Family Structure in the Nineteenth Century

7829 Words16 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: American family dynamic

Family Structure in the Nineteenth Century Missing Tables Abstract Family structure in the United States has undergone a dramatic change since the 1960's. The percentage of female-headed households increased while the percentage of married couple households declined. This paper uses data from the Urban Underclass Database to explain the roles the transforming economy (from manufacturing to service) and the subsequent employment dislocation play in the family structure change. Results for the largest 100 cities in the United States find support for a relationship between changes in the economy, subsequent male unemployment, and family structure change. Male unemployment had a positive effect on the growth of female-headed families in both 1980 and 1990. This effect continued even when decade changes were controlled. Transformation of American Families: Employment Dislocation and the Growth of Female-Headed Families Family structure in the United States has undergone a dramatic change since the 1960's. The percentage of female-headed households has increased tremendously while the percentage of married couple households has fallen. Using 1970-1990 data from the Urban Underclass Database this paper seeks to explain the role the transformation of the economy and subsequent employment dislocation have played in transforming the urban family. Traditionally the most dominant family form in the United States has been the married couple family. The image of two parents with children living under one roof is the norm for a married couple family. In a married couple family one or both parents work and income levels are gener... ... middle of paper ... ...ports, Series P-20, No. 450. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. U.S. Bureau of the Census. l991a. Poverty in the United States: 1990. Current Population Reports, Series P-60, No. 175. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office. Walker, A.H. 1985. "Racial differences in patterns of marriage and family maintenance, 1890-1980." Pp. 87-112 in Feminism, Children, and the New Families, ed. S.M. Dornbusch and M.H. Strober. New York: Guilford Press. Wilson, W.J. 1979. The Declining Significance of Race. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Wilson, W.J. 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner City, the Underclass, and Public Policy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Wilson, W.J. 1991. "Studying inner-city social dislocations: The challenge of public agenda research." American Sociological Review 56:1-14.

Show More
Related

  • More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City

    1316 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...ll. The inner city has many complications the fact that most are African American is a mere coincidence. If we as a nation are capable of fixing all institutions and structural issues we could bring the slums out of poverty. The cycle of unemployment and poverty is a terrible cycle that cannot only be judged by race and cultural values. When reading this book keep in mind the difficulties, any family or person could go through these tribulations. There are many arguments and sides to each problem; this is another one of those. The battle for inner city poverty, and the factors that go along with it, has not been finished. Wilson brings out a different aspect which could help people expand horizons and come up with better solutions.

    Read More

  • A Comparison of Social Trends of the 1950s and 1990s

    1482 Words  | 3 Pages

    We see 1950s in the United States as the golden era for the American people, and likewise, the late 1990s was considered as a prosperous time. However, the former decade observed the height of the nuclear family and low divorce rates, while the latter recorded higher rates of marriage dissolution and nonmarital births, as well as low rates of marriage. What was happening differently in these two decades? In order to rationalize these trends in conditions and inequalities among U.S. household and families, it is necessary to study the development in economy and employment and occupational structure in the United States.

    Read More

  • Check and Mate: A Case Study about Mother’s Revolt.

    1292 Words  | 3 Pages

    Kellog, Susan and Steven Mintz. Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of American Family Life. New York: The Free Press, 1988. Print.

    Read More

  • The Beginning Of The End Of A Modern Ghetto By Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh

    1251 Words  | 3 Pages

    Public housing was designed to liberate the city and streets of vagrants and paupers; however, in spite of strong support and investment, in practice it did not achieve that feat. The article The Beginning of the End of a Modern Ghetto by Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh discusses the racial and class stereotypes that obscured the way Chicago's Robert Taylor Homes functioned. When it opened in November 1962, Robert Taylor Homes, were twenty-eight sixteen-story buildings containing 4,300 units on Chicago's South Side, and was considered the world's largest public housing project. This demonstrated how much space and money was invested into this public housing project. The managers of the Chicago Housing Authority at first tried to work with the tenants but were quickly overwhelmed by the task of maintaining the enormous physical plant inhabited by thousands of children. The tenant applicant screening committees of managers and tenants eventually stopped meeting, the population grew steadily poorer, and by the 1970s single mothers on welfare made up the majority of the adult residents. This was the beginning of a failed experiment because after this things only worsened. The young...

    Read More

  • Myths of Black Motherhood and Their Consequences

    1732 Words  | 4 Pages

    ...ftery. "Family Structure, Educational Attainment, and Socioeconomic Success: Rethinking the "Pathology of Matriarchy"" American Journal of Sociology 105.2 (1999): 321-65. University of Washington. Web. 18 Feb. 2012.

    Read More

  • Postwar Effects on Women

    695 Words  | 2 Pages

    Postwar American life became organized around marriage and family. As men came back from the war they merged with the peacetime economy, taking jobs away from women and sending them back to the home.

    Read More

  • Talcott Parsons And Bales: Leader Of The 1950s-Nuclear Family

    1505 Words  | 4 Pages

    However, social conditions made it less feasible for families to live this way. As the 1960s approached and consumption was in high demand, women were yet again, forced to join the work force; but only a quarter of the women joined the workforce, whereas in the 1990s about “two-thirds of women who had children were in the work force (Coontz 55). Coontz (1997) explains how by 1973, “real wages were falling for young families, and by the late 1970s, government effectiveness had decreased (Coontz 54). It was because of economic factors that the nuclear bread-winning family could only be a lifestyle a few can afford. Nonetheless, women joining the workforce created a new understanding of women-hood, changed women’s status in society, and created conflict within the household. Women did not have the time to complete all the household tasks which contributed to the increased divorce rates, but left women happier due to the fact that they had that ultimate

    Read More

  • Social Stereotypes in America

    1494 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wilson, W.J. (1987). The Truly Disadvantaged: The Inner-City, the Underclass, and Public Policy Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press

    Read More

  • Sociology 111 Midterm

    1328 Words  | 3 Pages

    As mentioned before, sociologists Coontz and Hochschild further elaborate upon Parsons and Bales’ concepts of the American family, but they mostly critique the idea of the male-breadwinner family. One of the main arguments Coontz and Hochschild present is the decline of the male-breadwinner family due to the economic changes of the United States and the arising social norms of consumerism. Because Parsons and Bales never considered how the changes throughout society would affect family, they believed the male-breadwinner family would continue to be a functional type of family for everyone. However, within her text, “What We Really Miss about the 1950s,” Coontz specifically discusses the major expense of keeping mothers at home as consumption norms...

    Read More

  • Inner City Community Case Study

    1102 Words  | 3 Pages

    Inner City Communities are often areas which are both densely populated and deteriorating(quote). The areas and its residents have strongly been correlated with social and economical disparity. Residents of inner city communities have been plagued with problems including: “high unemployment, poor health care, inadequate educational opportunities, dilapidated housing, high infant mortality, and extreme poverty” (Attitudes and Perceptions, n.d). Though the inner city communities have been stricken with

    Read More

  • Overview of Social Structural Explanations and Cultural Explanations

    1391 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wilson, William Julius. 2010. More than Just Race: Being Black and Poor in the Inner City. New York. W. W. Norton & Company

    Read More

  • The Changing of America Family

    1154 Words  | 3 Pages

    One of the biggest changes in American families has been divorce and the single-parent families. In the article “What is a Family?”, Pauline Irit Erera argues that after World War 11, is when the major changes in families begun. Women were already accustomed to having jobs and working while their men were away during the war, and when the men all came back is when things started to change. Erera says, “The movement for gender equality led to increased employment opportunities for women, while at the same time declining wage rates for unskilled male workers made them less desirable marriage partners.” (Ere...

    Read More

  • Essay On Gentrification

    1267 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...r of inequality in America, with so much poverty located within such a close proximity to the White House. That being said, gentrification efforts in DC appear to be focused on removing poor people, or at the very least, the visual image of crime, poverty, and corruption as it relates to the most powerful city in the country. Community activist groups have tried time and time again to stop gentrification from affecting their community, but often times, to no avail. What is truly sad is that while this cycle is continually perpetuated as a matter of “haves versus have nots” the way in which this system seems to always disproportionately marginalize one race of people in favor of another, does raise the question as to whether or not gentrification was orchestrated to operate in such a manner; and if so, what are the affected groups going to do about it.

    Read More

  • Racial Tensions and Exclusion in Second-Wave Feminism

    1209 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the 1990’s, the number of homes maintained by unwed couples doubled and reached 5.5 million, with 41 percent containing minors. This significant portion quickly neared the quantity of married-couple houses with children, constituting 46 percent of all households (“The Changing”; Fields). The proximity of these percentages displayed the diverted social interests in America. In addition to the growth of unmarried-couple households, the proportion of single parenthood proliferated as well. In the period of 1970 to 2000, single-mother households swelled from three million to ten million, and those of single fathers expanded from 393,000 to two million, or 26 and five percent, respectively. This result stemmed directly from second-wave feminism, as more women made the decision to hold employment outside the home, magnifying marital tensions. After many resulting divorces, custodial arrangements typically produced greater stress, as the presence of children in single-mother homes was significantly more probable compared to single-father households (Fields). Furthermore, as recently as 2015, American women earned twenty percent less than the salary of men while performing equal tasks (“The Simple”). The combination of more parental responsibilities and the absence of sufficient wages left many women unable to provide

    Read More

  • Marriage and Divorce - Women and the High Cost of Divorce

    2235 Words  | 5 Pages

    While divorce was once a relatively rare event, and one to which negative stereotype was attached, it has now become almost as regular as cloudy skies in Binghamton, NY. For the past two decades there have been more than one million divorces per year in the United States and this number is steadily rising (Arendell, 1986). There are several historical factors contributing to this trend. After WWII the service sector of the economy underwent a huge expansion, increasing the demand for women workers. As wages rose, more and more women joined the work force. This increase was often motivated by the fact that it was becoming increasingly more difficult to maintain a household on the strength of only one income. While in 1940 just under 15% of women worked outside the home, workforce participation by females increased to the point by 1960 that 32% of the workers were female. This number soared to 47% by 1992 (Kurz, 1995). This increasing labor force participation led to greater chances for self-sufficiency and made it more feasible for women to contemplate divorce. Also, these same incr...

    Read More

More about Family Structure in the Nineteenth Century

Open Document