Trends in Society and the Family

This week my eyes were really opened. There are many growing trends in society. Some of them are premarital sex, births out of wedlock, living alone, cohabitation, delayed marriage, birth rates, household size, employed mothers, and divorce. These can be short term or long term, but have a lasting impact. It important to beware of them and the effects they can have on the society and families in general. A lot of them can connected to each other. There is a pretty obvious correlation between them. People can intentionally or unintentionally cause things to happen. I think that one of the biggest problems is the low fertility rates. Women are simply just not having as many children today. There are many reasons for that. Society is telling them it's not cool. Girls are living with their boyfriends before they get married. This usually leads to delaying marriage. People either don't have children or have less children when they live together before marriage. A lot people are getting married later in life. This means that they are older and won't be able to have as many children, even if they want to. Divorce is becoming more and more common. It is so sad to me how many marriages are failing. This leads to more people living alone. All of these lead to having smaller household sizes. Another point is that more mothers are working. They want to have a career and get settled before they have children. This then leads back to getting married later if they get remarried and having less children. In hind sight these might seem like minimal things that don't really matter. It is hard to see the impact these trends are really having on the family with out looking at the whole picture. We watched a video for class called "The New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter". I was shocked by the statistics. They talked a lot about the decline in fertility and how that has a huge impact on the decline of families. The overall human population is declining at accelerating rates. It is important to be aware of what is happening. I highly recommend you watch the videos for yourself and then share them with others. Here are the links if you decide to watch: The New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter, Part 1 The New Economic Reality: Demographic Winter, Part 2