Nuclear family gets nuked by the Gen-Xers

The Australian ^ | 9/15/05 | Bernard Salt

[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

[LWalk18]

My only problem with your proposal is the idea that boys don't need mothers and girls don't need fathers. I think that a presumption of shared custody would be better- there would be less of using children as pawns to hurt your soon-to-be ex-spouse.

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

I dispute the assertion that the average person is more wealthy. Last time I checked, America's saving rate is negative.

Yes, but why? Do people not save because they spend money on things they want or things they need? America is a very consumerist society. Frivolous spending is an issue of wealth management, not wealth ownership.

[LWalk18]

My great uncle lived in a nursing home for the last year of his life after suffering a stroke. He had never married nor had children, yet he had by far the most visitors. Many of the others with children had few or no visitors at all.

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

its only been the last few generations where we began shuttling parents off to old folks homes

It's the last few generations that have seen great increases in lifespan. I would argue that the nursing homes are a function of the number of extremely old people in a society, wherein physical deterioration is most severe.

[GovernmentShrinker]

Most women can get pregnant in their early forties with high-tech help, and if they've been working at something productive all those years, they shouldn't have any trouble affording it. And reproductive technology is galloping forwards so fast that this will be a non-issue by the time today's adolescent girls are old enough to think about having children. Very soon, anyone will be able to have children that are genetically their own, at any age they choose. As it is now, any woman who doesn't have serious health problems, can bear a child that is not genetically her own, well into her 50s, and some are even doing it in their 60s. And IMO, the day when no woman is choosing when and whom to marry "because I'm running out of time to have a baby" can't come soon enough.

[Antoninus]

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.

I think if I lived in Australia, I'd be learning to speak Chinese...

[AdamSelene235]

However, I refuse to broadbrush either with the same brush, because as was said earlier - it happens both ways.

It happens a hell of alot more one way than it does the other. Women, standing the most to gain, initiate divorces at a rate far higher than men and they are granted custody in the overwhelming majority of cases. Hell, in California, boys statutorily raped by women are forced to pay child support. Show me an example of a teenage girl paying child support to an adult male rapist.

[Antoninus]

Those who are constantly wailing about how awful it is that the "nuclear family" is increasingly scarce, are conveniently forgetting that most of the people who are now choosing NOT to participate in such arrangements, did grow up in a "nuclear family" household.

Actually, I'd be willing to bet that most people choosing NOT to participate in a nuclear family were the products of dysfunctional nuclear families themselves. I would argue that many of these families were missing one vital component--an active religious life.

The traditional nuclear family by itself is not a panecea for all of society's ills. A nuclear family without God is just as likely to fail as any other random household unit.

[AdamSelene235]

I quite agree, and I'm female.

Are you single and do you like warm fires in rustic mountain cabins?

8-)_~~

[Antoninus]

A lot of people have also seen first hand how marriage can destroy lives, and are determined not to make that mistake.

Marriage has also rescued a lot of men from lives of dissipation and degradation. Myself included. I thank God for my wife and kids at least once per day.

[AdamSelene235]

Yes, but why?

Prolly has to do with interest rates being below the rate of inflation and FDR's decision to make stimulating consumption a high government priority.

[GovernmentShrinker]

One of his big expenses is that he's having a lot of his money confiscated by the government to pay for raising your children. Take a hard look at all the goods and services your family uses, starting with public schools, and you'll quickly see that YOU aren't supporting them on the budget you describe. Public school districts are fond of concealing the true per student costs of their operations (often by omitting the substantial cost of purchasing and maintaining land and buildings), but most are spending at least $15,000/year per student, and quite a few are spending over $20,000. And most of that is NOT being paid by the parents of the students who attend those schools. And if your children attend a private or church-affiliated school, their tuition and/or scholarships are similarly subsidized, just by private contributions rather than tax money.

[Antoninus]

But I have never, and I mean never, wanted children.

Quotes from Teddy Roosevelt on the subject:

On motherhood as the true source of progress, Teddy Roosevelt said:

"A more supreme instance of unselfishness than is afforded by motherhood cannot be imagined."

Before an audience of liberal Christian theologians in 1911, he said:

"If you do not believe in your own stock enough to see the stock kept up, then you are not good Americans, you are not patriots, and ... I for one shall not mourn your extinction; and in such event I shall welcome the advent of a new race that will take your place, because you wil have shown that you are not fit to cumber the ground."

On the centrality of the child-rich family to the very existence of the American nation:

"It is in the life of the family, upon which in the last analysis the whole welfare of the nation rests....The nation is nothing but the aggregate of the families within its borders."

On parenthood:

"No other success in life, not being President, or being wealthy, or going to college, or anything else, comes up to the success of the man and woman who can feel that they have done their duty and that their children and grandchildren rise up to call them blessed."

On out-of-wedlock birth versus practiced sterility:

"After all, such a vice may be compatible with a nation's continuing to live, and while there is life, even a life marred by wrong practices, there is a chance of reform.

In another place, on the same subject:

"...[W]hile there is life, there is hope, whereas nothing can be done with the dead."

On the behavior of 90% of those who practice birth control:

"[It is derived] from viciousness, coldness, shallow-heartedness, self-indulgence, or mere failure to appreciate aright the difference between the all-important and the unimportant."

[Shazolene]

Adam, your posts are saddening, but true. I'm afraid there IS a financial disincentive for marriage, and especially for men. But what is the remedy?

I believe that government and society do have an obligation to do what they can to encourage the furtherance of the species and the country by encouraging families. The only means they have to do this is through monetary and tax policy. Would you support a movement to change those policies in ways that would support families? Would that change your mind about marriage?

Or, maybe it's too late for you, but future generations of men could be reached before it's too late.

I truly believe that the future of mankind lies with building on what we have learned and done in Western civilization. If we do not have children, all of what has been built over the centuries will be lost.

Paying women to have illegitimate children has worked - we now have LOTS of them. The sexes are perpetually angry at each other. Far too many people would rather have casual or paid sex than a true relationship.

It is sad, bad and dangerous. I would like to see it changed. Would you?

[GovernmentShrinker]

Parents can share custody if they want to, but if they don't want to and it has to be enforced by courts, the children usually are harmed more than benefitted. And more and more children are comfortable with their custodial parents subsequent significant others, so they aren't necessarily without a parent figure of the opposite sex.

[Antoninus]

I wonder how many who opine that the nuclear family is overrated will still feel that way years down the road,

I reckon none. We've got a couple of these in my extended family and they all cling to their nieces and nephews like grim death. Too many people don't realize the preeminent importance of family until it's way too late.

[AdamSelene235]

One of his big expenses is that he's having a lot of his money confiscated by the government to pay for raising your children.

Testify !!! More little blood sucking brainwashed commies.

The trick is, of course, to buy up enough tax liens so that you have no net exposure to property taxes.

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

Women, standing the most to gain, initiate divorces at a rate far higher than men and they are granted custody in the overwhelming majority of cases.

An article posted on FR the other day said this was due to men having a higher probabilty of behaving badly - more drunkeness, drug abuse, physical abuse, cheating, etc ..

[Antoninus]

Not really. They could room with each other, like the Golden Girls.

And Lord knows how often life immitates Hollyweird.

[Antoninus]

As goes marriage, so goes the nuclear family.

As goes the nuclear family, so goes the nation.