Modern Family vs 1960s Family

Identifying important or significant changes in families since 1960.And determining what factors are responsible for this change.

In 1960,over 70 percent of all American households were made up of a breadwinner father, a homemaker mother and their kids. Today “Modern “families” with a working husband, an unemployed wife and one or more children make up less than 15 percent of the nation’s households.

And as America’s families have the image of the family portrayed on television has changed accordingly. Today’s television families run the gamut from two career families to two single mothers and their children and unmarried couples who cohabitate in the same house.

Profound changes have reshaped American family life in recent years. In a decade, divorce rates doubled. The number of divorces today is twice as high as in 1966 and three times higher than in 1950. The rapid upsurge in the divorce rates contributed to a dramatic increase in the number of single-parent households or what used to be known as broken homes. The number of households consisting of a single woman and her children has tripled since 1960. A sharp increase in female-headed homes has been accompanied by a startling increase in the number of couples cohabitating outside of marriage. The number of unmarried couples living together has quadrupled since 1970.

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 when they married, compared to less than a 20 percent a generation ago. Extramarital sex has also increased sharply. Back in the 1940s, just eight percent of married women under the age of 25 had committed...