twentieth century. Parents assume a greater cost of bearing children as they provide little or no economic return in the form of household labor or care in old age (Caldwell 1982). The cost of education and training has risen and children since the middle of the twentieth century have spent a longer period as economic dependents (Watkins et al. 1987). Thus, kinship has become more concentrated within the nuclear family and close extended and collateral kin.

The rise of the so-called ‘isolated nuclear family,’ a system based on a strong and durable conjugal tie that is structurally independent of and equally linked to maternal and paternal kin lines, became the ideal family form in all Western nations during the latter part of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. Family scholars debated whether this form would spread to developing countries in other regions of the world along with the free market economy. Goode (1963) argued that the functional ‘fit’ between an advanced industrial economy and the nuclear form would promote the transformation of family systems to Western-style families worldwide.

Clearly, the convergence has not occurred to the extent that functionalists predicted it would, although it may still be too soon to rule out the possibility that complex and varied kinship systems in Asia and Africa will wane as the economy becomes globalized (Thornton and Fricke 1987). However, provisionally, it appears that these Western-centric predictions may have underestimated the capacity of complex kinship systems to adapt to economic change and vice versa.

Moreover, the functional ‘fit’ of the nuclear family to the economy did not account for the revolution in gender roles that occurred in the second half of the twentieth century, or the strain placed on the conjugal relationship by what Rose Coser once labeled the ‘greedy institution of work.’ Paradoxically, the ‘fit’ between the nuclear family and a postindustrial economy worked far less well than was envisioned by social theorists of family change. Thus, the family place as ‘a haven in the heartless world’—a description that was applied to the early, postindustrial family of the late nineteenth century—has continued to be an apt description of its current social definition. Indeed, a mountain of evidence from public opinion surveys shows that the family remains the central institution from which individuals derive meaning and authenticity. Individuals continue to form families although the definition of what constitutes a family has broadened beyond the nuclear unit. In large measure, this recent trend toward diversification has come about because the institution of marriage has been redefined.

2. Reworking The Marriage Contract

In the last third of the twentieth century, divorce and nonmarital childbearing rose throughout the West, with the exception of a few countries in southern Europe which remained more dependent on local agriculture, such as Italy and Greece. Generally, when sociologists and social critics argue that the family is declining, they mean that the notion of conjugal permanence has diminished and that marriage expectations have changed. Indisputably, the marriage contract has been radically altered since the 1950s (Bumpass 1990). In virtually all Western societies, individuals have been granted more autonomy in choosing marriage partners; parents’ ability to influence marriage decisions has all but disappeared. Over the past several decades, partners enter marriage expecting relative equality in decision making. The authority of males has declined as a cultural expectation even when it is still maintained in practice by marriage partners. This transformation was brought about in part because of the erosion in the gender based division of labor within the family. This shift, in turn, can be traced to the growth of a high-skills labor market in which women are, more or less, on an equal footing with men. The growth of gender equality has also been linked to education, political activism by feminists, and legislative changes resulting in growing economic and political equity among men and women. These changes have altered the cultural context in which marriage takes place. Marriage ceremonies are less likely to include the pledge of obedience—a symbolic shift that suggests that equality among marriage partners has become the ideal.

3. Changing Marriage Practices

The change in the marriage contract has generated considerable strains in the matrimonial institution: both men and women have been forced to adhere to a new set of rules governing everyday household practices. Women are now expected to work outside the home and men to assume a greater share of the domestic chores. This renegotiation of gender roles has been accepted more quickly as an ideal among the better educated. Whether it has been put into practice among more educated couples has been questioned by some researchers (Hochschild 1989), but the preponderance of the evidence suggests that this change in gender roles has been dramatic in the past several decades. At least in childcare, men are assuming more responsibility than they did in previous generations, and the normative support for paternal involvement has grown at a phenomenal pace. Still, it is unusual in most countries to find stay-at-home fathers, with the exception of the Scandinavian countries, Norway and Sweden most notably, where public policies have promoted paternal leave, partly to signal men’s equal responsibility to childcare.

No doubt the decline of the gender-based division of labor is partially responsible for the remarkable increase in marital dissolution during the latter third of the twentieth century. It may also be linked to the growing practice of cohabitation and the rise of nonmarital childbearing. Marriage is widely viewed as a more problematic and less permanent arrangement than at any time in the recent past, perhaps especially by women. This wariness about wedlock is both a consequence and a cause of higher levels of marital instability. Couples are inclined to enter marriage more cautiously and deliberately than they did in the 1950s. For example, no longer is premarital pregnancy a cause for marriage as it was in the mid-twentieth century. As couples have become more discerning and planful about entering marriage, they have relied on cohabitation as a way of hedging their bets. Some researchers have argued that cohabitation establishes a pattern of leaving relationships that are not good enough.

What constitutes a ‘good enough’ marriage has become more exacting as well. Whereas in earlier times couples remained wed even if they were discontent with the relationship, today they are more inclined to leave the relationship unless they are content. A rising standard of marital expectations can be inflationary, creating ever higher standards for couples.

This search for greater contentment also plays out in the sexual dimension of marriage. The more open attitude about sexuality and the greater level of premarital experience places greater demands on achieving sexual satisfaction within marriage. Whereas in earlier times couples might have put up with minimal gratification, it is less likely that they are willing to do so today. Increasingly, then, we have seen a shift from a companionate marriage to an intimate marriage as the standard of success.

Another and perhaps more important source of marital instability derives from women’s ability to live independently, albeit generally at an economic lower standard. Economic independence permits women to leave relationships that are deemed to be unsatisfactory and men to justify dissolving unhappy partnerships more easily. The turnover of relationships means that marriage is exposed to norms of the market place. The conditional marriage contract itself contributes to the inflationary expectations for marital contentment, driving individuals to be ever more wary and to keep an eye on their options. In some sense, this process resembles the inflation of political expectations that Tocqueville describes in explaining why revolutions breed discontent.

4. Marital Dissolution And Children’s Welfare

How these changes in the institution of marriage have affected children’s welfare is a matter of considerable discussion and a certain amount of debate among researchers (Cherlin 1981). Yet the range of scholarly disagreement seems to be narrowing. Almost everyone agrees that divorce and nonmarital childbearing leave children with fewer resources owing to the facts that women who earn less than men are typically awarded primary custody and that marriage generally provides more than a single income. Only in Sweden do children from single-parent families retain the same standard of living as children in two-parent families through welfare benefits; in all other countries, the income gap is at least modest and more often extreme as is the case in the Anglo-speaking countries which provide less generous support for single parents. In general, parental marital status is strongly associated with family income and appears to account for a substantial portion of the ‘divorce effect’ on children (Garfinkel and McLanahan 1986).

It is also widely accepted now that some portion of the difference in the well-being of children in two-parent and lone-parent families results from social selection. Couples who divorce have less human and social capital and are probably less resourceful, skilled, and committed to maintaining a stable union. In other words, children in such families would presumably not do as well even if their parents maintained a stable union while they were being raised owing to a host of conditions related to the probability of marital discontentment and divorce as well as perhaps parenting practices and the ability of parents to manage their children’s success.

Still, most scholars agree that marital instability, or family instability of any type, is associated with developmental disadvantages over and above the costs of growing up with fewer resources or social selection. Children profit from stable, secure family situations where they receive attention, support, monitoring, and sponsorship from parent figures, and two such individuals (in a working collaboration) are surely better than one. A mounting number of studies show that, on average, children do better both in the short-term and as adults when they are raised continuously by their biological parents. Remarriage does not appear to confer similar benefits to children apart from the obvious economic benefits, though much of the research on remarriage fails to distinguish the effects of divorce from the impact of remarriage.

It is still an unsettled question whether parents who provide a stable union to children need to be the biological progenitors and whether formal marriage offers any benefits over informal, contractual unions. These issues are especially thorny ones to examine, for they introduce difficult issues of social selection. Provisional evidence suggests that it is the quality of the partnership and the ability of parents to collaborate successfully that seem to matter more than the gender of parents or whether the union was sanctified by the state or church.

5. Societal Consequences Of Marital Dissolution

The continuing high levels of nonmarital childbearing and union instability in all Western countries has placed added demands on extended kin, especially in segments of the population where remarriage rates are low. Grandparents, especially, are called upon to lend assistance to divorced or unmarried parents and their children. And even prior to family formation, parents may incur greater obligations as their adult children forestall marriage. In many countries, the postponement of marriage has meant that adult children remain in the home well into their twenties and return to reside with their parents in the event of divorce or nonmarital childbearing.

The pressure on parents at mid-life to maintain responsibilities to their children and grandchildren has certainly increased over several decades. Similarly, adults at mid-life frequently face growing obligations to care for their elderly parents who are surviving in greater numbers. In these respects, the extended family is alive and well. The flow of assistance to children is increasingly downward through the generations, at least until parents are no longer able to provide care for their offspring and support for their grandchildren. In contrast to the past, parents of mature children appear to provide more assistance to their offspring than is given to them.

The ways in which divorce and remarriage have affected the provision of support among close kin has received growing attention by scholars. Evidence is accumulating that divorce seriously disrupts the exchange of support from fathers to their children and from the extended patrilineal kin to their former in-laws and their offspring. Whether the reverse is true when fathers retain custody has not been documented. To a remarkable degree, fathers’ contact with their children tends to slacken off after marital dissolution. It is possible that this pattern of attrition in paternal contact and support may be less marked today than it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Men, it seems, shift allegiance to new households, and custodial mothers may actively discourage their former mate’s involvement with the children when they acquire new partners. Despite the strong legal support for the maintenance of biological ties, the practical implications of creating harmonious relationships across households of formerly and currently married couples is formidable. Consequently, the cumulative impact of divorce (and nonmarital childbearing, where fathers are even less likely to be an active presence in the child’s life) has been to give the kinship system a matrilineal tilt.

Remarriage partially restores the bilateral pattern of the family system by reintroducing paternal kin into the family. However, stepparents do not generally create the same strong kinship ties as biological parents, owing perhaps to the fact that kinship ties are often cemented during childhood. Stepkin may also divide their allegiance to former and current marriage partners and their offspring. Nonetheless, the creation of ‘remarriage chains’ that link former and current kin is a growing source of connection in Western family systems with high rates of conjugal succession. There is some evidence suggesting that the network of in-laws may expand with remarriage as some relatives from the first (or second) union are retained along with the acquisition of kin from the second (or third).

Possibly, too, the pattern of growing involvement of formerly married men in the lives of their children may also help to maintain kinship ties between children and their paternal kin. The attrition of family bonds between men and their children appears to have lessened in recent years as men have become more involved in childcare both after marriage and divorce. The growing pattern of joint legal, if not physical, custody may encourage continued contact between fathers and their children. If this happens, it is likely that the kin of divorced fathers will also play a more active role in children’s lives.

The growing complexity and diversity of kinship networks are likely to be a feature of family life in the twenty-first century. It seems unlikely that life-long monogamy will be a prominent feature of the family as it was, at least for a time, in the previous century. If this prediction proves to be right, then public policy is likely to focus on how to deal with the problems of family life created by marital fragility.

6. Public Policy Considerations

Current public policy in the USA and Europe has weighed heavily in favor of promoting paternal involvement, especially in the form of material support. A series of legislative acts in the USA, beginning with the Child Support Act of 1988, have been designed to increase the level of child support payments. This legislation has had modest effects in increasing payments, but has also provided normative pressure on men to retain their paternal responsibilities. Fathers Rights groups have become advocates for more evenhanded custody policies, to the dismay of some feminists who believe that children will suffer from an increase in conflict created between custodial and noncustodial parents when joint custody is imposed. It is still too early to draw firm conclusions about the consequences of the new policies promoting greater paternal involvement. However, judging from recent information collected by the Census Bureau on Child Support Payments, it seems unlikely that change in post-divorce family relationships is likely to be dramatic. A substantial minority of fathers are still unwilling or unable to pay the mandated child support, although these official figures do not always reveal informal payments that are passed from fathers to mothers and children. Even taking ‘under the table’ support into account, these results suggest a high degree of recalcitrance on the part of men to undertake support of their children or, alternatively, that men are giving a greater priority to supporting their current households than their former ones.

The largest segment of nonpaying parents is unmarried fathers whose ties with their children appear to become especially tenuous over time. This is also the fastest growing portion of childbearing couples who do not reside together. In most European countries, the growth of nonmarital childbearing has not implied the absence of cohabitation as it does in many of the Anglo-speaking countries, especially the USA. Although de facto marriages are ultimately less stable than de jure unions, they appear to share most of the features of nuclear families.

In contrast to most of the Western nations, the characteristic pattern of nonmarital childbearing in the USA is matrifocal, putting the father in a more marginal and tenuous position. This family form, especially common among low-income couples and minority populations, may be linked to economic and social marginality in the larger society. One of the most intriguing questions facing social demographers and household economists is whether a sustained economic boom will reverse this alternative pattern of family formation by making marriage more affordable. It seems that for less privileged segments of the population marriage has been considered a luxury item.

In the USA, and to a lesser degree in other Anglo-speaking countries, concern about family dissolution has generated considerable public discussion about the link between family change and the welfare of the next generation. Americans, particularly, are culturally committed to what might be called a highly ‘privatized’ family system, in which the State and family are seen as antagonists rather than allies. In countries where the opposite is the case, such as Scandinavia and northern European nations, the family and State are viewed as isomorphic. The State is expected to sustain and support the family, and parents are accustomed to receiving benefits for assuming parental responsibilities.

Some scholars have raised the question of whether the relationship between family and State has implications for the overall welfare of children. In short, are children better off when the State is held at arm’s length, or when the State is granted more leeway in allocating resources and mandating requirements? The paucity of cross-national data and studies precludes an answer to this question. Rather little research has been undertaken that compares State and family arrangements or examines the institutions that mediate between the two, such as schools, community organizations, voluntary groups, and the like. Such research provides a fertile ground for understanding both the determinants and consequences of change in kinship systems and the resulting consequences for the welfare of children.

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