Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
EDITION
Thomas J. Sullivan
Chapter 3
Family-Related Problems
• Family
– the social institution based on kinship that
functions to replace members of society and
to nurture them
• In the U.S. today cultural norms call for
people
– To practice monogamy
– To have an egalitarian family
• status conferral
• economic activity
• protection
• affection and companionship
• Dual-Earner Families
– In most nuclear families in the United States
in the past, women did not work
– Today, in almost two-thirds of two-parent
families, both spouses work
– Higher rates of childlessness among dual
earner families may be an effort to avoid
some competing demands
• Singlehood
– Today, 54 million adults in the United States
have never been married
• This figure includes slightly more males than
females
– Many remain single because they believe it
affords them distinct advantages:
• freedom from unnecessary commitments,
economic independence, new people and new
relationships, personal growth, and the ability to
have a more varied sex life that is free of guilt
© 2015, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Diverse Family Lifestyles
• Cohabitation
– Cohabitation refers to relationships in which
two people live in the same household and
share sexual, emotional, and often economic
ties without being legally married
– Why? To get to know each other and
determine compatibility and to establish
relationships after a failed marriage, or even
for economic convenience or necessity
• Single Parenthood
– Today, 30 percent of all families with children
under 18 years of age are headed by only one
parent, mostly by women
– Almost 1/3 of children lives in a family in
which one or both parents are absent, and
half of all children may spend at least part of
their childhood in a single-parent home
• A Global Perspective
– In the past few decades the proportion of
births to unmarried women has increased in
most nations, in some cases dramatically
– Many households are headed by women:
almost 50% in nations such as Botswana and
Barbados and 31% in the United States
– Household size has also been decreasing in
every part of the world
• Marital poverty
• Sexual inequality
• An inconsistency between a man’s and woman’s
achievements
• Social isolation
• Child Abuse
– Irrespective of social class considerations, it
appears that child abuse is a behavior pattern
that is passed on from generation to
generation in some families.
© 2015, 2012, 2010 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Violence in the Family