Outcomes that are used to shed light on these changes
Popenoe (1993) has grave concerns that the family has whittled down to a barely functional unit that will, in turn, produce malfunctioning children and, consequently, a malfunctioning society.
Popenoe's evidence to this extent is the significant increase in divorce since the1960s and the significant slump of childbirth since that same year. These circumstances are due to the changing sex roles, where woman has entered the marketplace and is loath to risk her career. Changes (according to Popenoe) are also due to the fact that both individuals have ceased to become parents in the familiar sense and instead focus on themselves and their careers. Their children suffer as a result, and the nuclear family, as was, becomes non-existent.
Budin and England (2001), however, attribute decline of population and interest in marriage to penalty that women bear with each and every children and the increasingly difficulty in this world of ours to make ends meet. For women this is aggravated by discrimination and difficulty in entering the work of their choice, and this difficulty only comes about with introduction of children. The authors have arrived at this conclusion...
Empirical observations show clearly the disparity in work treatment and work advantages between male and women and that these disadvantages for women are augmented by motherhood.
Goldin (2004), on the other hand, sees the wider picture and attributes the different tribulations that the American family, on the one hand and women on the other has endured to a dialectical shift. History of sex roles has gone through winding, shifting change with each generation bringing its "loosened constraints and shifting barriers" (34). Some cohorts of college students through the years have been able to gain family, and some have been able to gain career. Only relatively, recently have graduates been able to gain both. Goldin's evidence comes from his higher vantage point.
Source
Budin, M. & England, P..(2001) The wage penalty for motherhood. Am. Soc. Review. 66, 204-225
Goldin, C. (2004) The Long Road to the Fast Track: Career and Family ANNALS, AAPSS, 596
Popenoe, D. (1993). American family decline, 1960-1990. Journ. Of Marriage and Family, 55, 527-555.
How this evidence is used in support of…
