Explain the process of how family has become nuclearized, and what are the 3 futures of family?

How has family become nuclearized in the past 2-3 centuries?


What are the 3 futures of family?


Best answer gets the points!|||There are many reason for the shift away from extended (or consanguine) families to nuclear families, but the major one is industrialization. Extended families were well adapted to agrarian societies, where many hands were needed to do farm work.





As people moved to cities, where factories were located, they had to adjust to new conditions. First of all, there were space limitations. Living quarters in cities have always been far more confined than on farms or in rural areas.





Second, people were no longer fed off the land. Food had to be purchased, and the price of purchased food required families to have fewer mouths to feed.





Third, factory workers had to be mobile. (Today, in the U.S., people typically move once every five to six years.) An extended farm family is difficult to move. It is adapted to the land. However, a nuclear family is very mobile. Moving four or five people from place to place is much simpler and easier.





So, the bottom line historically is that extended families were functional when most of society was agrarian. Now that most of society is (or is becoming) urban and industrial, nuclear families are more functional.





As for the future:





First, the age of first marriage will continue to increase. During the 1960's, the trend toward early marriage began to reverse, and the age of entry into a first marriage has steadily increased for both men and women. There are no signs that this trend will change in the foreseeable future.





Second, more people will choose to live alone. Again, this trend has already begun, and there are no signs of a reversal.





Third, small families will be the norm. In Europe and North America, when women are asked about the "perfect" number of children, the answer is zero, one, or two. In fact, many European countries have not been replacing population for decades and some are actually shrinking in population today. The U.S. keeps growing, unlike a modern, industrial, and wealthy country, because of immigration and the fact that immigrants tend to be young, most still in their reproductive years. Although they've adopted a new country, they haven't yet adopted the child-bearing pattern. But, they will eventually.





Fourth, there will be more unmarried couple households, more children born out of wedlock, and a high, but slightly declining divorce rate. The high rate is due to traditional factors (decline of religious influence, among them). But, the decline will partly be due to the fact that a smaller percentage of the population will actually enter into marriage to begin with.





You can extrapolate a lot more from this information, but this should be a good start.


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