Changing Family Patterns

• INCREASING DIVORCE RATES

  40% of marriages now end in divorce. The reasons for the increase over the past 60 years include:

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  • Legal changes

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  • Less stigma

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  • Secularisation

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  • Higher expectations of marriage (Fletcher).

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  • Women’s financial independence
• ​Reasons for the decline in the number of people getting married include:

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  • Changing attitudes - less pressure to marry
  • Alternatives to marriage (such as cohabitation) are less stigmatised
  • Women’s economic independence
  • Impact of feminism - some women now see marriage as a patriarchal institution
  • Rising divorce rates - this may put women off marrying
• Trends in marriage:

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  • Rise in serial monogamy - many people re-marry
  • Later marriages - the young spend longer in education and cohabit before marrying
  • Fewer church weddings - due to secularisation
• PARTNERSHIPS

  • More people are living together without being married (secularisation, stigma and cost)

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  • Increase in same-sex partnerships (secularisation and stigma)

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  • More people living alone (life expectancy and stigma)
• Childbearing and Childrearing

  • More children are born outside marriage

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  • Women are having children later

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  • Radical feminists are still unhappy with women being the main caregivers