Fifty Years of Family Change: From Consensus to Complexity

The first section of the article discusses how and why we went from a relatively undifferentiated family system in the middle of the last century to the current system of diverse family forms. Even conceding that the family system was always less simple than it now appears in hindsight, there is little doubt that we began to depart from the dominant model of the nuclear-family household in the late 1960s. I explain how change is a result of adaptation by individuals and family members to changing economic, demographic, technological, and cultural conditions. The breakdown of the gender-based division of labor was the prime mover in my view. Part two of the article thinks about family complexity in the United States as largely a product of growing stratification. I show how family formation processes associated with low human capital produces complexity over time in family systems, a condition that may be amplified by growing levels of inequality. The last part of the article briefly examines complexity in a changing global context. I raise the question of how complexity varies among economically developed nations with different family formation practices and varying levels of inequality.