Changing of Working Families

There have been many changes that have taken place in families since the 1960. One major change has been working women - in the 60's, women were expected to stay home and take care of the family and children. Men worked to feed and support the family while the women stayed home. Since then, that has changed drastically. More and more women work full time these days and have successful careers.

Divorce was not something that happened with many families in the 60's...today it is quite prevalent. The number of divorces today is twice as high as in 1966 and three times higher than in 1950(Cliquet).

Single parent households are all over the world today where there were not many of them back in the 1960s. The number of households consisting of a single woman and her children has tripled since 1960.Women and men are marrying much later in life after they have established themselves in their careers and/or completed schooling. Also, more men and women don't even want to settle down and have the responsibility of a family and are choosing not to marry at all.

With same-sex marriage being legal in some states now, there is a surge of couples marrying and even adopting or having one partner conceive (in women-women relationships) children (Fancher, 2005). Women are having children much later in life due to financial constraints and wanting to achieve a certain status in their careers. When women are having children, they are bearing fewer children in today's society compared to the 1960s.

What accounts for these upheavals in family life? One of the most far reaching forces for change has been a sexual revolution far more radical than the early twentieth century "revolution in morals and manners." Contemporary Americans are much more likely than their predecessors to postpone marriage, to live alone, and to engage in sexual intercourse outside of marriage. Today, over 80 percent of all women say that they were not virgins