Posted on 09/15/2005 9:28:57 AM PDT by qam1
THE Australian family is under attack: not from an evil outside force intent on destroying a wholesome way of life, but from a none-too-subtle shift in values between generations.
Whereas the boomers were great supporters of mum, dad and the kids, later generations of Xers and now Ys are clearly less enamoured with family life, at least in youth. If there is a place for the traditional nuclear family in modern Australia it has been relegated to the late 30s and early 40s wasteland.
In 1991, 41 per cent of all Australian households featured a traditional nuclear family. This proportion would have exceeded 50 per cent in the 1960s. In this early manifestation of the traditional family, "the kids" numbered four and upwards.
Not like today: families have slimmed to two kids at best; a single child is common.
There is now a whole generation of Ys, and increasingly of Zs, growing up as lone kids in suburban houses. There are no brothers, sisters, cousins, uncles or aunties. These kids are quite alone.
The role of the family changed dramatically in the 90s. By 2001 only 33 per cent of all Australian households contained a traditional-styled family. In one devastating decade the family yielded 8 percentage points of market share to other, flashier, trendier, sexier households such as singles and couples.
Gen Xers didn't want to be stuck with a permanent partner and kids. They wanted to flit from relationship to relationship, job to job, home to apartment and then back to home, or from Australia to London and back.
Xers wanted to "discover themselves"; doing the daggy family thing just didn't sit well with Xer's plans for their 20s. Xers are incredulous at the suggestion they should pair up, bunker down and reproduce by 25.
"This is a no-brainer, right? The choice is either the pursuit of a cosmopolitan and funky 20- something lifestyle or spending this time cleaning up after a two-year-old? And the upside of the second choice is what exactly?"
Well, my dear little Xers, the upside of having kids in your 20s is that you grow as a person; you discover a wonderful sense of fulfilment in caring for and raising a well adjusted child who depends on you for everything.
"Bernard, please stop it. I can't take it any more. My sides are hurting. Tell me the real reason why we should forgo earning an income and having a good time in our 20s to have children.
"You mean that's it? That was for real? Look, if previous generations were dumb enough to waste their youth doing the kid thing, so be it. But don't lay any guilt trip on us just because we are exercising options that others were too stupid to grasp. And if I wanted a wonderful sense of fulfilment, then I'd go shopping."
And so the family shrivels.
By 2011 the traditional nuclear family will make up barely 28 per cent of all Australian households.
Singles and couples will account for 28 per cent of households. By the end of this decade the traditional nuclear family will no longer be the dominant social arrangement within Australia.
This is a very different world to the childhood of boomers 40 years earlier. In that world the family ruled. The family was reflected positively on television rather than in dysfunctional parody.
A suburban three-bedroom lair was designed specifically for families. No-one questioned the logic or the sanctity of the 1960s family.
The family is projected to continue on its current downward trajectory to make up just 24 per cent of all households by 2031. Single person households at this time are expected to make up 31 per cent of households.
What will Australia look like in 2031 when almost one in three households contains a single person? And this is not the young, sexy 20-something single that blossomed in the 1990s. No, the burgeoning market for singles during the 2020s will comprise sad old lonely baby boomers whose partner has died.
If we accept that there was a cultural impact from the baby boom in the 1950s that shaped consumer demand for 50 years, then we must also accept the confronting fact that there will be a "baby bust" 70 years later in the 2020s. The former delivered and deified the family; the latter will deliver a fatal blow to a social institution wounded by the shifting values of Xers and Ys 30 years earlier.
No need for sporting fields in Australian suburbia in the 2020s, but there will be a need for social and religious clubs to stem isolation within the burbs. It is an odd fact that as Australians get older and closer to death they also get closer to God. The 2020s will see a rise in religious fervour.
The bottom line is that the family is in transition, downwards. It is little wonder that political institutions are rallying behind its demise. The stark and brutal assessment is that within half a century we will have shifted from a situation where traditional families accounted for one in two households to one in four.
There will never be another decade like the 1990s when families conceded 8 percentage points in market share. After all, if we did this in the 2020s, then by the end of that decade traditional families would make up barely 17 per cent of all households. And at that level, you would have to question the basis upon which we as a nation bring up our kids. I don't think the Australian nation would ever be happy to have the majority of our children brought up in a social institution that does not contain a mother and a father living in cohabitation.
If these are our values, then the attack on the family that started in earnest in the 1990s must slow down and grind to a halt in the 2020s. Such a shift will slow down the rate of household formation and, combined with the dying off of the baby boomers in this decade, will lead to a severe slowdown in the demand for residential property in the 2020s.
As a consequence, I reckon the property industry has one, perhaps two, boom periods to run before it hits the wall at some stage during the 2020s.
Bernard Salt is a partner with KPMG
bsalt@kpmg.com.au
The truth.
Growing up I had a wonderful, blessed "nuclear family" life.
But I have never, and I mean never, wanted children.
My spouse is pretty much the same.
We may get a cat or two someday. :o)
It is not possible for a man to enter a legally equitable relationship with a woman. Married men are 2nd class citizens and men married with kids are little more than serfs. I.E. no real claim on their future labor or even the custody and upbringing of their children.
No thanks.
I think it is difficult to get one's hands around this problem and there are many factors: No-fault divorce is one. The ease of travel and consumerist lifestyle is another. A third is high taxes and the high cost of living. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
Of one thing, I am sure, though. The country, as a whole will drift "rightward" as time goes on. Conservatives are more likely to have babies (and not abort them) and religious conservatives are more likely to have more babies.
Oh PULEEEEEEEEEEZE
ROTFL. This moron just described the Baby Boomers to a T.
Aha. I see you're back with your anti-marriage screed. For all the happily married folks reading this thread, I say to you: pthpthpthpthpth!
This is an idiotic argument; it presumes that having kids in your 20s is the only way to grow or have fulfillment. So I guess a priest or a monk cannot grow as a person or have a wonderful sense of fulfillment? If this is the only way you can grow or be fulfilled, it brings into question your value as a human being.
The reality is that a very significant chunk of the people who have kids in their 20s today did so as a result of a character flaw, personal stupidity, or random chance. Hardly a ringing endorsement. For most people, it does not make sense to have children in your 20s which is the real reason this is happening -- if it isn't rational, most people won't do it. GenX is under no obligation to meet the vacant ideal of anyone.
I wonder how many who opine that the nuclear family is overrated will still feel that way years down the road, sitting alone in a nursing home with no children and extended family to take them in and give them dignified care in the final, often difficult, years?
Conservatives have more legitimate babies, granted. But not more babies overall, IMO.
Personally, I think marriage is an important pillar of civil society. However the legal disincentives for marriage have become so great that we are now witnessing its decline.
I'm simply trying to articulate the causes of an empirically observable phenomenon.
Perhaps you care to respond with some farting noise now.
You don't have children so they can take care of you when you're old. Do you?
Besides, who's to say they won't die before you do?
Who's to say they won't develop some kind of disease or get hurt terribly in an accident and you won't have to take care of *them*?
I feel sorry for who plan their old age around "who's going to take care of me"? Very leftist viewpoint when you think about it.
Currently the Boomer's plan to confiscate roughly 2X all privately held wealth in order to fund their retirement. Even if you have kids, they will likely be so heavily taxed that they will be unable to provide assistance.
You're shipwrecked on an island with some other people. The supplies on the island can support you for years, but not forever. Across the water is a town with food and water, more people, companionship, real shelter, employment, etc...
On the beach sit a bunch of row boats. A few of your fellow castaways hop in boats and desperately try to reach the shore. You watch in horror as half of the boats sink, drowning their occupants, and leaving the rest to hungry sharks. You even try taking a boat yourself, it sinks and you somehow manage to swim back to the island, almost drowning and with a bloody shark bite on your leg.
There sits another boat in front of you. Want to take another ride?
(In this analogy sharks represent divorce lawyers)
"Perhaps you care to respond with some farting noise now."
If you wish.
I'm happily married. I've also been divorced. My ex-wife and I got our divorce, after 17 years, by going to a divorce mediator. We divided our assets equally. We're both good earners, so there was never any discussion about spousal support. We had no children, so there was no child support discussion, either. After we were divorced, we remained on good terms.
I've remarried and am now married to my current wife for 14 years.
It's all a two-way street. Having met some men who have refused any responsibility for their children after a divorce, I guess I'm just not all that sympathetic. One guy I know went so far as to leave the country to avoid paying child support for his own children.
It works both ways.
Not really. They could room with each other, like the Golden Girls.
If you want to take it all the way back, we could go to Adam and Eve...but the family thing came more noticable this time around after WWI....
I am in complete agreement with you.
With greater prosperity people do not feel the need propagate the world with progeny because they will be able to save enough for themselves to pay people to take care of them in times of infirmary (or depend on the government).
Thus, in the US, Old Europe, Australia and Japan the birthrate has decreased to the point of receding population unless immigrants from poor countries are allowed in.
I do not believe this to be a difference between Baby Boomers and Gen X/Y. It is the perils of prosperity.
Being 40 with kids under 10, I would encourage couples to have kids in their 20s. They can wear me out!
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