With the modernization of American society, several norms and values have been transformed. Among them is the traditional family culture, which has now become more or less of a single parent family culture. There has been an immense increase in the number of single parents in America since 1960s. This was a result of increasing rates of divorce and births by unmarried women, as they have to look after their children alone without any financial or moral support from fathers. On the other hands, there has been a significant number of divorced and unmarried single fathers too in contemporary American society. Single parenthood has negative impacts on economical and social growth of children and contributes towards poverty. This essay provides a look upon the statistics and demographics of single parents, along with their problems and solution to their problems.
Key Words:
Modernization
Single Parents
Divorce
Unmarried parents
Poverty
Single Parents in America
The impacts of modernity, industrialization and globalization have been so much positive and beneficial that we are and our future generations will be grateful to all of these phenomena. These have brought us a number of comforts and luxuries which have made our lives easier and relatively fast-paced than the past. Apart of technological advancements in the form of internet, fiber optics and recently introduced cloud technology; our social aspects and phenomena have been greatly modified too. Consider the abolition of slavery in early 19th century; it has been a remarkable milestone towards social enlightenment and has made several positive impacts on the humanity following afterwards. Many other phenomena such as liberalism, feminism, religious and individual freedom, eliminating racial bias and cutting of ethnicity differences have made our society modern and elegant. But does modernity only influenced our society in a positive way, or it has some negative impacts too? It has been argued that when a society excels too much or get over grown, it faces some drastic outcomes and consequences. Let us have a look towards American modernization and its impacts over society.
Redefined Values, Changed Norms
We have seen a sharp decrease in American population since 1970 and it is predicted that if nation’s fertility rate would continue to be the same, there would be an immense population contraction in the next fifty years. Scholars argue that people’s thinking towards making families have been changed as they have got modernized, well educated and liberal. They try to make themselves economically stable without getting indulged in the hassle of children and family. This phenomenon has propelled entire American nation towards satisfying their needs, both physical and financial, without any external influence in the form of a child or a family. Thanks to individual freedom as well which has urged people to satisfy their needs in as many ways as they want, the population has got indulged in sexual activities, without getting married. The entire nation is undergoing a large number of abortions and the use of contraceptives to avoid children as a result of sexual intercourse is on stake. All such happenings in a society are a result of getting modern beyond limits, and most of the Americans are now ‘single parents’; meaning either divorced with kids or have kids without a wedlock. These transformations in American society have been discussed by Jonathan Last in his recently arrived book ‘What to expect when no one is expecting’ (2013). He asserts upon the argument that American society has moved far away from the religious and moral ethics, and is involved in immoral sexual activities such as extra-marital affairs, pre-marital sex, adultery and prostitution etc. The sexual culture of the US society has now been so molded and transformed that people like to have sex with as many partners as they can find for themselves. As the women of today’s modern society of US do not imply any restrictions on themselves to date and to have sex at any time of the day, there has been a significantly large number of single parents and unmarried mothers consequently. The situation has turned out so much that now in US; young girls keep in taking contraceptive pills so that it would be easier for them not to conceive while having some random sex. The concept of getting married and to have a family has left somewhere behind in the revolution of modernity. People avoid getting married as much as they can and thus if pregnancy occurs as a result of sexual intercourse, single parents arise from the debris. These transformations in sexual culture of America have greatly influenced people’s life and have detracted them from the normal discourse of life, causing many abnormalities and mis-happenings (Last 2013).
Who are ‘Single Parents’?
As the name indicates, ‘Single Parents’ are those who are responsible for the raising and upbringing of their child alone. Both males and females can be single parents, depending upon the situations and circumstances. There can be different causes for single parenthood; death of spouse, divorce, separation and pregnancies without getting married. All of these contribute towards single parenthood all around the world and are awarded a legal status by the society.
Historically, there had been a significant number of deaths of war-men, and their widows raised children with their sole individual efforts. Similar is the case when women were subjected to poor medical treatments and their death resulted in their widowers to be a single parent of their combined children. A single parent is responsible for the entire care taking of their child or children; from providing financial resources to giving private attention. Divorces also result in separation of children from either of the parents, and those who are given the custody of the child are then supposed to be their single parents. However, in some countries, there are legislations that father will provide all the financial resources to his child or children in their mother’s custody, till they become major. Therefore, usually mothers are given the status of primary caregiver and more than 80% of custodial single parents are mothers (McLanahan and Gary, 1994)
Divorce contributes the most towards being single parent in the entire world and in US too, followed by unmarried mothers and eventually widows or widowers. The numbers and statistics differ with respect to countries; depend upon the divorce rates in each society, and the number of sexual activities outside wedlock that produce a baby. The number of abortions because of unmarried pregnancies is not counted towards the statistics.
Single Parents’ Statistics: History and Today
As discussed above, if we count the number of single parents from a particular section of the society, the maximum will be contributed by those who got divorced. As the divorce rate has been increasing, so as the number of single parents in the society. Only in a short period of 19 years, i.e., from 1980 to 1999, the number of divorces all around US got double. It was 9.9 million in 1980, which rose to a miserable 19.7 million in 1999, contributing a lot in the increase of number of single fathers and single mothers in the society. However, the number of households run by single mothers had always remained atop of households sun by single fathers. In 1980, single mother households were 5.4 million, which grew up to 6.6 million in 1999. Number of single father households was 616,000 in 1980, which grew till 1.7 million in 1999. This is a drastic increase of 177% in just a period of 19 years, and is a matter of high concern for the society. In 1980, amongst the total family households in US, 81% were headed by married couples and only 20% were headed by single parents. The number of total family households significantly dropped to 72% in 1999, as the number of single-parent households risen to 2%, i.e., from 6.1 million in 1980 to about 7.8 million in 1999 (Paulin and Lee, 2002).
As far as recent statistics are concerned, according to a 2010 statistics provided by Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, marriages are being taking place at the rate of 6.8/1000 population in 44 reporting states of US, and the divorce rate has been 3.6/1000, nearly half of the rate at which marriages are held. From these statistics, it can easily be assumed that how much is the number of divorced single parents in US. However, it is important to mention as well that those couples are more likely to give away divorces which do not have kids with them. Also, it has been reported that divorce rates in US have now dropped to 3.4 in 2012 (CDCP, 2013). According to U.S. Census Bureau 2009, currently 52% single parents out of a total of 13.7 million single parents in US are those who are divorced at early or later stage of marriage and have kids with them, out of which 45% are women and 59% are men (Grall, 2009).
Apart of high divorce rates amongst the society over a period of fifty years, impacts of modernization directly influenced sexual values too. The growing number of sexual activities without the lawful bond of marriage has played its part in raising the number of single unmarried mothers in contemporary US society. According to U.S. Census report 2009, there were 18.4% births to unmarried women all over US in 1980, which was raised to more than its double, i.e., 40.6% in 2008. Majority of these births were unintentional and unwanted by their parents, many of whom fathers are unknown to even their mothers too. Thus the mother has to bear all the expenses of child bearing individually, giving rise to economic imbalance and poverty in the society (Grall, 2009).
According to a research by Washington times, since last fifty years, the number of children living with single parents has been doubled as the number of single parents is sufficiently increased. The number of children in American society living with a single mother is 15 million, those living with a single father are 20 million in number and an overall number of two-parent households has been decreased by 1.2 million (Anderson 2013). It is miserable to note that out of single parent’s statistics, 72.6% are mothers amongst whom 45% are divorced or separated, 34% are unmarried mothers and 1.7% are widows (Single Parent Families: Demographic Trends, n.d). The figures for single custodial fathers show that nearly 58% of them are divorced, 21% are bachelor fathers and less than 1% are widowers. As fathers are usually subjected to employment and job purposes, therefore 90% amongst the single fathers of US are employed, either full time (71.7%) or part time (18.4%) (Grall, 2009).
These recent statistics show a high contrast with the statistics of not less than fifty years ago. According to a census conducted in 1960, it was revealed that only 9% of total child population of US is living with single parents. As the society paced towards modernization and social freedom, the number rose to 19.5 % in 1980, 28% in 2000 and 29.5 % in 2008 (Grall, 2009). Traditional family system was dropped by a large number of population in US, and binuclear families or living together without wedlock took its place. As a result, the divorce rate increased, along with the number of births by unmarried women. It was estimated that in 2000, about 36% of the total births were carried out by unmarried women and 11% of the total child population was living amongst there unmarried parents. Hence till 2006, a total of almost 13 million families were run by single parents, out of which a majority of about 80% constitutes upon females as parents (Single Parents Success Foundation, n.d).
Thus the trend of single parent families has risen since the middle of last century, and had been consistent for the last 10 years when the entire society has adapted the same norms and ethics of non-family living and residence. It would be right to argue that almost one-third of the total family households in US are being maintained by a single parent, in which approximately 9/10 are women. This large number of women households in US suggests that educated and well-employed mothers do not feel absence of their spouses; as they are able to provide every necessity of life to their children on their own.
However, research has proved that children living with single parents are not as much confident, socially groomed and academically well performed than those who live with both of their parents. The worst effects are upon the families being maintained by a single, unmarried mother. In the absence of father, children are more likely to drop out of school and to get involved in juvenile crimes. We have a look at these aspects in detail in the next section.
Economical Condition of a ‘Single-Parent’ Family
It is quite easy to understand that the economical condition of a house where there are more earners would definitely be better than the one having relatively lesser earners. Similar is the case with families with two-parents and those with one-parents. A family with both father and mother employ can acquire a better economical, financial and social present than those who have a single father or mother as earners and at the same time they have to look after their children too, particularly if the only earner is mother, the condition of the house and the children become miserable. Currently, the average income of a married couple with children in today’s US society is about $80,000, while single mothers are able to earn to an average of only $24,000. This shows that a married, employed couple could earn three times more than a single mother, if they both have to raise children (Anderson 2013).
The relation of a mother with her child is natural and is far deeper than a father’s relation with his child or children. A mother understands her child well and if she is a single mother, she tries as hard as she could to arrange maximum happiness for her child. But unfortunately, as she has to look after her child or children back at home, she could not work for long hours. As a result, she could not attain a good financial status for her family and thus the children get deprived of many basic needs. Although the situation is not same for the entire number of single mothers in US, poverty amongst single mothers is one of the biggest concerns of social organizations. Only those mothers are able to get good for their families who are high educated; thus they get good employment and can maintain their house in an efficient way. Otherwise, the family would have to suffer the consequences of being headed by a single mother and constitutes a major portion amongst those who live in poverty.
According to recent statistics, poverty amongst single mothers in US depends upon several factors; including their age, type of employment, number of dependent children and the highest qualification they have acquired. The number of employed single mothers is almost 80%; about 50% of them are employed full time for round the year where the rest of 30% works part-time or during some particular time of the year, mostly seasonal jobs. A significant number amongst these working, single mothers does not receive any kind of financial support from the father of her child (children). There are certain evidences as well which depict that financial support provided to a single father from social organizations is greater in amount which is being provided to a single mother of equal income and resources. However, it has been estimated that around 12% amongst the single custodial mothers receive renting expenditures or any form of public housing, 22% receive medical assistance from government, 23.5% receive food stamps and 5% of them receive any temporary assistance, being needy (Grall, 2009). Thus as the number of single mothers increases in society, so as the poverty grows, which can be judged from the fact that in 1964, poor families which a single mother as head were 30% in number, which rose up to 60% in 1970. According to a 2010 study by the U.S. Census Bureau, for a single parent family (either single father or mother), the poverty rate is 27.3%, while only in the case of single mothers, the poverty rate is almost equivalent to 30%. Thus poverty is more amongst those families being headed by a single mother as compared with single father households (Ellwood and Jencks, 2002).
Impacts of ‘Single-Parent’ Family on Children
Although single parents try as much as harder to provide their children all the basic necessities of life, there are mostly in a need for financial assistance and their children need attention, care and love. Research have indicated that children living in non-intact, single parent families are subjected to greater risks of poverty, dropping out of school, improper personality development, early teen pregnancies and parenthood of their own. Thus the children with intact families are far better than those who live with one of their mother or father. In an article “The Economic Risk of Childhood in America: Estimating the Probability of Poverty across the Formative Years”, authors Rank and Hirschl have described that children living with unmarried mothers or fathers have been exposed to poverty at least once in their lifetime. Poverty has been defined on a basis of state’s official poverty threshold. A family is considered poor if their total income is less than 100% of $22,000 for a family of four persons, and low-income families are those whose income is less than 200% of $44,000 for a family comprising of four persons (Mather, n.d). Research by Rank and Hirschl indicates that 68% of children who live with their unmarried parents have remained poor to at least continuous one year by the age of six years. The statistics grow to 78% of such children by the age of 12 years and 81% by 17 years. However, the poverty rate drops to a significant 35% if these unmarried women get married, as the sources of income would increase and ultimately raise the standards of living (Rank and Hirschl, 1999).
Around 42.4% of children have faced poverty who live with their divorced mothers, whether employed or unemployed. However, if their mothers remarry, there is a 66% likelihood of reduction in poverty as the poverty rate drops to only 9.4%. Also, if the divorced mothers start living with someone without wedlock, there has been a 40% reduction in poverty seen as it drops to 28.8% from 42.4% (Rank and Hirschl, 1999). Other researchers have also indicated the same phenomenon, i.e., children who live without fathers are more likely to face economic, social and personality problems. Thus fatherlessness negatively impacts on the personality and behavior development of a child and the presence of both parents is essential with every aspect.
In US, a vast population amongst Black and children of other ethnicities suffers with the absence of any of their parents, mostly fathers. In almost forty states, there is a huge population of Black children who do not live with both of their parents and 54% of them are being raised by their mothers only. Thus the threat and rate of poverty amongst such children is more as compared with those who live both of their parents. Usually, black mothers are not eligible for high skilled jobs and thus their children are subjected to mal nutrition and poverty as well (Anderson 2013).
Single parenthood is an important social issue in US. It is astonishing to note that the population is getting away from being lawfully wed locked for the first or second time, as these can put a huge burden on their economical condition. Taxes, rents, mortgages, loans and a long list of such expenses have propelled people of US to remain single or divorced, and this is the biggest cause of increasing number of single parents in the country. Although the efforts made by single parents cannot be denied and neglected, efforts should be made towards establishing strong social relations and revitalizing morals. Only in this way, the bad outcomes of single parenthood can be controlled and the future generation can be saved from moral and social hazards.
Reference List
Anderson, Kirsten. Jan 04, 2013. The number of US children living in single-parent homes has nearly doubled in 50 years: Census data. LifeSiteNews. Retrieved April 30, 2013 (http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/the-number-of-children-living-in-single-parent-homes-has-nearly-doubled-in/)
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Rank, Mark and Hirschl, Thomas. 1999. The Economic Risk of Childhood in America: Estimating the Probability of Poverty across the Formative Years. Journal of Marriage and Family 61, 4: 1058-1067.
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