ABSTRACT
Introduction The prevalence of cohabitation and of births outside wedlock has led to the necessity to reconsider what precisely we understand by ‘the family’. The Rowntree Foundation has been doing research on the contemporary concept of the family, which has now experienced such changes that inevitably the trainee will encounter significant numbers of unmarried clients and will need to be aware of their separate problems which will require a distinct approach. Already some steps have been taken to minimalise the effect for children of the fact that their parents are not married, eg in the application of the Child Support Act 1991 which catches both married and unmarried absent parents who are not maintaining their children in exactly the same way, and gradually the position has been reached that there as many similarities as differences between the two types of family.
