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

[tortoise]

I would argue that many of these families were missing one vital component--an active religious life.

Wishful thinking. Religion does not automagically fix all problems no matter how active and devout the religious life. Such assertions are vacuous platitudes that actively ignore reality.

I am the son of a small-town preacher in flyover country. Was an active religious life part of my family experience? Yup. Was my family dysfunctional? Yup. The religious aspect was almost entirely orthogonal to why the nuclear family was dysfunctional, and all the Christianity in the world wouldn't have fixed it (and didn't).

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

I see nothing wrong with old (or young) folks who are alone and have no family sharing the same house as roommates. Not only will they have company, they'll be able to share expenses. It's sure better than having to get 200 cats for company.

[Antoninus]

I am the son of a small-town preacher in flyover country. Was an active religious life part of my family experience? Yup. Was my family dysfunctional? Yup. The religious aspect was almost entirely orthogonal to why the nuclear family was dysfunctional, and all the Christianity in the world wouldn't have fixed it (and didn't).

No one said that any set up, even a nuclear family with a strong religious component was 100% bullet-proof against dysfunctionality. As a matter of fact, what you cite above is one of the main reasons why my Faith (Catholic) doesn't allow its priests to marry. It constitutes a division of loyalty between the pastor's flock and his biological family. So I would argue that the religious component in your family actually may have caused rifts that wouldn't have been there otherwise.

There is a reason why Catholic families have a heritage of being rock-solid. They're based on Truth, not platitudes. Those who follow the Truths of the Catholic faith are likely (not certain, but much more likely than not) to have joyous, successful, loving families. I thank God that mine has been so blessed thus far.

[AD from SpringBay]

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[Antoninus]

I see nothing wrong with old (or young) folks who are alone and have no family sharing the same house as roommates.

Yeah, but how often does it happen? You may notice that by the age of 40 or so, most people are so set in their ways as to make living with someone else difficult to say the least. And they get more set in their ways and difficult as they age--particularly if they've never had to be considerate of another human being sharing their living space before.

[teawithmisswilliams]

And more and more children are comfortable with their custodial parents subsequent significant others...

Huh? Where did you get that idea? Seems to me that you are cheerleading for societal breakdown. What societies have flourished when its people stop honoring marriage and family?

[GovernmentShrinker]

Not in my experience. Of the three nearest neighbor families where I grew up, that had clearly happy functional marriages and were religious and active in their churches, one has 3 children (2 male, one female), none of whom have ever attempted anything like a nuclear family; another has 4, of whom 1 (male) is part of nuclear family, one (female) is single and childless, one (female) had one child while in a lesbian relationship and another on her own after that relationship ended, and the fourth (male) I don't know about; and the third family had two boys, one of whom has never married or had children, and the other married and divorced a woman who already had two children by a prior marriage, and still keeps in touch with those (now grown) children. So at most, this is 33% of these families' children who grew up to try form nuclear families at all, and 22% who succeeded in maintaining such families. Per my unscientific neighborhood sample, this is only very slightly higher than the rate for the children of parents who were miserably married, divorced, or religiously inactive (or some combination of those).

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

most people are so set in their ways as to make living with someone else difficult to say the least.

I don't have any statistics on old folks in boarding houses but it would sure be interesting to see them. I did know a fellow who shared his house with 2 other unrelated people. Everyone seemed happy and able to get along.

I would say that, with a lot more people choosing to forego children than at anytime in history, it will become more common. Of course, people will have to decide what's more important - human company or their own living space.

[A. Pole]

This is just a natural change in society.

Like in ancient Rome. At some moment Romans stopped to have children and they got replaced by the barbarians.

[Antoninus]

Not in my experience.

Like I said, it's not bulletproof. The insidiously corrupting influence of the pop-culture has a lot to do with the destruction of such families as well. And too many parents, my own included to a certain extent, didn't realize this until late in the game. There but by the grace of God go I.

On the contrary, my wife and I are fully aware of the societal rot and intend to keep my own kids shielded as much as possible from the sewer our culture has become until they're old and smart enough to judge and reject it of their own accord. Homeschooling will be a big part of that. Lack of TVs in our home will be another part.

[qam1]

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.

Actually no, quite the opposite

Divorce by religion (from Barna)

Born Again Adults  - 27%
All other adults - 24%

***

Non-denominational Protestant - 34%
Jews - 30%
Baptist - 29%
Mormons - 24%
Catholics - 21%
Lutherans - 21%
Atheists/Agnostics 21%

[GovernmentShrinker]

From the children of current friends and co-workers, from my memories of college classmates, from children who I used to know when I coached gymnastics, and from the revolving cast of college students to whom I've been renting rooms for the past 15 years. Not all children are miserable when the parent they live with acquires a new significant other. Some are quite happy about it. And a few end up being even closer to the new significant other and/or step-parent, than to either of their own parents. You may regard my position as cheerleading for non-traditional family structures, but I can just as reasonably regard yours as cheerleading for the failure of any alternative family structures. If children and adults are constantly bombarded with the message that they're supposed to be miserable if they don't live in a married-forever-with-children family, they're a lot more likely to be miserable, than if they weren't getting bombarded with that negative message.

[Antoninus]

At some moment Romans stopped to have children and they got replaced by the barbarians.

It was quite early in the game, actually. Augustus Caesar actually had to pass a law against bachelorhood to encourage the lay-about Roman men to marry and have children. The Romans existed on the stored up capital of their military system and societal prestige for a good 500 years after that, but their society was rotting from within for much of that time. When the Goths broke through in 378, the Empire was more or less an empty shell.

Thus Western civilization at present. Any guesses as to where the big barbarian break-through will happen this time?

[A Ruckus of Dogs]

Like in ancient Rome. At some moment Romans stopped to have children and they got replaced by the barbarians.

Actually, they got replaced by Christians, who did not practice female infanticide.

[thulldud]

It's already here.

[RMDupree]

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.

My 8 year old is in public school because I cannot afford private school on my budget.

My 3 year old is taken care of by my mother.

I am not signed up with any kind of government assistance - something I pride myself on.

So you place your condescending commentary where the sun don't shine, doll.

[Feldkurat_Katz]

For most people, it does not make sense to have children in your 20s

For women, early 20s are biologically the best time for having children. Men are a different story, though.

[Antoninus]

No, not quite. Those stats leave out one very important factor--how many atheists even bother to get married at all? I'll bet if this chart included atheists who are in 'committed relationships', the stats would be dramatically different.

And, as with most of these types of surveys, it doesn't attempt to separate out those who are committed to their Faith from the RINO (religion in name only) types.

Even so, if 79% of Catholic marriages stay together, I'd say that's a much better trend than what we see in society at large these days.

[Melas]

Ok, I'll bite. What do you think is a better arrangement?

[SuziQ]

You go, girl!