Many researchers have found that families now are much different then families fifty years ago. Not for better or worse but families have evolved a lot since the fifties. Many of the changes have come from the way the family is now set up or structured. Changes that occur in families over time may happen to ensure the success of families in the ever changing society a lot of these changes are family structure, interpersonal relationships, and children.
Family structure has changed over the last fifty years, such as the dad not being the only one that goes to work. Now the mother also works and brings in an income whereas fifty years ago the father of the family would go to work and the mother would stay home and take care of the kids. But mothers still do 75% of the housework (Fernand 90) around the home and mothers are still the one the family goes to for emotional support. Most families are spread out (geographically) across the world. Some of this occurs from children going away for college more so then children in the 1950's. After college most students try getting jobs around where they went to college so now that starts a family somewhere else other then the home. Now 1 in 3 marriages with children will have a divorce within 8 years of marriage (Brokaw 14). After marriage a lot of women will get the kids and move away from the spouse in another city. Then find another mate to live with, thus spreading out the family out by splitting it from one city to another. Men and women are waiting longer to get married in the new millennium, the average age for women to get married now is 26 (Fortell 4), which has greatly changed since the 1950's where as the average age for women to get married in 1953 was 19 (Brokaw 17). Children are now taking care of themselves at an older age where as before once a man turned 18 his choice was to get a job or get in the military unless he was from a wealthy family.
