Understanding Family Development: Trends and Challenges

1. Family Development

2. Family • Key social institution • Caregiving • Socialization • Definition? • “group of people related by blood, marriage, or adoption” • Changing definition • Structures • Blended families

3. Nuclear (co-residing) • Extended (do not co-reside) • Family of orientation (birth/adoptive) • Family of procreation (having own children)

4. Statistics Canada • Census Family • Married (legal, common-law) with or without never-married children, or • Lone parent with at least one never-married child • Economic Family • 2 or more people related by blood, marriage, common-law, adoption • Living in same household

5. Stats Can • Private Household • Person or group of people who occupy a private dwelling • Family Household • Private household that contains at least one census family • Non-Family Household • Private household that consists of one person living alone or group of people who do not constitute a census family

6. Complexities of categorizing • Change over lifespan • Problem in “co-residency” as defining characteristic of families • Why? • E.g., widowed woman living with granddaughter – family member but in “non-family household”

7. Family Development

8. Family Development • Dynamic • Reciprocity • Changing • Birth Rates in Canada • Dropping – Why? • Economics • Delayed Parenthood

9. Average age at first birth increasing

10. Increased percentage of women in labour force

12. Economics of Parenthood

13. Family Life Cycle • Evelyn Mills Duval (1997) • 8 stages • Relation to marital satisfaction • Changing perceptions of equity (fairness) • Why?

16. Robert Havinghurst (1953) • Family Developmental Tasks • Growing responsibilities • Problems (Butler, Duval, Havinghurst Family Development models) • Assumption of universality • Increase in off-time childbearing (applicability to late life families?) • Increased life expectancy, earlier retirement: need for pre-, early-, and post-retirement stages?

17. Assumption of Universality • No accommodation of individual variations • Increase in blended families • Increase in lone-parent families • Reduced family size • Changing parental roles

20. Myths about families in the past • Traditional nuclear family • But: demographics of past generations • High infant, child mortality rates • Maternal mortality • Life expectancy

21. % People with one parent alive

22. Multigenerational families rare in past • Wealth of elderly family members determined treatment/status

23. Structure of Aging Families • Marital status of males and females • Middle to late adulthood

24. Males

25. Females

26. Gender differences • Older men more likely to be married than older women • Widowhood “expected life event” for women in late adulthood • Greater life expectancy • Age difference between spouses • Men more likely than women to remarry • Demographic reality: fewer unmarried older men • Sexist social norms: age differences

27. Divorce • More commonly experienced life event • Data unclear with growing incidence of common-law marriages • Preceding cohabitation more likely to end in divorce • Negative economic consequences for women, not as likely for men • Remarriage after divorce decreasing • Partly due to increases in cohabitation • Men more likely to remarry after divorce • Current elderly not likely to have experienced cohabitation, divorce, remarriage • Implications for future generations? • More complexity, financial security?

28. Living with spouse 60% elderly men 40% women Living alone Women: 30-50% Men: 13-20% Living Arrangements

29. Increases in female life expectancy • Declining fertility • Economic feasibility not a significant factor • But pension improvements may be important • Normative changes related to independence, privacy, individualism

30. Multigenerational Living • Approximately 13% of Canadian elders • Influence of ethnic origin • Foreign-born, more likely to live in 3-generation household • “beanpole” families • 4-5 generations • Not common • Late childbearing age: age gap between generations

31. Sandwich generation • Needs of dependent children and elderly parents • Not commonplace in Canada • Empty nest vs. “cluttered nest” • Children leaving home at older ages • Adult children more likely to “boomerang” back

32. Grandparenthood • Majority of elderly • Contribution to grandchildren • Gender differences: affect

34. Affect differences • Women more likely to be grandparents for longer time • Grandparent-child tie more emotionally close among grandmothers • Mediated by middle generation: opposite effects • Divorce in middle generation: possible denial of contact • Grandparents as “parents” if middle generation unable to care for children

35. Widowhood • “expected” life event • Associated with financial difficulty • Stress • Change in identity • New relationships with children, other family members, friends, other men

36. Adult sibling relationships • Importance varies over life course • Later life • Growth in importance • Influenced by • geographical proximity • Gender (sisters closer) • Marital status (more importance to never-married) • Parental status (more important to childless)

37. Family Conflict • Elder Abuse • Extreme form of conflict/elder maltreatments • Physical, psychological, financial • Not as common as other forms • 4-8 percent victims of abuse/neglect in home and institutional settings • Family • Spouses more likely to be perpetrators than children • Men more likely to be physically abusive • Women more likely to be abusive through neglect

38. Violence against elderly • Related to four factors • Problems of abuser (mental illness, drug addiction) • Dependency of abuser on victim (especially financial dependency) • Social isolation • External stresses on family members • Perpetuation of wife abuse into later life • Need for social solutions

39. Review • Cognitive development • Intelligence: change, stability, growth • Distinction: cross-sectional vs. longitudinal • Social development • theories, friendship, mate selection, sexuality • Family development • structure, changes, relations