The Change of the American Family Research Assignment

The Change of the American Family
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The American traditional family is headed towards extinction in the next few decades. This is deduced from the changes observed since the 1960s when a family was known to be made up of a father, mother, and children (nuclear family). In the 1960s the American traditional families were made up of the same race. This is because the black-white sexual relationship was forbidden. Things have changed drastically over the past decades as mixed-race families are becoming a day in day out phenomenon. Same-sex individuals have also started families, and single parent families are on the rise.
A number of factors led to the changes in the American family. Women empowerment and gender equality rights which changed the role of women posed to a major contributor to an increase of single-parent families. Women had to get an education, then job thus delaying them from marriage and making it difficult for them to settle down. In addition, this empowerment gave birth to feminism. Feminism is a sole supporter of breakups of nuclear families. The changing sexual mores and the introduction of birth controls made people see no need of staying together. Macroeconomic issues also played a major role. The cost of education was rising making it hard to obtain a decent education. In addition, job opportunities were diminishing making it hard to get a partner who is financially stable.
The three factors sociologists mostly employ when trying to explain the increased rates of divorce since 1960 are; feminism, new functionalities, and postmodernism. Feminists suggest that when a man and a woman in marriage are compared; the least the marriage works for is a woman; thus encouraging divorce. Women empowerment and equal gender rights have given birth to new functionalities of women in the society. Thus most women can support themselves financially and thus opt for divorces. In a consumer society in postmodernism, one aspect central to life is an individual choice. Despite the ideology of a nuclear family being crucial, postmodernism rejects it and supports other forms of family. Furthermore, divorce laws have granted equal rights to both genders. They have also been simplified such that filing for a divorce is much easier.
William Julius Wilson distinctly explained that basing on Moynihan report that the prevalence of single mother families was very high among the African-Americans. There was an increased growth of the negro-female-headed families thus weakening the Negro family. In addition, such families were vulnerable to more societal problems, and most of them we...