American Family as an Institution
Student’s Name
Institution Affiliation
Date
Abstract
According to previous studies, the family is seen as an institution, the fundamental social and an economic unit. The traditional nuclear family structure included a husband, a wife, and their children together with the extended family. However, this conventional setting has since evolved to the postmodern families that include people from different or same sex, single parents and communal households among others creating their own families. However, sociologists argue that new paradigms continue to affect the transformation of the dominant values, beliefs, and behaviors of modern families. The current paper, therefore, discusses the ideal family setting and compares it to one of the new paradigm families; the single parent families. The discussion also focuses on the differences between the two family settings with regards to how they are affected by the impacts of deindustrialization and the changing economic structure.
American Family as an Institution
A family is broadly regarded to be an institution, the basic unit of social life. It is through the family that individuals first experience mutuality, and in addition to that, civility is also taught. Therefore, the family is elementarily the primary educational institution. Currently, the American family is a thriving institution although it has evolved from the earlier forms. Various aspects of the modern world have significantly changed, including the education system, politics and economy, however, the family maintains to be one of the most constant, models of an institution (Anastasiu, 2012). Anastasiu (2012) argues that there is no era in which the society has experienced growth and functioned without the family concept.
According to the American anthropologist George Murdock, the family is described as a social group that is featured by ordinary people, economic cooperation, and reproduction. In the description of a family, Anastasiu (2012) illustrates that a family usually includes adults (both males and females), with at least two who keep up a socially accepted sexual relationship, a child/children (adopted or of the sexually cohabiting adults). To sum up the family concept, the defining features of the family remain the facts that the individuals in a family live together, undertake various activities together which contribute to the necessary resources needed and to have children. However, studies have shown that the family perspective has undergone numerous changes since the mid-twentieth century.
According to Modell (2017), there is a continuously moving social paradigm shift which continues to alter the new profile of the American Family. Bozett (cited in Modell, 2017) argues that a paradigmatic revolution is taking place globally and is having an impact on the modern families. Sociologists have also indicated that the new paradigms continue to affect the transformation of the dominant values, beliefs, and behaviors of modern families. The contemporary world has individuals including single-sex couples, adopting children or having babies using artificial methods and surrogacy (Modell, 2017).
As diversity in the family concept increases, the idea of an ideal family continues to widely distance itself from reality. Featherstone (cited in Bowers argued that the traditional family image does no justice to the variety of family styles in America. In his work, Featherstone indicated that the traditional family has been regarded as an ideal for influencing policy, but continues to grow increasingly out of touch with the actual character of the modern American family models.
There are numerous theoretical perspectives on the family, which at time complement one another, and may seem like a single section of research. However, on the other hand, in some instances, the perspectives may contradict, which may sometimes lead to intense debates among scholars and policymakers. One of the aspects of the family is the structure-functional perspective whereby the family is referred to as a social institution. According to Theoretical views on the family (n.d), institutions are partnered and are usually predictable in the way of thinking as well as in their behaviors. In addition to that, they also have values, beliefs, attitudes, and norms that are worked through critical group life aspects which serve essential social functions. In other words, all the features of the institutions are suited to meet the needs of the individuals involved, to enable their survival. With this regard, the current paper aims to explore and provide a comparison between the traditional family setting, and one of the new postmodern family settings (single parent families).
Single parent families
As indicated by Murdock's definition of a family, it is consists of members who live together, work together to put in the resources needed to live as well as have and raise children. The description was quite restricted when compared to the modern day families. For instance, Murdock's definition did not include single-sex couples and single parents, which continue to gain popularity in the contemporary world.
Although the concept of single parenthood has always been in existence, it has currently gained more popularity as one of the new types of families. When talking about the subject of single parenthood, it almost always involves a woman as they are globally considered the primary caregivers. However, in addition to being the caregiver, they are also the family heads and are responsible for providing for the family. Studies show that demographics of single parenthood have increased with more children currently living in single-parent homes (Stephen & Udisi, 2016). In the western society the concept of single parenthood has been widely accepted, while in the Eastern communities, the idea has garnered a lot of debate.
Marital separations usually subject the children to severe emotional distress. Studies have shown that nearly twice as many children from single-parent families drop out of school as compared to children from two-parent families. The challenges of single parenthood are multifaceted, and the impacts are not only felt by the parents but also by the children. Single parent families face similar challenges as two-parent families, only worse since in their case only one adult is tasked with caring for the family, irrespective of how many children are in the family. Some of the challenges faced by the children in single-parent families include; negligence due to having a busy parent, poor feeding, lack of focus in schools, and in extreme cases, they may have developmental disorders (Stephen & Udisi, 2016). The ideal family who is described by the nuclear family setting, therefore, differs to the emerging family paradigms, such as single-parent families as institutions and in their roles in the society.
Impact of deindustrialization on families in different classes
According to Strangleman, Rhodes, and Linkon (2013), recent studies on the effects of deindustrialization on families in different social classes has revealed that there has been an increased interest in the various experiences based on race, gender and class among young working-class individuals in the US. The growth and development of the service industries, as well as the tendencies for most of the available jobs favoring the feminine in comparison to the masculine traits, have significantly affected the forms of the white working-class male individuals' identity which were historically formed through the increasing needs for manual labor.
Both traditional (normal) family settings and single-parent families face more or less the same challenges as a result of deindustrialization. There has been a drastic increase in the number of single parenthood cases in the US (Webster, 2010). The increase in the number of lone parenthood is a phenomenon which took place in concert with the mounting of the rate of unemployment though not as a result of it. Therefore, as a result of parenthood closely rising in line with the rate of unemployment across different places in the US, the approach of deindustrialization has not been efficiently working (Webster, 2010). The burgeoning number of broken families has been as a result of the loss of jobs from the affected areas. Similarly, the mass loss of jobs means that the local labor demand is extremely weak to enable reemployment of the large number s of lone parents who are affected by the processes of deindustrialization. Webster (2010) argued that single-parent families have increased as a result of the increase in unemployment rates and predicted that the number of single-parent families would have doubled by the year 2020. According to Russo and Lee (2008), unemployment due to deindustrialization leads to a reduced standard of living and also disrupts the social settings in the family. While married parents in ideal families may lose their homes or separate as a result of the lack of jobs, the single parent families, on the other hand, may continue to deteriorate in their social setting as the parent may stay out more in search of casual labors to pay for their bills.
In addition to the loss of jobs, the other social effects of deindustrialization in both single-parent families and the normal family settings include loss of healthcare services, increase in crime rates, and an increase in drug and alcohol abuse as well as an increase in suicidal incidences (Russo & Lee, 2008).
Impact of the changing structure of the economy on the family in American society
The economic function distribution among family members has changed significantly over the last century. The change can be attributed to urbanization and industrialization which took place in the 19th and the 20th centuries. In the traditional family setting, the man was tasked with the duty of providing for the family. However, in understanding the change in economic functions of the modern society, the stereotype of only men working to provide for the family has to be dismissed.
The economic decisions in a family are usually made bearing in mind the likely results and perceptions of how their actions will affect the family. Financial choices such as where to work, how to save, how much to invest and which education to undertake are usually made at the family level (Canning, Mitchell, Bloom & Kleindorfer, n.d). In the traditional family setting, both parents are usually involved in carrying out these decisions. The family distributes their available resources among the members, generating investments in education and other economic ventures. However, in single-parent families, particularly in families with single mothers the decisions fall on the woman. Research has shown that single mothers have a less net worth as compared to single fathers, married parents or even stepfamilies.
Previous studies have shown that the economic growth and development of a country is inversely proportional to fertility and family sizes. The changing economies have seen more women get absorbed in job opportunities that were previously assumed to be for men. According to Canning et al., (n.d), the reduction in the family sizes can be attributed to the higher levels of education in females as well as the increased employment opportunities for women away from the homes, especially in those coming from traditional family settings.
The changing economic structures have also led to families, particularly families with adult children denying the school opportunities, introducing them to work to contribute to the family income. In comparison, children in single-parent families have less family income and are more likely to live in poverty than children in the traditional two-parent families. With regards to public assistance, children from single mother families are more likely to receive public support from welfare organizations than children from the traditional family settings. Nevertheless, some of the single parents can successfully raise children on their own regardless of the social expectations, especially when the absent parent (usually the father) is responsible for financial support. The single mothers are generally responsible for parenting and in taking up the economic roles. Therefore the changing economic structure not only affects the single-parent families but also the traditional family settings.
References
Anastasiu, I. (2012). The social functions of the family. Euromentor Journal, 3(2), 1-7.
Canning, D., Mitchell, M., Bloom, D. & Kleindorfer, E. L. (n.d). The family and economic development. Retrieved from: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.194.8310&rep=rep1&type=pdf
Modell, M. (2017). Single-sex families drive an emerging 21st-century American social paradigm shift: Research debates effects on children. Retrieved from: http://udspace.udel.edu/bitstream/handle/19716/21833/Modell_udel_0060M_12806.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Strangleman, T., Rhodes, J. & Linkon, S. (2013). Introduction to crumbling cultures: Deindustrialization, Class, and memory. International labor and working-class history, 84, 7-22.
Theoretical perspectives on the family. (n.d). Retrieved from: http://web.pdx.edu/~matg/Sociology/Marriage_&_Intimacy_files/Chapter%202%20(part%20one).pdf
Webster, D. F. (2010). Impacts of deindustralization on the labor market and beyond. Retrieved from: http://theses.gla.ac.uk/1720/1/2010websterphd.pdf.pdf
Stephen, E. N., & Udisi, L. (2016). Single-parent families and their impact on children: a study of amassoma community in bayelsa state. European Journal of Research in Social Sciences Vol, 4(9).
Russo, J., & Linkon, S. L. (2008). The social costs of deindustrialization. Manufacturing a better future for America, 183-216.