The Wonders of Society

This week in Family Relations was full of interesting things I never knew before. But, before I get into that, I suppose I should probably sum up the first week of classes, because I learned a lot of things then too. So, some of the most interesting things I picked up from class last week:

• Gay marriage was never an issue until about a month after Proposition 22 was passed in California outlawing gay marriages.
• People that practice cohabitation, contrary to popular belief, are actually 3x more likely to divorce once they get married.
• If there is a differing of opinion between parents and their teens when asked about how the parents treat the teens, you should trust the teens because parents are more focused on their intentions than they are on their actions and don't see the flaws in their discipline
• The best way to find out if a research source is credible is to look up information about the author and/or their resources. Are they authorized to be giving information on the subject? What is their research and publication history? Are their sources credible?

Last week was focused on research strategies. This week was about family trends. Almost everything we learned and talked about I didn't know before. Like most people around the world, I had heard and absorbed all of the myths spreading around society about families. So, for those of you who are just like I was, I'd like to share the things I learned that go against the accepted "way of things," but first I need to say what exactly the family trends are that we have been discussing: waiting longer to marry has been increasing (the average man gets married around 28, and the average woman around 26), cohabitation has been increasing, birth rates have halved and fertility rates are decreasing, non-marital births have increased by ~40%, the number of employed mothers has increased, household sizes have decreased (the average household size is 2.06), divorce rates have increased, living alone has increased, and premarital sex has increased. Now that you know what trends I'm talking about, here are some tid bits I have picked up:

• Marriage is the most important contract you will ever sign, yet it is the ONLY contract that is not binding, in that you can just drop out of it if you decide you no longer like it.
• However, divorce is not as common as many people may believe; about 3/4 of Americans will never experience divorce  Keep in mind, that includes people the never get married, but still! Most people think that about half the people that get married will get divorced, and that's not the case. There's still hope!
• 60-80% of people cohabitate (I'm not sure if this is worldwide or in the US, sorry)
• Premarital sex has always been around, so people a "long time ago" weren't perfect either! (Naive me never really thought about that, but you smarter people already figured that out.)
• A book titled "Population Bomb," published in the late 1960s, caused a national assumption that populations will always grow and that growth will have bad effects on the environment and society. This is not the case. Population growth has continued to increase since the 1960s, but fertility rates have dropped because of the world-wide fear of over-population. The drop in fertility will eventually lead to a major drop in population because there won't be enough people in the new generations to make up for the deaths of the people in old generations. Replacement rates need to be 2.13 for populations to be stable, but every developed nation in the world is below that, with the US being the closest to a stable population because it's rate is just below 2.13. Children are necessary to continue our race people! Races in Europe are in danger of dying out because their fertility is so low!!
• Social Security: when it was set up, fertility rates were high so there were ~13 people working to support 1 person's retirement. Currently, it is 3.5 people working to support 1 person. Soon, like when the Baby Boomers reach retirement, it will be 1 person working to support 2.5!
• The baby boom wasn't just caused by the end the war and the happiness and family building it caused. Population growth also skyrocketed because medical technology was advancing as well. Interesting thought, huh?
• The world is not as populated as you might think. For example, Brother Williams said today that if every family in the US was given 1 acre of land, they could all live in Texas. That may or may not be entirely true, not to discredit my professor, but the point is still there: we are not in eminent danger of over population.
• Growing population is not necessarily a bad thing. We have twice as much food available worldwide, with twice the population, as in the late 1960s when "Population Bomb" was written.

Phew! Now you know why my week was so amazing! I'm learning so much every day about my most favorite thing in the world: families! Anywho, that's this week, so until next week: Chao!