Over the course of the 1990s, lone motherhood has become a major political issue in Britain--but what is the problem actually about and to what extent is it new? This timely study, written by three leading experts in the field, examines the changes that have befallen the pathways leading to lone motherhood--changes in ideas about marriage, divorce, and never-married motherhood. The evolutionary policy histories relevant to lone mothers in housing, social security, and employment are also studied. The findings detailed in these pages illustrate both the complexity of the issues and the extent to which policies have reflected society's changing definitions of this phenomenon.

Lone Motherhood in Twentieth-Century Britain: From Footnote to Front Page

History

Lewis, Jane

Land, Hilary

Kiernan, Kathleen

Europe

Oxford University Press

The changes which are occurring in family life are of unprecedented magnitude and speed. The 'traditional' family, headed by a married couple, is still in the majority, but it is a shrinking majority and, because the movement away from marriage is most noticeable in younger age-groups, we can expect the process of change to intensify in the short term.Under the editorship of Miriam David, Professor and Dean of Research at the London Institute, two respected commentators examine the raw data from their different perspectives. Kathleen Kiernan, a co-director of the ESRC Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics and Political Science, argues for family policies which are based on the recognition of parenthood rather than marriage. Patricia Morgan, Senior Research Fellow in the family at the IEA, asks whether any culture can survive the disintegration of the central institution which transmits the values which hold it together.

The Fragmenting Family: Does It Matter? (Choice in Welfare)

Business & Money

Morgan, Patricia

Haskey, John

Economics

Inst of Economic Affairs

The New Role Of Women: Family Formation In Modern Societies

Blossfeld, Hans-Peter

Parenting & Relationships

Routledge

This is the first book to systematically track postwar changes in family formation in Western Europe and the United States. Cohabitation and motherhood outside of marriage have become more widespread at the same time that women's social roles are evolving. Women are attaining higher levels of education, marrying at an older age, and more frequently working outside the home and have more reproductive freedom due to new advances in contraception. In this original collection of essays, sociologists and demographers from eight Western European countries and the United States use longitudinal data to compare national variations and explain the connection between the new role of women and family formation in postwar society. The contributors provide a thorough review of the social demographic literature to advance a variety of hypotheses about the relationships between changing women's education and family formation outcomes, which are empirically examined and compared across countries.

The New Role Of Women: Family Formation In Modern Societies (WESTVIEW SERIES ON SOCIAL INEQUALITY)

Westview Press

The fate of the family is high on the public policy agenda. There are fewer marriages and more divorces; fewer births but a higher proportion outside marriage; more cohabitation and more people living alone. So is the family declining or just changing? And what do we mean by 'family' anyway? In the first part of this book John Haskey, the distinguished and widely-respected head of the Social Statistics Unit within the Demography and Health Division of the Office for National Statistics, sets out the facts. The changes which are occurring in family life are of unprecedented magnitude and speed. The 'traditional' family, headed by a married couple, is still in the majority, but it is a shrinking majority and, because the movement away from marriage is most noticeable in younger age-groups, we can expect the process of change to intensify in the short-term. Under the editorship of Miriam David, Professor and Dean of Research at the London Institute, two respected commentators examine the raw data from their different perspectives. Kathleen Kiernan, a co-director of the ESRC Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion (CASE) at the London School of Economics and Political Science, argues for family policies which are based on the recognition of parenthood rather than marriage. Patricia Morgan, Senior Research Fellow in the family at CIVITAS, asks whether any culture can survive the disintegration of the central institution which transmits the values which hold it together. "Fragmentation of traditional British family life is graphically illustrated in an analysis of social trends by John Haskey, of the Office of National Statistics." The Daily Telegraph. "Morgan...argues that we should not accept the disintegration of the husband-wife family as the central way of raising children, but instead should seek to reverse it. Her concern is that the collapse of the married-couple family as the normal means of rearing children may threaten the cohesion of society." Community Care. "Morgan's analysis of the 'inescapable data', showing the advantages of marriage and stable family life as well as the 'looking-glass logic' which inverts them, stands as a robust corrective to the irrationality, ideology and ignorance which now pass for debate on the family." Times Literary Supplement. "Patricia Morgan warns: 'What we are witnessing now is not the formalisation of other "family structures", but deregulation of the conjugal nuclear family which we have known for centuries.'" The Guardian.

David, Miriam

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Civitas:Institute for the Study of Civil Society

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