THE FALTERING FAMILY

The Faltering Family and How It Negatively Impacts Society In Relation To the Economy

The Faltering Family and How It Negatively Impacts Society In Relation To the Economy

 Introduction

A resurgence of interest has surfaced over the past 15 years in the status, functions, and roles of family and community life in economic development. Moreover, the American family has been transformed by dramatic social, economic, and demographic changes (Swedberg, 2003). Family problems related to substance abuse, crime, child abuse and neglect, out- of-wedlock childbearing among teenagers, the divorce rate, the number of single-parent families, and poverty have been increasing. These changes have profoundly affected family roles and relationships and seriously affected children.

It is perhaps no coincidence that 3.2 million children are living with grandparents (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1991)—an increase of more than 40% in approximately the past decade—or that 2 million of these children live in households with grandparents but no parent. One can argue that the magnitude of the problem is also reflected in the number of out-of-home placements of children, for example, by 1992 the Child welfare League of America reported that over 430,000 children were separated from their parents and had been placed in foster care, an increase of approximately 56% within the last decade (Lewis, 2008). This was the period when kinship care (i.e., protective placement of children with family members) emerged as a form of foster care. Grandparents are the relatives most frequently used in these out-of-home placements. This paper explores the negative economic and social impacts the society faces due faltering families. The paper also addresses some of the key socio-economic perspectives that may help in devising solutions to minimize these negative impacts.

Discussion

Technological and social changes during the twentieth century have stripped the family of many of the key functions that had contributed to its strength in former times. For instance, it is no longer an economic unit with all members, including children, both contributing to and benefiting from its productive activities. Its economic role is now chiefly that of marketing target, with the mass media defining and directing the rate and content of its consumption. Similarly, the family is no longer solely responsible for protecting and maintaining society's most vulnerable members (Zelizer, 2001).

Because it is now impossible to count on women as readily accessible unpaid labor, the entire context of the family has altered drastically. For most of the day there is no one at home. Full-time professional homemakers of either sex are in short supply. Even less available are members on the consuming end of the family equation who are willing and able to offer an appropriate share of their externally derived income to those who might be convinced that the role of serving the family is a sufficiently rewarding way to spend one's life.

Two types of change have been occurring within the family during recent decades, both of which have weakened it considerably as a constructive agent of socialization (Abraham, ...