chapter 2
WOMEN, MEN, AND THE FAMILY

Three trends greatly changed the composition of the American family beginning in the early 1960s: a lower fertility rate; an increase in the number of births among young unmarried women; and women—especially working women—delaying childbearing.

According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), in 2002 there were 4,021,726 live births in the United States, 136,485 fewer than 1990. Between 1990 and 2002 the crude birth rate fell 17%, from 16.7 to 13.9 births per one thousand population. The fertility rate declined 9%, from 70.9 to 64.8 live births per one thousand women aged fifteen to forty-four. The most dramatic decline in fertility rate was the 24% drop among African-American women. (See Figure 2.1.)

DECLINING BIRTH RATES

The National Vital Statistics Reports, published by the NCHS, showed that birth rates shifted significantly by age groups between 1990 and 2002. Teenage birth rates dropped continuously in the twelve-year period. For the fifteen to nineteen age group, the rate of first births reached a record low of thirty-four per one thousand births in 2002. The decline in first births applied to teenagers of all races and to those of Hispanic origin. The most dramatic change was the drop of 31.1 points for African-American teens age fifteen to seventeen.

An important trend in addition to the decline in teen birth rates was the decline in second births to teenagers. At its peak in the early 1990s, for every one thousand women age fifteen to nineteen who had given birth to a child, 220 gave birth to a second child while still a teenager. This trend dropped dramatically to about 173 second births per one thousand by 2000.

Between 1990 and 2002 the rate of first births increased for all women over age thirty. The increase was most dramatic in the thirty to thirty-four age group, which rose from a rate of 21.2 per one thousand births in 1990 to 26.6 per one thousand births by 2002. Asian-American women had the most stable first birth rate during the period, with an overall decline of just three-tenths of a point between 1990 and 2002.

Extending the Childbearing Years

Before the 1960s, when larger families were more common, it was not unusual for a woman to continue having babies well into her thirties or even her forties. However, as family size decreased, it became more common to have the typical two or three children during the first years of marriage when the woman was generally in her twenties. While most women still gave birth while in their twenties, a significant proportion began to wait until their thirties to have their first child. In the 1950s, women bearing children in their thirties were generally having their third or fourth child. Half a century later, many women who gave birth in their thirties were typically having their first or second child.

Historically, ages fifteen to forty-four were considered the childbearing years for record-keeping purposes. But women in the 1990s began to push that age forward, often with the help of new technological advances in reproductive medicine. The Bureau of Vital Statistics reported that between 1990 and 2002 the birth rate for women age forty to forty-four increased 51%, from 5.5 to 8.3 births per one thousand women. For women in the forty-five to forty-nine age group, the rate more than doubled from 0.2 to 0.5. Data for women past the age of fifty has been limited, but births have extended into that age group.

Nonmarital Childbearing

Prior to the 1970s the typical pregnant, unmarried woman either got married or gave the child up for adoption. Some women had abortions. However it was handled, the pregnancy was often cloaked in secrecy. An

FIGURE 2.1

unmarried pregnant woman often left her family's home and community during the pregnancy to stay with a relative or entered a home for unwed mothers; in each case, her family made some excuse for her absence. The infant was given up for adoption and never openly discussed. Few women risked the social stigma of raising a child alone, at least without concocting a story of a husband who abandoned the woman or met an untimely death.

reuniting adoptees with their parents. Although young unmarried women who gave up their babies for adoption often suffered great guilt and wondered about the quality of the child's life, they never expected to meet that child in the future. Adoption records were sealed and the mothers expected to remain forever anonymous. In an unexpected twist, as these adopted children married and began their own families, many wanted to know their personal heritage. In some cases they wanted to know family medical history, including genetic conditions that might affect the adopted person's health or that of his or her own biological children. Other adoptees wanted to understand the circumstances that resulted in their adoption or to know general family information and family traits.

In January 2004 the American Adoption Information Clearinghouse reported that the percentage of adults searching for their birth parents continued to increase. The organization estimated that half of all adopted persons searched for their birth parents at some time in their lives. In addition, a growing number of birth parents searched for their adult children who were placed for adoption many years earlier. New legislation in some states allowed greater access to adoption information, and computer and Internet technology expanded and speeded the search options. A variety of organizations emerged to assist with searches and serve as go-betweens in making contact. While many birth parents and natural children were pleased to be reunited, the new relationships added one more complexity to the profile of the American family.

to marry or not to marry. According to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, the period 1960–64 was the peak for pregnant women choosing marriage. During that time, 60% of women who were unmarried at the time of conception married before the births of their babies. Immediately prior to and immediately following those years, about 54% of pregnant women wed before giving birth. That rate had dropped significantly by the late 1970s. Between 1975 and 1979, just 32% of unmarried, pregnant women chose marriage. Societal and family pressures on unexpectedly expectant couples to marry quickly had diminished, and other factors may have played a role in the drop as well—including women's increased earning power and the number of couples who chose to cohabit rather than marry.

A report from the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics tracked birthrates for children born to unmarried American women since 1980. Between that year and 2002 the percentage of births to unmarried mothers nearly doubled, from 18.4% to 34%. Births to unmarried women in their twenties generally increased at a steady rate during this period. The greatest rise in non-marital births was a thirty-five percentage point increase in the eighteen to nineteen age group. The year 1994 marked the high point for births to unmarried women age thirty and over. After decreasing by 1–1.5 percentage points by 1999 and 2000, the birth rate for the over-thirty group rose slightly in 2001 and 2002.

According to data published by the U.S. Census Bureau, between June 2001 and June 2002 1.3 million unmarried women gave birth. They represented 33% of all births during that twelve-month period. The highest proportions of out-of-wedlock births were to young women age fifteen to nineteen (89%), African-American women (65%), and women who had not graduated from high school (63%). (See Figure 2.2.)

The birth rate among women living with an unmarried partner (eighty-seven per one thousand women) was almost the same as for women living with a husband (eighty-six per one thousand). The birth rate for unmarried women not living with a partner (thirty-six per one thousand) was less than half of that for cohabiting women. (See Table 2.1.)

ARTIFICIAL REPRODUCTION

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, when an estimated four thousand women became surrogate mothers by being artificially inseminated with sperm from men whose wives were infertile, many people were concerned that surrogate motherhood might threaten family stability. Who would be considered the child's mother? Also, some surrogate mothers refused to relinquish the child after delivery, resulting in long, bitter fights for custody of the child.

Rapid advances in fertility technology made such family matters even more complicated. The use of donor sperm and/or eggs could mean a child might have three or four parents—the donor or donors, the mother who carried the transplanted embryo in her uterus, and her spouse. While federal funding for human embryo research was banned during the administration of President Ronald Reagan, private fertility enterprises continued to be unregulated, and each fertility clinic operated under its own guidelines. Critics feared that fertility patients as well as donors might fall victim to unscrupulous clinics and doctors who did not have to answer to scientific and ethical review boards. To further complicate the issues, initial successes with cloning of sheep led to rumors about the cloning of humans.

Monitoring Fertility Technology

Because of the expense of in vitro fertility treatments (about $8,000 for each attempt), couples wanted to ensure a successful pregnancy. In most cases the procedure had

FIGURE 2.2

to be repeated several times. Through ultrasound imaging, doctors could keep track of the number of maturing eggs. If too many eggs had matured, the doctor typically advised against continuing the treatment. Once sperm had been introduced, in cases in which it could be determined that a higher-order multiple birth was likely to occur, many doctors considered destroying some of the embryos in order to improve viability of the remaining embryos. Generally, this was not done without the permission of the parents. Some parents considered this act an abortion and refused to permit it, a stance that often led to a much higher level of multiple births. In the National Vital Statistics Report dated February 12, 2002, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that from 1980 to 2000 the rate of twin births rose 55% from a rate of 18.9 per 1,000 total births to 29.3. From 1980 to 1998 the rate of higher order births (triplets or greater) surged from

TABLE 2.1

37.0 per 1,000 total births to 193.5. In 1999 and 2000 the rate of higher order births dropped to 180.5.

WOMEN REDEFINE THEIR ROLE

While the husband's main role had traditionally been that of breadwinner, by the 1960s many women were redefining their own roles as homemakers. Women who had experienced the economic independence of a paying job during World War II, and who had attained personal satisfaction from working, reentered the labor force. The availability of contraceptives enabled many young married women to postpone childbearing. The mothers of baby boomers, most of whom had given birth at a young age, saw the last of their children leave the nest. These mothers were ready to start a new chapter in life, which for many meant finding a career.

More Education

Most working women prior to the 1960s held secretarial and sales clerk positions, while nursing and teaching were the two primary career options for those wishing to pursue a professional degree. But their daughters aspired to different careers. Realizing that higher education meant better wages, these young women pursued postsecondary education. In 1960 women earned about one-third of all bachelor's (35.3%) and master's degrees (31.6%). By 1985, women earned fully half of these degrees. The increase in women earning degrees in medicine and law was even more dramatic, doubling from 12.4% in 1975 to 32.8% by 1985. According to the August 2004 Chronicle of Higher Education, in the 2001–02 academic year women earned 57% of bachelor's degrees, 59% of master's degrees, and 46% of doctoral degrees. Forty-four percent of medical degrees and 48% of law degrees were conferred on women.

Into the Labor Force

In 1950 about one in three women participated in the labor force—or, in other words, worked outside the home, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By 2002, three of every five women of working age were in the workforce, an increase from a 33.9% participation rate in 1950 to 59.8% in 1998. The most significant increase was among those women in the twenty-five to thirty-four age range, who more than doubled their participation in the workforce after 1950.

In 2002 women represented 47% of employed persons. The increase in women serving in managerial and professional positions, while partly the result of increased education, was boosted significantly by the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forced businesses to recruit and promote qualified women and minorities. In 1983 women accounted for 45.8% of people employed in technical, sales, and administrative support positions and 21.9% of managerial and professional positions. By 2002, 33.7% of managers and professionals were women, while their representation in traditional women's roles as support staff had declined to 38.8%.

While women increased their education and moved into higher-paying careers, their earnings continued to trail those of their male counterparts. In a 2004 report the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that the median weekly wage of women working full-time in 2002 was 77.9% of the median weekly earnings of men working full-time. This represented an improvement from 1980, when women earned 64.2% of men's median pay.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that between 1975 and 2002 the labor force participation of women with children under age eighteen grew from 47% to 72%. The most significant increase was among women with very young children. In 1976 just 31% of women with children under the age of one were part of the workforce. By 2002 54.6% of working mothers with infants were in the workforce. (See Figure 2.3.) In 2002 34% of women with infants were employed full-time compared to 51% of women without infants. Sixteen percent of both groups

FIGURE 2.3

were employed part-time, while mothers with infants had a 5% unemployment rate compared to 4% for women without infants. (See Figure 2.4.)

WORKING FAMILIES

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report "Employment Characteristics of Families," in 2003, 82% of families had at least one employed member. Asian families were most likely to have someone in the family working (89.1%), followed by Hispanic families (86.1%) and white families (82.3%). African-American families were the least likely to contain an employed member (77.9%).

Among married-couple families, 83.3% had an employed member in 2003, down by 0.2% from 2002. This proportion had declined each year since 1999. Both the husband and wife worked in 50.9% of married-couple families in 2003. This proportion had declined since 1997, when it was 53.4%. The proportion of married-couple families in which only the wife worked rose for the third straight year, to 6.8% in 2003. The proportion of families in which only the husband worked was relatively unchanged at 20%; however, this statistic had risen by 0.8% since 2000.

The BLS reported 35.4 million families with children under age eighteen in 2003. Of these, 90.3% had at least one parent employed, down from 90.7% percent in 2002. All of the decline was among single-parent families.

Employer Assistance for Working Parents

Parents, and particularly working mothers, look to employers to offer family-friendly benefits such as flexible work schedules and time off for certain family needs. In order to attract new employees and retain existing ones, many employers have implemented creative options to assist working parents. Consolidated annual leave plans no longer categorized available paid leave time into vacation, personal, and sick time. This gave employees discretion about how best to use paid leave time to meet their individual circumstances. Some companies offer on-site day-care centers for children of employees. Part-time work, job sharing, and flexible work schedules help parents accommodate the needs of the job and the family. Telecommuting options allow parents to perform part or all of their work from home. Employer-sponsored flexible spending accounts allow working parents to set aside part of their pretax earnings (money not subject to income taxes) to pay for specified medical and dependent-care expenses.

Economic and Financial Pressures

Changes in the cost of goods and services can quickly upset tight family budgets. Rising energy costs topped a list of national concerns in a 2001 survey by the Pew Research Center. About half of Americans listed the rising cost of gasoline as serious, and four in ten were concerned about the cost of electricity and other home utilities. Almost 40% of parents in the survey reported they had changed summer vacation plans and cut back on long-distance driving because of the increased cost of gasoline, compared to 26% of nonparents. Hardest hit were low-income families; 52% of families with incomes below $20,000 rated increased utility costs as a serious problem. Many families, especially those with children, struggled to meet basic expenses of living and worried about their financial safety.

Financial concerns drive many difficult family decisions. For 27% of those surveyed in 2001, money was

FIGURE 2.4

cited in their decision whether or not to have, or to postpone having, a baby. The most frequent financial decision for 34% of parents was whether to work or stay at home with children. Finances played a large role in decisions about attending college for 24% of families ("Decisions Because of Lack of Money," Money and the American Family, Modern Maturity Magazine, AARP, May 2000).

The high cost of a college education presented challenges for parents who wanted to attend or complete college themselves or provide for their children's college education. Private, not-for-profit four-year colleges and universities offered the greatest amount of financial aid, an average of

FIGURE 2.5

$11,600 in total aid, compared to $6,200 for public four-year institutions. (See Figure 2.5.) The differences in tuition for these two types of institutions, however, were similar. According to the August 2004 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education, the average cost for tuition plus room and board at a private college in 2002 was $29,541, compared to $13,833 at a public institution. The percentage of students who received aid was less disparate than the amount of aid. In the private, not-for-profit colleges and universities, 76% of students received financial aid compared to 62% in public institutions. (See Figure 2.6.)

CUSTODIAL PARENTS

Custodial parent is the term used by the government to describe a single parent who has been awarded legal custody of one or more of his or her children, usually as part of a divorce. The Census Bureau reported that in the spring of 2002 an estimated 13.4 million parents had custody of 21.5 million children under the age twenty-one. About 84% of custodial parents were mothers and 15% were fathers, a proportion that had not changed since 1994. Between 1993 and 2001 the percentage of custodial parents employed in full-time, year-round jobs rose from 45.6% to 55.3%. Throughout that same time period, as employment of custodial mothers increased, the employment of custodial fathers remained relatively stable. (See Figure 2.7.)

With increased employment, the proportion of custodial parents living below the poverty level dropped from

FIGURE 2.6

33.3% in 1993 to 23.4% by 2001, according to U.S. Census data. (See Figure 2.8.) Despite the steady decline in poverty for custodial parent families, their poverty rate was still four times that of married-couple families. Increased unemployment since 2001 may have changed the number of custodial parents living below the poverty level. The BLS reported that the jobless rate rose from 4.7% in 2001 to a peak of 6.5% in mid-2003. By November 2004 the jobless rate hovered near 5.5%.

The Census Bureau reported that about 63% of custodial mothers and 38.6% of custodial fathers had agreements or awards for child support payments from the other parent. The majority of them were waiting for pastdue payments in 2001. The average annual amount of partial payments received was $4,300 and did not differ between mothers and fathers. The proportion of custodial parents receiving every payment they were due increased from 36.9% in 1993 to 46.2% in 1997 then slipped to 44.8% by 2001. (See Figure 2.9.) When there were no delinquent payments, custodial parents received an average of $5,800 per year.

CAREGIVERS

A somewhat unexpected result of better medical care and increased longevity is the phenomenon of the "sandwich generation"—adults who still have children living at home but who are also attending to the needs of their aging parents. While an increasing number of men had primary parental responsibility, women remained the traditional caregivers, according to a survey published in April 2004 by the National Alliance for Care-giving and the American Association of Retired Persons. In most cases these women were also employed outside the home and had to meet the challenge of both family and work obligations.

The demands of caregiving usually required some adjustments at work. Nearly two-thirds (64.1%) of care-givers surveyed in the aforementioned study were employed, most (51.8%) full-time. More than one-half (54.2%) reported having to make some type of adjustments at work as a result of caregiving responsibilities. Overall, nearly half (49.4%) of caregivers had to make changes to their daily work schedule, such as coming in later, leaving earlier, or taking time off during the day. Some caregivers reported giving up their job either temporarily or permanently—10.9% took a leave of absence, 3.6% took early retirement, and 6.4% gave up their jobs altogether. About 7% worked fewer hours or took a less demanding job. A smaller percentage reported having lost some job benefits (4.2%) or having turned down a promotion (3.1%) because of caregiving.

MEN'S CHANGING ROLE

In a "Facts for Features" press release for Father's Day 2004, the U.S. Census Bureau provided a profile of contemporary fathers. Of the 25.8 million fathers who were part of a married-couple family with its own children under age eighteen:

• 12% were under age thirty; 4% were over age fifty-five.
• 22% were raising three or more children under age eighteen.
• 9% were raising infants under age one.
• 61% had an annual family income of $50,000 or more.

Of the two million single fathers with their own children under age eighteen:

• 22% were under age thirty; 5% were over age fifty-five.
• 10% were raising three of more children under age eighteen.
• 1% were raising infants under age one.
• 24% had an annual family income of $50,000 or more.
• 45% were divorced; 34% had never been married; 17% were married but the spouse was absent; 4% were widowed.

The Future of Fatherhood

Researchers believe that more changes would occur in the roles of men and women in the twenty-first century. If mothers of young children continue to join the labor

FIGURE 2.7

FIGURE 2.8

force, fathers might have to assume more child-care tasks. Researchers asked whether modern fathers would accept an increasing share of child-rearing responsibilities or flee from them. One indicator of fathers' interest in their child-rearing role was the increase in single fathers raising their own children. According to Census

FIGURE 2.9

Bureau data, in 1970 only one in ten single parents was a father; by 2004 the share of single fathers had increased to one in six.

A bigger issue concerned the role and/or the commitment of noncustodial fathers in divorced families and fathers of children born out-of-wedlock. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the number of children growing up in homes without fathers increased dramatically from 1960. By 2000 nearly twenty-five million children did not live with their fathers, compared to fewer than ten million in 1960. More than one-third of these children did not see their fathers at all during the course of a year.

On the National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) Web site, Roland Warren, NFI's president, stated that violent criminals are overwhelmingly males who grew up without fathers (72% of adolescent murderers and 70% of long-term prison inmates). Warren also noted that children living in homes without a father are "more likely to experience poverty; be suspended from school, or to drop out; be treated for an emotional or behavioral problem; commit suicide as adolescents; and be victims of child abuse or neglect." The Fatherhood Initiative sought to increase public awareness of the importance of fathers in children's lives, promote a national public agenda of policies supportive of families and fathers, and provide resources to help men be better fathers.

HOW MEN AND WOMEN SPENT THEIR TIME

In September 2004 the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the first of a series of new studies tracking trends in how Americans spent their time. For the American Time Use Survey, twenty-one thousand participants kept a record of how they spent every hour in a single twenty-four-hour period. The survey confirmed that many traditional divisions of labor between men and women had not changed very much over the past few generations. While 78% of women and 85% of men were part of the workforce, two-thirds of women said they prepared meals and did housework on an average day compared to 34% of men who said they helped with meals or cleanup and 19% of men who said they did housework.

Table 2.2 provides a picture of the activities of the average American during a typical twenty-four-hour period, with separate columns showing how men and women used their time differently. For most people, sleep consumed more than one-third of the time. The adult respondents averaged about five hours of leisure time per day, with more than half of it spent watching television. Women spent an average of 138 minutes per day on

TABLE 2.2

household activities, while for the men this figure was just 80 minutes. Men tended to spend an extra half an hour per day on leisure activities, while women spent that half hour caring for family members and communicating by telephone, mail, and e-mail.

Activities varied for the average adult on weekdays compared to weekends and holidays. On weekend days and holidays people reported getting over an hour more of additional sleep. They also spent one and three-quarters hours more time in leisure activities. The average adult watched thirty minutes more television on weekends and holidays and enjoyed an extra thirty minutes of social time. (See Table 2.3.)

Factors such as age, race, presence of children, and educational level determined how people spent their

TABLE 2.3

leisure time. For example, adults in the typical child-raising years of twenty-five to forty-four spent less than four and one-half hours in leisure activities, while people under age twenty-four and over age fifty-five found five and one-half hours for sports and leisure. People over age sixty-five enjoyed more than seven hours of daily leisure activity. Both men and women with less than a high school education were more likely to spend leisure time socializing and watching television. Of people who participated in sports or enjoyed reading, men and women with a bachelor's degree or higher spent the most time in those activities. Of people who enjoyed playing games or using the computer for fun, men and women with high school diplomas but less than a college degree most frequently chose those activities. (See Table 2.4.)

Not surprisingly, as people aged they spent less time working and more time eating and drinking (1.52 hours per day at age sixty-five and over compared to .96 hours per day at age fifteen to twenty-four), taking care of household activities (2.55 at age sixty-five and over compared to .82 hours at age fifteen to twenty-four), and enjoying leisure activities (7.16 hours at age sixty-five and over compared to 4.20 at age thirty-five to forty-four). (See Table 2.5.)

TABLE 2.4

TABLE 2.5