Source: Pexels by Greta Hoffman
How has the concept of a family transformed today?
Family according to the Cambridge Dictionary is “ a group of people who are related to each other, especially parents and children “. In fact, the family’s first social relationships are born. Feeling part of a core is essential and creates the foundation for our future social life.
Over the past few years, the family in Western society has undergone significant changes.
For example, the number of children has sharply decreased; many families are formed only by a couple of spouses; the number of singles (people living alone) has increased; marriages between people of different ethnicities are growing.
Marriage and cohabitation
The concept of the family also includes cohabitation, although there are legal differences between European countries. Generally, as the statistics show, it is usually the older couples who want marriage, while the young prefer cohabitation. It has been noted that, however, this last choice leads to a risk of breakup easier both for psychological, social, and legal reasons.
There is no perfect formula, but each one, according to religion or ethnicity, chooses what it deems most appropriate and adheres to social conventions.
The values have changed; for example, the center is no longer the parent as it used to be, but children, even if in a smaller number in a family, are placed at the center of everything, and everything is aimed at their growth and their psychophysical development. Once, the children were in more significant numbers because they were helpful in the fields and all the other crafts that adults had to do.
In addition, this new generation is always in continuous contact with technology with the use of electronic devices that in the past did not exist. Then, in any case, children played with simple games and fantasy. Now at the age of 5 years, a child approaches a smartphone with incredible speed making it responsive to any stimulus.
It seems that we are far behind the new generation of young people!
How will the family be in the future?
Three main factors have transformed the family structures due to a Report 2022 about family. An aging population, urbanization, and decreasing fertility rates. A couple or single prefers to live in a cost-effective, readily available, single occupancy in a big metropolitan area. Besides, the issue of women entering the work market has brought the idea of equal pay opportunities for the LGBTQ community. This change reflects on the family structure. They are single mothers or gay couples with children. It looks like an 8-10% increase in single-person and single-parent households. About 30 percent of couples alone will remain childless by 2030, and developed countries will experience double-digit growth in rainbow families over the same period.