Variations in American Family Life

1. Variations in American Family Life Chapter 3

2. Outline • American Families across Time • How Contemporary Families Differ from One Another • Racial and Ethnic Diversity

3. American Families across Time • American marriages and families are dynamic and must be understood as the products of wider cultural, demographic, and technological developments. • The Colonial Era (1607–1776) • Nineteenth-Century Marriages and Families • Twentieth-Century Marriages and Families • Contemporary Families

4. The Colonial Era (1607–1776) • Native American Families • In the early years of colonization, there were 2 million Native Americans in what is now the United States. • Most families were small. • There was a high child mortality rate. • Marriage took place between the age of 12 and 15 years for girls and between the age of 15 and 20 for boys.

5. The Colonial Era (1607–1776) • Colonial Families • The family was the primary unit for producing goods and caring for the needs of its members. • Marriages were arranged. • The wife was not an equal, but a helpmate. • Like her children, the colonial wife was economically dependent on her husband.

6. The Colonial Era (1607–1776) • Colonial Concept of Childhood • Children were believed to be evil by nature. • Childhood did not represent a period of life radically different from adulthood. • When children reached the age of 10, they were often “bound out” as apprentices or domestic servants.

7. The Colonial Era (1607–1776) • African-American families • Began in the United States in the early seventeenth century. • During the seventeenth century and much of the eighteenth, enslaved Africans and their descendants faced difficulty forming and maintaining families. • Childhood experience was often bitter and harsh. • Despite the hardships placed on them, enslaved Africans and African Americans developed strong emotional bonds and family ties.

8. Nineteenth-Century Marriagesand Families • In the nineteenth century, the industrialization of the United States transformed American families from self-sufficient farm families to wage-earning, increasingly urban families. • With this shift, a radically new division of labor arose in the family.

9. Nineteenth-Century Marriagesand Families • Marriage and Families Transformed • Without its central importance as a work unit and less and less the source of other important societal functions the family became focused on feelings. • This shift brought love to the foreground as the basis of marriage. • The two most important family roles for women in the nineteenth century were housewife and mother. • A belief in childhood innocence replaced the idea of childhood corruption

10. Nineteenth-Century Marriagesand Families • The African American Family • The Slave Family • By the nineteenth century, the slave family had already lost much of its African heritage • Slave children endured deep and lasting deprivation. • Slavery did not destroy all aspects of slave families. • Relied on extended kinship networks and on unrelated adults to serve as surrogates

11. Nineteenth-Century Marriagesand Families • African-American Families After Freedom • Thousands of former slaves formally renewed their vows, as they were now legally able to marry. • The first year or so after freedom was “the traveling time.” • African Americans traveled up and down the South looking for lost family members who had been sold.

12. Nineteenth-Century Marriagesand Families • Immigration: The Great Transformation • Between 1820 and 1920, 38 million immigrants came to the United States. • Kinship groups were important for survival. • The family economy focused on family survival rather than individual success.

13. Twentieth-Century Marriagesand Families • The Rise of Companionate Marriages • In the 20th century, companionate marriage became an ideal. • Men and women shared household decision making and tasks. • Marriages were expected to be romantic. • Wives were expected to be sexually active. • Children were treated more democratically.

14. Twentieth-Century Marriagesand Families • The Depression and World Wars • Family roles and relationships were profoundly affected by the Depression and two world wars. • Survival depended upon a combination of women’s earnings, children’s earnings, assistance from kin, or public assistance. • Between 1941 and 1945 the numbers of employed women increased by more than 6 million, to a high of 19 million.

15. Twentieth-Century Marriagesand Families • Families in the 1950s • Marriage and birthrates were unusually high. • Divorce rates were uncharacteristically low. • The economy enabled many to afford to buy houses with only one wage-earning spouse.

16. Median Age at First Marriage,1960–2008

17. Trends in Marriages, Divorces, and Births: 1970-2008

18. Couples and Children: 1970-2008

19. Aspects of Contemporary Families • Noticeable Trends • Cohabitation • unmarried couples sharing living quarters and intimate and sexual relationships. • Marriage • Divorce, remarriage, and blended families • Unmarried motherhood and single-parent families

20. Aspects of Contemporary Families • Factors Promoting Change • Economic changes • Technological innovations • Demographics • Gender roles

21. Percentage of Married Women Employed outside the Home Who Have Children 6 Years Old or Younger

22. Aspects of Contemporary Families • Demographic Changes • Three important changes have emerged: • Increased longevity • Increased divorce rate • Decreased fertility rate

23. How Contemporary FamiliesDiffer from One Another • Social Class • A social class is a category of people who share a common economic position in the stratified society in which they live. • Structurally, social class reflects the occupations we hold, the income and power they give us, and the opportunities they present or deny us. • The cultural dimension of social class refers to any class specific values, attitudes, beliefs, and motivations that distinguish classes from one another.

24. How Contemporary FamiliesDiffer from One Another • Social Class and Family Life: Upper Class • Roughly 10% of the population occupies this position. • The uppermost level of this class represents 3% of the population.

25. How Contemporary FamiliesDiffer from One Another • Social Class and Family Life: Middle Class • Represents between 45 to 50% of the population. • Upper-middle class consists of highly paid professionals (lawyers, doctors, engineers). • Middle-middle class comprises includes white-collar service workers with incomes between $40,000 and $80,000.

26. How Contemporary FamiliesDiffer from One Another • Social Class and Family Life: Working Class • About a third of the U.S. population is working class. • Tend to work as skilled laborers, earn between $20,000 and $40,000, and have high school or vocational educations.

27. How Contemporary FamiliesDiffer from One Another • Social Class and Family Life: Lower Class • Close to 20% percent of Americans are poor. • The poverty line was determined by calculating the annual costs of a “minimal food budget” multiplied by three. • Families whose incomes are even one dollar above this are not officially classified as poor.

28. The 2009 Poverty Guidelines for the 48 Contiguous States and the District of Columbia

29. How Contemporary FamiliesDiffer from One Another • Class and Family Life • Within upper-class families we tend to find sharply sex-segregated marriages in which women are subordinated to their husbands. • Middle-class marriages tend to be ideologically more egalitarian and are often two-career marriages. • Working-class couples who work “opposite” shifts, have higher levels of sharing responsibilities. • Marriages among the lower class are the least stable.

30. How Contemporary FamiliesDiffer from One Another • Class and Family Life: Parents and Children • Among the upper class, an important objective is to see that children acquire the appropriate understanding of their social standing and cultivate the right connections with others like themselves. • Middle-class parents tend to emphasize autonomy and self-discipline.

31. Structural Downward Mobility: U.S. Families Face the Recession The recent and current state of the U.S. economy in 2009–2010 has made downward mobility a harsh and painful reality for large numbers of U.S. families across the social class spectrum How Contemporary FamiliesDiffer from One Another

32. The Census Bureau defines ancestry as any of the following: “where their ancestors are from, where they or their parents originated, or simply how they see themselves ethnically.” The way the Census Bureau asks people of their ancestry can affect results. A racialgroup is a group of people classified according to their phenotype which is determined by anatomical and physical characteristics, such as skin color and facial structure. An ethnic group is a group of people distinct from other groups due to cultural characteristics (e.g. language, religion, and customs) that are transmitted from one generation to another. A minoritygroup is a group of people whose status places them at an economic, social, or political disadvantage. According to recent Census data, more than thirty percent of the U.S. population is ethnic minorities. Racial and Ethnic Diversity - Definitions

33. How Contemporary FamiliesDiffer from One Another • African American Families • According to the Census Bureau, in 2007 there were nearly 39 million African Americans in the United States, making African Americans 13% of the U.S. population. • Compared with the total U.S. population, African Americans are younger and less likely to be married. • Blacks are more likely to bear children outside of marriage and more likely to live in single-parent families.

34. How Contemporary FamiliesDiffer from One Another • Hispanic Families • As of July 2007, there were an estimated 45.5 million Hispanics, representing 15% of the U.S. population. • Emphasize extended kin relationships, cooperation, and mutual assistance. • La familia includes not only the nuclear family but also the extended family. • Bilingualism helps maintain ethnic identity.

35. How Contemporary FamiliesDiffer from One Another • Asian American Families • Asian Americans are the second-fastest-growing minority in the United States after Hispanics. In 2007, the more than 15 million Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders represented 5% of the U.S. population. • The largest Asian American groups are Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Asian Indians, Koreans,Vietnamese, and Japanese Americans. • Groups such as Cambodians, Laotians, and Hmong first came to this country in the 1970s as refugees from the upheavals resulting from the Vietnam War.

36. Race, Ethnicity, and Socioeconomic Status