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- Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
- Path: sparky!uunet!wupost!mont!pencil.cs.missouri.edu!rich
- From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
- Subject: Study: Republican family values may be outdated
- Message-ID: <1992Aug29.050939.3346@mont.cs.missouri.edu>
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- Date: Sat, 29 Aug 1992 05:09:39 GMT
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-
- /** headlines: 187.0 **/
- ** Topic: UNITED STATES: Republican family va **
- ** Written 11:30 am Aug 24, 1992 by newsdesk in cdp:headlines **
- From: News Desk <newsdesk>
- Subject: UNITED STATES: Republican family va
-
- /* Written 12:16 am Aug 24, 1992 by newsdesk in cdp:ips.englibrary */
- /* ---------- "UNITED STATES: Republican family va" ---------- */
- Copyright Inter Press Service 1992, all rights reserved. Permission to re-
- print within 7 days of original date only with permission from 'newsdesk'.
-
- Title: UNITED STATES: Republican family values may be outdated
-
- washington, aug 24 (ips) -- the ''family values'' repeatedly
- hailed by republican politicians at last week's convention in
- houston may no longer be as relevant to many u.s. families today
- as they were in the 1950s, according to a new report released
- here monday.
-
- in a 44-page study, the washington-based population reference
- bureau (prb) finds that the composition and economic status of
- u.s. families have changed dramatically from the male
- breadwinner-female-homemaker model of forty years ago.
-
- the precipitous rise in divorce rates and the fall in
- marriage rates in the u.s. population have resulted in a very
- different picture of the typical u.s. family than in the 1950s,
- according to the report: ''new realities of the american family.''
-
- ''recognising the diversity of american families and
- addressing the complexity of their needs must lie at the heart
- of the policy debates on family issues,'' according to the
- study, which was written by prb analysts dennis ahlburg and
- carol de vita.
-
- prb is one of the country's most important independent
- demographic research organisations.
-
- ''the breadwinner-homemaker model with husband and wife
- raising their own biological (or adopted) children was once the
- dominant pattern,'' according to the report.
-
- ''today, many family forms are common: single-parent
- families (resulting either from unmarried parenthood or
- divorce), remarried couples, unmarried couples, step-families,
- foster families, extended or multi-generational families, and
- the doubling up of two families within the same home.''
-
- ''women are just as likely to be full or part-time workers
- as full-time homemakers,'' the report said.
-
- the health and composition of the traditional two-parent
- family was injected into this year's presidential campaign three
- months ago when vice president dan quayle assailed a popular
- situation-comedy television character, murphy brown, for bearing
- a child during the series out of wedlock.
-
- ''bearing babies irresponsibly is, simply wrong,'' he said in
- a controversial speech. murphy brown ''doesn't help matters
- (by) mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a child alone,
- and calling it just another ''life-style'' choice.'' (more/ips)
-
- united states: family (2)
-
- that attack -- and the more positive-sounding ''family values'' --
- were transformed during last week's convention into a virtual
- mantra for the republicans and the re-election campaign of
- president george bush and quayle himself.
-
- but the prb report argues that recent social and demographic
- trends have contributed to entirely new conceptions about the u.s.
- family.
-
- the report found that the marriage rate has fallen almost 30
- percent since 1970, while the divorce rate has increased by nearly
- 40 percent during the same period.
-
- new marriages currently have a fifty-fifty chance of ending in
- divorce.
-
- the average age at first marriage is also higher now than at
- any time during the past century, according to the report, which
- also noted that younger families face much greater financial
- pressures than in the past.
-
- the report also found that more than half of all mothers with
- pre-school-age children were working in 1991, compared with only
- about 20 percent in 1960.
-
- in addition, one in four babies is now born to an unmarried
- mother, compared with one in ten in 1970, and about half of all
- children today are expected to spend some part of their childhood
- in a single-parent home.
-
- according to one estimate reviewed in the study, one in three
- citizens -- adults and children alike -- is now a member of a step-
- family.
-
- ''family patterns are so fluid that the u.s. census bureau has
- difficulty measuring family trends,'' the report said.
-
- given these trends, ''valuing the family should not be confused
- with valuing a particular family form. indeed, family life in the
- 1990s will be marked by its diversity,'' according to the report.
- ''as blended families become the norm, the responsibilities of
- family members become more complex, more ambiguous, and more open
- to dispute.''
-
- as a result, public policy-makers, according to the report,
- should guard against ''social legislation (or ''pro-family''
- policies) narrowly designed to reinforce only one model of the
- american family'' because it could ''have the unintended
- consequence of weakening, rather than strengthening, family
- ties.'' (end/ips/ps/jl/jemg/92)
-
- ** End of text from cdp:headlines **
-
-