In the environment nowadays, globalization has a significant effect on the contemporary family life in various ways. It affects both directly and indirectly through the strategies brought forward by social and economic policies. Therefore, to understand the effects globalization has on the changing nature of families, it is vital to know the definition of both globalization and families. From this viewpoint, globalization can be defined as an uncontrollable force that brings about the free market ethics as well as the preservation of transnational movement of labor, goods, and capital (Sherif-Trask 15).
On the other hand, families are crucial in the society since they participate in the socialization of the next generation, and they are the main participants in reproduction. Additionally, they play a vital role in early education as well as in the formation of a stable adult personality. Due to the industrialized world, there has been great family diversity that has forced the birth and raising of children in a different kind of environment. Nowadays many women give birth and raise the kids as single parents, there are remarried families, and there is also same-sex cohabitation. Although the impacts globalization has in the economy, it also has significant effects, both positive and negative, on the changing nature of families such as the rights of children and women, as well as the high rate of single parenthood. This paper will analyze the role of globalization in the changing nature of families while supporting the findings with evidence from the scholarly literature.
Positive Effects of Globalization to Families
The Developed Communication Technology and Families
There are several positive impacts of globalization on families. The first one is through the advancement of communication technology. The international networking has brought about a lot of benefits to several aspects of life. It is through the internet that people share information from anywhere and at any given time and students use it as a medium of gaining more knowledge. Besides, the Internet, including Websites and e-mails promotes a revolution in both the means of communication and the dynamics of popular contention (Ayres 133).
A Shift in Gender Roles
Several social values are associated with globalization. The industrialization of technology has contributed to the development of democracy and human rights. The changing nature of family life has been due to the human rights awareness that encourages individuals to allow equal opportunities for men and women as well as parents and their children. It is all because of globalization that women and children can participate in decision making in the house. Formerly, all the decisions were left to the men who were considered the family heads. “In the once traditional model of the household, the homemaker and breadwinner model can be imagined as a pyramidal power structure where decision-making flowed from the father to the mother and the children” (Sherif-Trask 31).
Additionally, nowadays even women get to move across national borders to seek employment thus leading to a different form from the one that they were expected to stay at home with the children. International migration has brought about a new family form where women migrate to other countries in search of employment due to the increment of significance in the female labor. Besides, Sherif-Trask argues that women migrate so as to take advantage of the worldwide job opportunities and in the process they leave behind their families (33). As a result, the traditional family forms where the woman stays at home and lets the man work is slowly dying and in its place women join the men to seek employment.
Gender roles are slowly changing with the increasing number of women in work. The feminization of labor force has brought about a decrease in the number of jobs that were formerly held by men since the women are taking over the workforce. “While women are increasingly working outside of the home, they are also decreasing their involvement in the household concerning domestic tasks and childbearing” (Sherif-Trask 87). Instead of staying at home and performing the duties that were once meant for them, they purchase the labor from the other unemployed women and hire them to clean, cook, and care for their children.
However, women still manage to juggle multiple tasks including spending time with their children. Men, on the other hand, are losing their position as the original heads and breadwinners. This change of gender roles is common in developed countries like America, Europe, Canada, and Australia where there is an increase in out of wedlock births, a rise in divorce rates, and cohabitation as the new living arrangements (Sherif-Trask 87). This shift in gender roles is due to the high number of women joining the paid labor force hence affecting the family bonds. Women find that they can work and provide for themselves hence decide not to stay in abusive relationships while others choose not to get married. Besides, this global change has contributed to high divorce rates as well as female-headed families. Moreover, the world is becoming industrialized at a very fast rate that even countries with strong cultural beliefs like Asia display a change in women roles.
Adverse effects of globalization on Families
Infertility
Moreover, in the traditional societies, more children were a source of strength and stability, but the modern family system has a different attitude towards children and their value. Child survival rate due to improved health care contributed to infertility. In the past decades, infant mortality rate was high due to poor health care services. Many families, therefore, preferred to have many children such that when others die a number will survive. Also, the economic development contributed to the decline of fertility by the changing nature of agriculture. Traditionally, families needed many children to help in farming and the manual labor works. But the change in the economy has brought about machinery to help in agriculture with less of the manual work needed. Nevertheless, the rising female status globally has also been linked to delayed marriages, increased singlehood, and ultimately the decline in fertility. This development led to the decrease in the number of children thus the global fertility decline.
Poverty
Globalization is substantially associated with the high poverty rates around the world. Families are trying to cope to survive in the current societal contexts with different influences from national and transnational policies. Besides, globalization has altered the living conditions and changed the distribution of income thus affecting families. Additionally, despite the fact that women nowadays seek employment, they are underpaid and with most of their earnings going to welfare benefits. Globalization has brought about changes in capital causing tremendous shifts in families especially in those with children (Kunnie 133). With such living conditions, they find it hard to provide food and rent for their families leading to poverty.
Drug and Alcohol Abuse
The rapid socio-cultural change adds to the risk factors of drug and alcohol abuse. Drugs and alcohol usage are growing rapidly with the growing trends of globalization. The international alcohol market is enlarging day by day in developed countries making it more easily available. Traditionally, alcohol consumption was already in the society, but it was used under the strict regulations of social and traditional norms as well as the social limitations. But since the traditional standards are slowly dying out due to globalization, the use of drug and alcohol has been increasing fast with the biggest multinational brewers selling more beer all over the world. Such companies make high profits in the global market that they make enormous efforts to sell their products to potential customers. Besides, globalization encourages binge drinking due to the marketing efforts and the easy availability of alcohol to its users. Moreover, the availability of alcohol affects the nature of families whereby the youth who are the typical alcohol abusers bring other economic problems to the relatives. Alcohol affects their health systems causing severe financial difficulties hence a life in poverty (Kunnie 32). When men engage in drug and alcohol abuse, the women and children often end up as the victims of the cases of domestic violence, neglected children, and broken families.
Aging
The changing societal norms have affected the way people care for their aging relatives. There are resultant changes that make it difficult for individuals to fulfill the traditional obligation of caring for their parents and giving them the attention they deserve. Besides, the young individuals find it hard to live with their elderly parents because of employment since they are rarely around the house to watch over them. Moreover, increased schooling has contributed to the breakdown of the values and norms that expect children to provide loving care and support to their elderly parents. Children spend most of their time at school rather than with their parents. They, therefore, get less attention and guidance from their parents that lessen the feeling of debt they experience towards their parents.
Additionally, globalization has brought with it formal schooling with a system that tends to instill to the children the western values that entail self-realization and individualism (Witte 604). Therefore, due to those processes caused by globalization, the younger generations are becoming more and more unwilling to sacrifice some time to care physically for their parents. Besides, with the development and an increasing number of adult care centers, children prefer to take the elderly in such places for admission rather than to let go of their usual routines to provide care. All in all, many countries are becoming industrialized, and the norms about children caring for their older parents are traditional. Nowadays children have to work so as to be able to provide for their families. Moreover, there is the lack of physical connection between them that contributes to such neglect. After all, school life is taking too much of the children’s time that they lack the time to mingle and connect with their parents as well as care for them. Furthermore, “children caring for their elderly parents” is a less common thing in the modernized world.
Family Structure
Globalization is changing the structure of families in various ways. Firstly, there is a shift in the traditional family structure where the man is the breadwinner, the mother stays indoors to manage the family, and the children depend on their parents. Due to globalization, this family structure changed more because of the gender equality matters where women can leave the homes and work just as the men do. Moreover, in this modernized era, women are empowered to do almost all that men do while some fathers also become primary caregivers as the women (Witte 598). Secondly, the change in the family structure has also been influenced by global social factors as the legitimization of same-sex marriages leading to the collapse of the traditional family structure.
Homelessness
Homelessness, just like poverty is another effect of globalization on families. Globalization has contributed to unemployment due to the change of the economic structure increasing the homeless phenomenon with many individuals still unemployed. Accordingly, lack of employment automatically means lack of money for accommodation hence one becomes homeless. Moreover, the structural economic change where companies advance to information sector base has led to the movement of enterprises to developed countries with lower labor costs (Kunnie 146). This shift leads to a decrease in the availability of jobs due to the migration of companies to more globalized countries.
Cohabitation
The altering nature of families has led to an increase in cohabitation where women prefer to live with a male counterpart without being married, and if they do, it is regarded as an agreement that can be broken anytime. During cohabitation, “marriage is viewed increasingly at law and at large today as a private agreement to be formed, maintained, and dispelled as the parties see fit” (Witte 594). Moreover, with the women rights and same-sex marriages, individuals do not consider marriage. More often than not, they find cohabitation more convenient than marriage since the latter seemingly has a lot of responsibilities. Besides, cohabitation reduces the chances of an individual getting married when compared to those who marry. Furthermore, cohabitation often ends up in divorce or violence since the couples spend less time with each other and more on their jobs leading to a gap between them. All in all, globalization has made women busier for marriage thus the high rate of cohabitation.
Conclusion
Globalization is a continuous process that constitutes of substantial changes, especially in families. It has brought changes in investment and consumption as well as changes in communication that are reflected in the increased usage of the internet and telephone. It has influenced the nature of families in both positive and negative ways. It has made the education and health sectors accessible thus greatly impacting the functioning of the family domain. Alternatively, it is evident that globalization has contributed to the changing nature of households with the influence of the sociocultural agents like the internet, television, and radio that drive people to spend. Besides, the globalization agents show people living in modern houses and own luxury vehicles as well as educate their children actions that lead to consumerism.
The high demand for female labor has profoundly affected the nature of families. These globalization trends are creating problems to the traditional family roles. The men do not get to be the sole breadwinners as they traditionally were and the women get to earn a living and not entirely depend on the men. Further, there is an increased free flow of labor all over the world that has creation migration opportunities for both men and women that ultimately influences the change of family structure. Indeed, globalization has contributed profoundly to the changing nature of families in both positive and negative ways.
Works Cited
Ayres, J. M. "From The Streets To The Internet: The Cyber-Diffusion Of Contention". The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 566.1 (1999): 132-143. Web.
Kunnie, Julian. The Cost Of Globalization: Dangers To The Earth And Its People. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc, 2015. Print.
Sherif-Trask, Bahira. Globalization And Families: Accelerated Systemic Social Change. New York: Springer, 2010. Print.
Witte, John. "The Nature Of Family, The Family Of Nature: The Surprising Liberal Defense Of The Traditional Family In The Enlightenment." Emory Law Journal 64.3 (2015): 591-676. Academic Search Premier. Web. 8 May 2016.
