Social and Family Change in Modern Society

¶ … Family Roles

The family unit certainly serves as mechanism to ensure the survival of the human species, just as "family" units in the animal world function primarily to ensure that the young offspring reach an age when they can survive on their own. Interestingly -- and expanding the analogy -- the concept of "surviving on their own" does not mean surviving in isolation, except for those few animal species for which a solo existence in the norm. Indeed, for some animal species, a solo existence is dictated by the demand of territory with large expanses of wilderness or prairie required for their subsistence. But for human's surviving on one's own is taken to mean primarily an emotional maturity -- achieving an adult capacity -- with a strong economic overlay.

As society becomes more diverse, examples of how families support this independent living that is nested within social groups that are themselves nested within larger social group. The point is that the family form does not get modified all that markedly, although certainly shifts related to social change and economic demands are evident. These modifications are also evident across societies in different cultures and nations. For instance, the emergence of the two-wage-earner family in developed countries has tended to displace childcare and elder care. A visit to a kibbutz in Israel would show how childcare is a more socially aggregate activity than in societies with stronger divisions for nuclear families. Amish and Mennonite families care for their children and elders in their homes and communities. So it seems that even on the margins of these changes to society, family values change only by degrees and family function changes predominantly at particular times or phases in the lifecycle of the family.

The proximity that family members once experienced has changed dramatically as family members have tended to live in a sort of satellite fashion -- relatively close in the same or nearby communities -- or far flung, living in distant parts of states, across the continent, and even in different countries separated by oceans. This loss of physical proximity has had substantial impact on families, but it is fair to say that the ubiquitous presence of communication technology has relieved some of the sense of isolation and the inconvenience of keeping in touch with family members.

This distancing that economic resources permit -- with family members in developed countries rarely economically interdependent to the degree that they are in more agrarian -- also poses shifts in identity. Where once elders might have identified with their roles within their extended families, today elders tend to locate in places where other older people also live: their identities shift accordingly, albeit, not absolutely. The same can be said for adolescents and young adults, whose daily existence in developed countries is largely regulated by educational institutions, to which they substantially peg their identity. An extended adolescence is associated with the leisure that adequate livelihoods and economic resources enable. In less economically prosperous cultures and nations, adolescence may be an abbreviated period that is focused primarily on ensuring marriages occur and that contributions are made to the labor pool. The relation between the values of family members and the economic well-being of family units, in the aggregate -- in a society are closely aligned. The pursuit of advanced education -- taken to mean secondary education or training that will enable a young adult to enter a profession or earn money at a higher level than would be possible absent that education -- is not universally valued across cultures and societies. This is not to say that the relation between economic prosperity, extended adolescence, and higher education is absolute -- considerable variation can be found even within seemingly homogeneous populations.