Family

Vocabulary:

• Family system: A social system, a network of interdependent relationships. The people around a child directly as they grow up, how many people are there and what are the relationships. Not static, changes over time. Has bidirectional influences (all parties influence each other), direct influences (how people act with each other), and indirect influences (“third parties” that impact family members, like parental workplace). From 1960→2018, there has been an increase in single parent (dramatically mother) families and those with no parents, but a new category of two parent co-habitating (unmarried) emerged

• Marriage trends: More people are getting married later, average age for women now is 28 and men 30 than before when it was 20 and 23. There is now more diversity (interracial is 15%), and there is more same-sex couples due to legislation, overall less people are getting married than before.

• Family size: Overall declining in terms of size, first children are being born later and less couples are choosing to have kids. This can be due to the expense of children. It is socially acceptable to have kids without being married (always single mothers)