ABSTRACT
In most regions of the world, social change is accompanied at some stage by a significant change in family life. The traditional functions of the family are being eroded. Today, the individual has the choice of obtaining economic, social, and even emotional support from relationships and institutions other than the family. Although most people rely on the family for many of the traditional functions, a growing number of people do not choose a family-oriented life-style. As a consequence, new trends have become manifest: • People marry later and some do not marry at all. • Marriages which are dissolved by age 50 are more likely to be
dissolved by divorce than by the death of one partner. • The proportion of married people who are committed to a single
family for their entire lifetime is decreasing. • Women have fewer children and give birth at later ages; the lives of
women are structured less around childbearing; women increasingly derive status from activities other than raising children.
