Overview

• Family can be defined as a group of people related by blood or marriage living under the same roof
• The nuclear family consists of parents and children only, while extended families include grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.
• household


  a person living alone or a group of people living together even if not related to each other
• many major changes in family and household patterns

  • the number of traditional nuclear family households has fallen
  • divorce rates has increased
  • fewer first marriages and more re-marriages
  • people are marrying later in life
  • more people are cohabitating
  • same-sex relationships can be legally recognised
  • women are having fewer children and having them later
  • there are more births outside marriages
  • more lone-parents families
  • more people live alone
  • more step-families and more couples without children