Summary
Contents
Subject index
Continuity and Change in the American Family engages students with issues they see every day in the news, providing them with a comprehensive description of the social demography of the American family. Understanding ever-changing family systems and patterns requires taking the pulse of contemporary family life from time to time. This book paints a portrait of family continuity and change in the later half of the 20th century, with a focus on data from the 1970’s to present. The authors explore such topics as the growth in cohabitation, changes in childbearing, and how these trends affect family life. Other topics include the changing lives of single mothers, fathers, and grandparents and increasing economic disparities among families; child care and child well-being; and combining paid work and family. The authors are talented writers who bring considerable professional and scholarly background to bear in illuminating this topic in a thoughtful yet lively presentation.
Cohabitation
Cohabitation
Shacking up. Living in sin. Living together. Persons of the opposite sex sharing living quarters. Doubling up. Sleeping together. All of these expressions have been used to describe the living arrangement that demographers refer to as cohabitation. Some of these terms are more value laden than others, and the one an individual chooses to describe this living arrangement can say a great deal about how he or she views unmarried sexual partners. Although cohabitation can refer to same-sex couples, most of the demographic research conducted to date has been concerned with opposite-sex partners.
The increase in heterosexual cohabitation that has accompanied the delay in marriage and increase in divorce is one of the most significant changes in family life to take place in the latter ...
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