14 DAY TRIAL // There are certain factors that alter the concept of family in the modern world: there is a decline in marriage, a rise in cohabitation, divorce and re-parenting, there are more births to unmarried parents, there are more and more people who live single and last but not least, as the life span increases, there are more and more older people.What consequences do all these factors have?
According to Mike Murphy, of the London School of Economics, and John Ermisch, of the University of Essex, finding out necessitates information beyond that which is provided by today's official registers of births, marriages and deaths, censuses and surveys. They notice that the standard method of data collection, that uses the household as the unit of analysis, simply is no longer fit for the modern situation.
"It is increasingly important to be aware that 'the family' is not simply the group of close relatives that one lives with at a particular point in time," professor Murphy said. "There are increasing proportions of children not living with their biological parents (and often with step-parents) and adults with former partners alive. And as average length of life increases and older people are less likely to be living with their children, who are major providers of informal care, their needs will be met increasingly from outside the household."
Professor Ermisch also points out that current statistics suggest that there are several significant changes taking place: "Marriage and birth registration data shows us that major changes are taking place as to when in their lives people form family units. For instance, the age at which one-half of women had married at least once rose from 24 for those born in 1962, to 29 for women born in 1971. The median age for women having their first baby also increased - from 26.5 to 28."
"This difference between postponing marriage and motherhood immediately suggests that more women must be having their first child outside of marriage," he notes. "However, it is not actually possible to confirm this inference by examining registration statistics alone. The problem is that official data collected at registration only records the order of births for those within marriage."
The Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) in UK wants to tackle these challenges and decided to organize a series of special seminars gathering together policy departments and academic experts. The first seminar took place yesterday.
Photo credit: Jerry Grossman's family