Declination of the American Family A Case Study of New York City
Looking back into the 50s and 60s, the American family was an icon of admiration for any contemporary society. Considering the current situation in the American family set up, one is likely to wonder whether there is still a clear definition of the word family in the United States. Instead of maintaining the family, what the Americans of the present decade are doing is generating many families with diverse styles and shapes. Although decline in the American family has been considered as a move towards a new generation, there are several issues that have arisen as result of the change in the traditional definition of a family. We have fathers working while mothers keep the house fathers and mothers both working away from the home single parents second marriages bringing together people from unrelated backgrounds childless couples unmarried couples, with and without children gay and lesbian parents (Skolnick, 1991).
The rates of divorce, separation and family breakups have reached alarming levels in the US. Studies show that the there is a higher tendency of family decline among the coloreds than the whites (Meyerson, 2007). Abandonment of the family role and responsibility of the males in the United States and the feminist revolution are identified among the major independent variables which highly contribute to the decline of the American family. On the other hand, the dependent variables contributing to the increase in the rate of the decline of the American family include increasing divorce cases, low rates of marriages (that is, a tendency by the single people to remain single), and the legalization of lesbian and gay families. Through quantitative methods, this research will find out the causes of the decline of the American family over the past two decades compared to the situation back in the 50s and 60s. The research will be limited to the New York City in the United States of America.
Literature review
This section of the research presents the review of the data studied by other people that will be useful in bringing the research into context as well as enabling the researcher to identify the information gaps that the research seeks to fill concerning the decline of the American family over the past three decades.
The causes and effects of the decline of the American family
The decline of the family in American society has more deep sighted causes than just those that meet the eye. As such, the combination of much more casual and liberal approaches toward sex, gay and lesbian rights movements, coupled with the acceptance of a completely positive outlook of homosexual community, the allowance by churches to use contraceptive devices among the members of the congregation, feminist movement and the collapse of societal roles and historical morals such as alarming neglect from the American fathers are all reasons that can well explain the cause of the continued obscurity of the nuclear family in America (Mintz, 2008). This is not to rule out the contributing factors suggested by the social science philosophers which are as described hereunder.
The findings of social science
There are many different reasons that can be ascribed to the decline of the American family which is prevalent in majority of American society in our present decade. Findings of the research on Family Decline Findings Of Social Science done by Paul Vitz (2009) identifies the high levels of joblessness, poverty, death of both parents and young unmarried people from the deadly HIVAIDS pandemic, the rise in the use of drugs and moreover the soaring rates of abortions amid young and teenage girls among the many causes of the American family decline in the 20th and 21st centuries. Vitz (2009) carefully examines the degree to which each of these factors lead to the decline or fall of the families in the United States. However, his work provides that only twenty percent of the total rate of breakup of the families in the United States result from either poverty, joblessness or even the death of parents due to terminal diseases such as HIVAIDS.
Vitz (2009) therefore concludes by saying that there must be other major causes of the fall of the American set up far and beyond the obvious reasons that he presents. Due to this discrepancy in the rate at which the American family is declining and the factors likely to lead to these declines, the philosopher (Paul Vitz) goes further to explore the findings of other social philosophers on the same subject and more concrete reasons and causes are as presented by the findings of Dr. Allan C. Carlson and Dr. Bryce J. Christensen of the Howard center. As examined by Paul Vitz. From the work of these two philosophers, the major two reasons accountable to the highest contribution in the decline of the American family are the neglect by the fathers as well as the feminist revolution in our generation (Vitz, 2009).
The feminist revolution
The feminist revolution in our current age has brought about the most powerful and tricky challenge to the former traditional marriage patterns. Feminism has also played a major role in the decline of the American nuclear family. The fact that American modern women have to postpone child bearing and rearing so as to attend higher education which was not the case in the historical standpoint, influences the numbers of nuclear families today. The numbers of women who are getting married before twenty five years of age has greatly reduced compared to the historical 1950s where an average American girl was mature for marriage as early as eighteen years. The modern education system and the increase of the numbers of women undertaking the white color jobs does not allow a modern woman to concentrate with family at an early age since she is busy building her career profile or engaged in a demanding job (Mintz, 2008).
The abandonment by the American fathers
The grand importance of a father in the growth education and entire development of his family (his daughters and sons) is the most excellent documented findings in social sciences for last 20 years. Researchers have established that fathers make most important contributions to the childs improvement, especially to their individual identity. He assists the child to detach psychologically from the mother and trains them to manage impulses as well as to respond and learn the rules, laws, and structures set by the society (Vitz, 2009).
Therefore, the father presents to the child a new haven and reference point. Studies have also indicated that the negative effects of absence of the father on the sons are different from daughters. Regularly reported impacts of a fathers nonexistence on sons include high violent behavior, strong fondness for immediate satisfaction, lack of general social responsibility and intellectual deficits. Other researchers have added to these effects the little need for personal achievement, high crime potential, inclination to homosexuality, low self-esteem and mistrust on other males. Similar research also reports that sons who grew in fatherless homes usually have trouble in making commitments of any type and drift about (Meyerson, 2007).
The frequently reported consequences of a fathers absence on the girls included increased rates of promiscuity, lack of self-rule, lower cognitive ability, in addition to lack of urge and impulse control. Fathers absence was moreover a reason for some daughter suicide. The studied absence of fathers owing to divorce seems to have individual lifelong negative effects, particularly on girls failure to trust the males (Vitz, 2009).
The joint contribution by the feminist revolution and failure by American fathers
More than just the issue of the change in the family definition and set up, the decline in the American family is also due to decline of the family time spent together. The lack of time together for the families is the result of the consequences of the feminist revolution which has seen mothers too busy to spend time with their children and the failure by the fathers to support their families. Many families have both working parents who do not spend enough time with their children. What these parents forget is that it does not count how much one may spend on their children in terms of money and luxuries as nothing can compensate family time (Mintz, 2008).
Thousands of American children are left unaided after school spend such much time on the computers, video games and TV. Hardly ever do families get to the family dinner every night, whereas in the past, such was a good time to converse concerning the day all had as well as discuss whichever problems happening. This has denied the family some quality time together which is very important in building a strong family. It has also been observed that the rate of decline in the family among the Africa Americans is quite higher as compared to that of the whites. Basically, the same group of Africa Americans constitutes the largest HIVAIDS positive population as well as the largest group of injecting drug users. These two factors explain the reason as to why they have the highest number of family degradation in the country (Meyerson, 2007).
The contribution by the religion and the government
In the recent past, it was a sin and immoral in the church setting to use contraceptive devices since the religious people believed that it was against the plan of God for them. However, the modern Christian is now allowed by the church to use contraceptives to control child bearing. This being the case, the numbers of children born amongst the Christians has greatly reduced due to the use of the contraceptives by both the married as well as the unmarried people. In addition, due to increasing numbers of educated but unemployed population in the USA, the family has also been greatly affected because most of this young people are financially unstable and though they have attained the marriageable age, they cannot form a family because they are not in position to support themselves.
These youngsters have ended up into using contraceptives and heavily engaging in illicit sex which further breaks the family life of the Americans. This group has also recorded the highest numbers of abortions and they are not restricted by the law, since a number of the states in the United States of American have already legalized the practice, New York being included (Maher, 2003).
Research hypothesis
This research hypothesis is drawn from the information contained in the literature review and a general observation of the situation presently in the United States. The goal of the research will be to find out the factors responsible for the decline of the American family and the implications created by the decline into the future generations. The researcher however predicts that the decline of the American family is a social vice rather than a virtue. More than the failure of the fathers in the role they play in the family, the feminist revolution and its effects on the family represent the chief cause of such a high decline. From the decline that has been growing for the past two decades, the continued decline is likely to result to decrease in the population, social morals as well as further increases in the divorce rates, singleness and same sex marriages.
Research methodology
The research will apply quantitative methods in gathering and analyzing the data collected from the field. The target population of the research is the New York City in the United States of America. The New York City is one of the major cities in the United States and the effects of decline on the American family have been as equally felt by the residents. Generally, the total population of New York is approximately 19.5 million, out of which about ten million are adults above the age of eighteen (NY Department of Planning, 2010). Therefore, the population of the people of the New York City represents an ideal sample that will represent the situation in the entire of the United States. However, the research sample will be drawn from the residents within the New York City only (not the entire of the state) whose total population sums up to approximately two million. Precisely, the research will consider only the adult population in the city so as to reduce the size of the sample.
For quantitative analysis, the researcher will develop questionnaires and interview schedules which will be distributed among selected people in the city. The selection of the respondents will be done using purposive sampling method, whereby several factors considered relevant by the researcher will determine who is to be picked or not to be a participant in the sample. Purposive sampling will be preferred because the research will involve different members of the society young and old married and single divorced and separated single parents and same sex partners. Therefore, its only purposive sampling that will allow the researcher to develop a balanced and representative research sample.
The questionnaire will be drafted by the researcher, outlining the questions related to the research topic and distributed to an equal number of respondents per category. Each category of respondents is expected to contain at least ten members, making a total of fifty questionnaires in the entire research. The questionnaire will be expected to be filled up with almost fifteen minutes and at least ten minutes. In addition, the questionnaire will comprise both closed ended and open ended questions so as to ensure proper distribution of research questions. Due to travel and likely unavailability of the respondents to respond and return the questionnaires to the researcher, the research will administer the questionnaires online and mail them to the respondents. However, hand delivery of the questionnaires will be applied where possible.
The interviews on the other hand will be conducted by use of interview schedule also drafted by the researcher in relation to the research topic. The interview will also be conducted over the phone, or by mailing the interview schedules to the unavailable respondents while utilizing face to face interviews where possible. Since most respondents prefer using questionnaires to the interviews, the researcher will therefore put this into consideration and thus interview schedules half the total number of the research questionnaires. The interview session will be planned to last for a maximum of eight minutes per interviewee and a minimum of five minutes.
The data from the questionnaires and interview schedules will be analyzed by use of tables, charts, graphs and other specialized software meant for analyzing field data by sociological researchers (for example the SPSS computer software). Data analysis will be done in a way that will be able to demonstrate to the researcher the trends, frequencies and similarities or differences in the manner in which the questions were answered by the respondents so as to present any diversity or relatedness.
Ethical considerations
Since this research will involve gathering information that people may consider private, the researcher will have to come up with means of ensuring that the respondents do not decline from providing personal information that they may be uncomfortable giving. For example, one of the areas of study will involve collecting data from the divorced (for instance why they are divorced and whether they intend to restore their families), separated and the gay and lesbian respondents. Specifically, the people in the same sex marriage category are known to decline from revealing their status due to likely social stigma. To overcome these challenges, the researcher will provide affirmations on the questionnaire and interviews that the information provided will be practically meant for pure academic purpose and will not be shared with third parties. In addition to this, the researcher will avoid use of the names or any personal details of the respondents so that the respondents remain unanimous to the researcher. To add to this, the researcher will refrain from using face to face interviews when handling personal information.
Practical implications
To the public and the general society in the United States, this research will present a contentious issue that need to be addressed if the American family is to be saved or restored, if the societal morals are to be maintained, and if by any means the feminist revolution needs to be used for the good and development of the society and economy as well. The research will provide findings that will be useful to the government, religious groups and the society at large addressing their contribution towards the decline of the family. In addition, the methods of dealing with the issue will be generated as a joint responsibility of the government, religion and the individual families in the society.
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