Chapter 1
This chapter is about images, ideals, and myths related to families. It teaches the develop a new framework for understanding families. In society, there are different ideas about what an ideal family should be, and the characteristics attributed to a perfect family differ. Some emphasize the traditional aspects, while other families with standard features become ideal. The value orientations of the family largely determine current models of family behavior and create significant standards that accompany a person throughout his life and have a fundamental influence on his worldview.
The ideal family in the modern sense is equality, and both spouses perform household duties. Parents of spouses do not intervene but help financially, and sexual harmony is present in the family. There are also various myths about an ideal family; one of the most common is the right family always mutual understanding. Such a picture is fascinating, because today, in the era of the most precarious relations and ties in the history of humanity, conflict is perceived as a threat.
For many young people, it becomes essential to graduate, build a career, achieve material well-being. In this regard, the motives for creating a family are changing, and the age of marriage is increasing. A woman in modern society can achieve the same high status and position as a man. Increasingly, the emphasis is on the equal rights of family relations. In such a family, the rights and dignities of men and women are not infringed, providing each of them with equal opportunities for professional, intellectual, and spiritual growth. Indeed, in modern society, it is self-development, intellectual growth that takes the leading position.
Chapter 2
This chapter is about the new social history and recognizes the qualities of the modern family. The development of family life in colonial America is also investigated and analyzed. Many researchers of family and marriage believe that changes in contemporary society are linked to historical changes and the transition from the traditional form of the family to the present. However, before considering this transition, it is necessary to determine what the concept of an advanced type of society means. In sociology, the division of society into traditional and industrial, or modern, is sustainable. An organization with an agrarian system, permanent structures, and a method of sociocultural regulation based on tradition is considered traditional.
The development of capitalism led to profound changes in the way of life of the population. The preliminary role of the family as a mediator in relations between society and the individual, primary production, and social unit of culture began. This role can support the norms of large families and develop incentives for the birth of large numbers of children. Decline under the influence of industrialization and industrial production, which fundamentally extended all members from family production to wage labor. The transfer of several family functions to other social institutions turns the family into an economic and consumer unit.
In the XX century, all historical trends inherent in the modernization of society had retained their orientation, deepened and expanded, and on the threshold of the XXI century. In most developed countries, the consequences of the historical withering away of large families, the disappearance of family production as predominant, the weakening of the family’s intermediary role, and its position among social institutions and concerning the state institution were fully revealed.
Chapter 3
This chapter is about the history of industrialization and the impact it on family life. Discuss the race control in the American family and tell about the history of the Great Depression. Such an orientation toward a family-related collective reinforced the motives of large families since an increase in the number of families determined its well-being and power from the interests of family production. The relation of the individual to large families was strengthened due to the authoritarian structure family and the state of the individual’s social status in the community with a phylogenetic position. The short period of socialization of the child, the participation of children in household chores, in production from an early age encouraged the need for large families since the benefits of children overlapped family costs.
The development of capitalism led to profound changes in the way of life of the population. The previous role of the family as a mediator in the relationship between society and the individual, able to maintain the norms of large families and develop incentives for the birth of a large number of children, became prominent. The transfer of several family functions to other social institutions turns the family into an economic and consumer unit. Each of its members is involved in activities in which family ties lose their former role as intermediary.
The birth of a large number of children is gradually losing its economic importance. The lengthening of the period of socialization of children and the change in the social role of the child increases the economic dependence of children on their parents and weaken reproductive motivation. A gradual decrease in child mortality facilitates the natural weakening of large families. Finally, the ban on interfering with the reproductive cycle is being destroyed. Improving the sanitary-hygienic conditions of life, the success of medicine and healthcare strengthens the individual’s health, extend the life span, and directly affect the reduction of mortality. Thus, large families have lost their primary support.
Chapter 4
This chapter is about the consequences of the Great Recession on families. The government in America and many other countries are concerned about the state of the “reproductive” function of the family, as the prospects for providing the economy with labor resources. Besides, they’re worried about the role of the family in the formation and development of human capital from which comes the accumulation in families at all stages of its life cycle. The family determines the development of the individual in the unity of all its aspects – physical, intellectual, spiritual, and moral. Moreover, it creates the basis for the activities of other institutions that form a person and human potential.
Many sociologists and economists argue that “family socialization” is not limited to the assimilation of only those norms and values that are currently accepted in a given country. Nevertheless, it serves as the most critical mechanism for the transfer of essential civilizational characteristics. One of the main components of modern civilization is the development of innovative processes in the economic sphere of public life. A distinctive feature of a productive society is the decisive role of human resources, their priority development.
Investing in engineering and technology with an apparent lag in the development of the human factor of production does little. The family today has been the subject of attention of learned economists. A significant contribution to the development of economic science in the context of human capital belongs to G. Becker. Becker explored the family as a social institution that had previously been almost entirely ignored by economic theory.
Chapter 5
This chapter is about new immigration and demographic trends in the country. Today, the pattern of declining birth rates below the level of simple reproduction of the population is observed in many countries of the world. Also, regardless of the socio-political structure of the state and sociocultural, including national, ethnic, and religious characteristics. However, many scientists attribute the possibility of successful resolution of acute social problems, including family-demographic policy issues related to ultra-low birth rates, to the standard type of the state and its varieties oriented towards the well-being of the majority of the population.
Nevertheless, there are opposing assessments of the social “welfare state.” For example, the great American family member A. Carlson believes that the system of social security and insurance, social support arose and spread in the capitalist system as a substitute for the family (Rosenblum and Ball 5). The state of “welfare” captured and absorbed what the family had been doing for thousands of years regarding its “dependent members” – children, the elderly, the disabled. The interception of family functions (primarily education and upbringing of younger generations) by state institutions was the first reason not only for the decline of the family but also for the system of the secular state itself.
In all types of family-demographic policies, there is no fertility policy aimed at increasing and increasing the proportion of families with three or more children. This is considered an “interference” in the private world of the family, allegedly violating the individual’s right to need any number of children, and not just what the state requires. The contradiction between the country and the market should be resolved in a liberal model of family policy with a decrease in the role of the land.
Works Cited
Rosenblum, Marc R., and Isabel Ball. Trends in Unaccompanied Child and Family Migration from Central America. Migration Policy Institute, 2016.