How have changes in society weakened the nuclear family?
The decreasing number of nuclear families in modern Britain is due to changing social opinions and an introduction of government laws in recent decades which has lead to a rise in 'atypical' families, ie ones different to nuclear.
Since the end of WW2 there has been a decrease in societal expectations regarding marriage. More specifically, there is now less pressure, and it has become less of a norm, for couples to marry because they are having a child, and it is now more acceptable to have a divorce. This means that there are more single-parent families, because couples are less likely to stay together after having a child (as societal expectation doesn't point in that direction) and are more likely to divorce. As a result, this weakens the nuclear family as there are less of them, instead there is a rise in single-parent families.
Also, laws such as the Equal Pay Act 1970 mean there is now less of a gap between women and men earnings (although the gap still exists, just to a lesser extent). Because of this, more and more women are prioritising work over family, and the law changes combined with shifting societal opinion on women working and having kids (ie more accepting and less pressure respectively) result in less women having children full stop, both because they are pursuing jobs instead of relationships and because they can now be independent on their pay check instead of 'needing' a man to provide for her. So more equal pay for women has weakened a nuclear family because less women are choosing to have families (ie resulting in Dual-Income-No-Kids families), meaning there are less of them.
So in conclusion, societal opinion being more accepting of non-nuclear families, and laws passed to make work more equal for women, results in less nuclear families due to there being less, in exchange for differently formatted families.
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Since the end of WW2 there has been a decrease in societal expectations regarding marriage. More specifically, there is now less pressure, and it has become less of a norm, for couples to marry because they are having a child, and it is now more acceptable to have a divorce. This means that there are more single-parent families, because couples are less likely to stay together after having a child (as societal expectation doesn't point in that direction) and are more likely to divorce. As a result, this weakens the nuclear family as there are less of them, instead there is a rise in single-parent families.
Also, laws such as the Equal Pay Act 1970 mean there is now less of a gap between women and men earnings (although the gap still exists, just to a lesser extent). Because of this, more and more women are prioritising work over family, and the law changes combined with shifting societal opinion on women working and having kids (ie more accepting and less pressure respectively) result in less women having children full stop, both because they are pursuing jobs instead of relationships and because they can now be independent on their pay check instead of 'needing' a man to provide for her. So more equal pay for women has weakened a nuclear family because less women are choosing to have families (ie resulting in Dual-Income-No-Kids families), meaning there are less of them.
So in conclusion, societal opinion being more accepting of non-nuclear families, and laws passed to make work more equal for women, results in less nuclear families due to there being less, in exchange for differently formatted families.
Point
Evidence
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Link
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