TEXT 1 Family structure

TEXT 1 Family structure

The British live longer, marry later, have fewer children and are more likely to get divorced than ever before. Young people leave home earlier, though not necessarily to get married. More women now go out to work and more people, especially the old, live alone. The nuclear family (perhaps two children) has largely replaced the extended family where several generations lived together.

Although patterns are changing, most people in Britain still get married and have children and stay together until the end of their lives. People are marrying later: the average woman gets married at twenty-four to a man who is just over two years older (although it is estimated that 40 per cent of couples live together before getting married).

Mrs. Average now has her first child at the age of twenty-seven, but she will have only one or two children: only one mother in four has more. Nine out of ten married women will have children at some point in their lives. And despite the changes in working habits it is usually the woman who has overall responsibility for domestic life: the traditional division of family responsibilities still persists.

Britain has one of the highest divorce rates in Western Europe: approximately one in three marriages ends in divorce, half of them in the first ten years of marriage. As a result more people are getting remarried and there are now over a million single parents looking after 1,6 million children. There has also been a sharp rise in the rate of illegitimacy: in 1987 23 per cent of babies were born outside marriage.

TEXT 1 Family structure

The British live longer, marry later, have fewer children and are more likely to get divorced than ever before. Young people leave home earlier, though not necessarily to get married. More women now go out to work and more people, especially the old, live alone. The nuclear family (perhaps two children) has largely replaced the extended family where several generations lived together.

Although patterns are changing, most people in Britain still get married and have children and stay together until the end of their lives. People are marrying later: the average woman gets married at twenty-four to a man who is just over two years older (although it is estimated that 40 per cent of couples live together before getting married).

Mrs. Average now has her first child at the age of twenty-seven, but she will have only one or two children: only one mother in four has more. Nine out of ten married women will have children at some point in their lives. And despite the changes in working habits it is usually the woman who has overall responsibility for domestic life: the traditional division of family responsibilities still persists.

Britain has one of the highest divorce rates in Western Europe: approximately one in three marriages ends in divorce, half of them in the first ten years of marriage. As a result more people are getting remarried and there are now over a million single parents looking after 1,6 million children. There has also been a sharp rise in the rate of illegitimacy: in 1987 23 per cent of babies were born outside marriage.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1568