Children and the Changing Family

Between Transformation and Negotiation

An-Magritt Jensen, Lorna McKee, An-Magritt Jensen, Lorna McKee

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781134471904
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This timely and thought-provoking book explores how social and family change are colouring the experience of childhood. The book is centred around three major changes: parental employment, family composition and ideology. The authors demonstrate how children's families are transformed in accordance with societal changes in demographic and economic terms, and as a result of the choices parents make in response to these changes. Despite claims that society is becoming increasingly child-centred, this book argues that children still have little influence over the major changes in their lives.
This book breaks new ground by researching family change from the child's point of view. Through combinations from childhood experts in Scandinavia, the UK and America, the book shows the importance of studying children's lives in families in order to understand how far children are active agents in contemporary society.
Students of childhood studies, sociology, social work and education will find this book essential reading. It will also be of interest to practitioners in the social, child and youth services.

1 Children’s changing families and family resources

Lynda Clarke and Heather Joshi

Family life has changed dramatically in the past three decades in most countries in Europe. Demographic, social and economic changes have affected the living arrangements and family experiences of children. Children are now born into more diverse family circumstances and are more likely to experience a transition from one family type to another than in earlier decades. The changing nature of relationships and diversity of family types, the increase in family breakup and solo living as well as the relative importance of friends and families are often seen as indicators of family instability.

The risk of family change is strongly related to the type of family at the child’s birth (Clarke et al. 2000). More children are being born outside marriage, both into lone mother families and into cohabiting couple families (Clarke 1992; Clarke et al. 1997). Children’s risk of family change is higher if they are born outside marriage. Children born to cohabiting couples are more likely to experience a breakup of their parents than children in married couple families (Clarke and Jensen 1999). Children born to lone mothers are more likely than other children to experience the acquisition of a new co-resident partner to their mother, especially if they are young mothers (Clarke et al. 1997; Kiernan1999). We also know that children born outside marriage are quite likely to have their natural father move in with them and even marry their mother after their birth (Clarke et al. 1997; Haskey1999).

The consequences of these family transitions are now beginning to accumulate. We know that family change has implications for health and behaviour, both in childhood and in later life. Perhaps most important are the associated risks of poverty and disadvantage. We know from official statistics that half of poor children live in lone parent families and that 59 per cent of children in lone parent households are poor (DSS2001). Also, two-thirds (61 per cent) of poor children live in households where no one is employed and over three-quarters (78 per cent) of such children are poor. The risk of child poverty is much higher when there are three or more children in the household and that over half of poor children live in social housing (local authority or housing association). Over three-quarters of poor children are white but the risk of child poverty is higher in minority ethnic groups, especially among Pakistanis or Bangladeshis.

There is now considerable evidence that child poverty has been increasing in the past twenty years or so in Britain although there have been recent decreases. This is true both for absolute and relative poverty (Bradshaw2001; Bradshaw2002). In 1979, 10 per cent of children lived in households with incomes below 50 per cent of the average after housing costs. By 1995/6 this proportion had risen to 13 per cent in 1979 real terms.Thus three per cent of children were worse off in absolute terms – 300,000 children were living on incomes below the 1979 real terms poverty threshold. Relative poverty,moreover, has increased more than threefold – in 1979, 10 per cent of children were living in families with incomes below 50 per cent of contemporary average income but in 1996/7 this had risen to 35 per cent.This is a period when average incomes rose by 44 per cent (after housing costs). There is also evidence that child poverty is higher than in most other industrialized countries (Bradshaw2001). Data from the Luxembourg Income Study shows that child poverty rates (below 50 per cent of mean income) vary considerably between countries and the UK has the third highest out of 25 countries after Russia and the USA.There is also evidence that child poverty has increased more than in most other industrialized countries (Oxleyet al. 2001). We know little, however, about other social and economic conditions of children’s lives or how this relates to family structure.

Family life has changed for children in a number of ways other than increased likelihood of the loss of a co-resident parent, usually their father. There are important changes in domestic life and the modus operandi of families that are having major influences on the young today. Family life in couple families has become less gender-segregated: mothers are more likely to be employed and shared care of children by mothers and fathers (living together as well as apart) is more common than in the past (Joshi1998). The importance of father involvement and parenting styles for children’s well-being are being examined (Day and Lamb, forthcoming) and the importance of the family is beginning to be articulated in official policies (The Stationery Office 1998).

While fertility and family changes in developed countries have received much attention over the past decades, very few studies in Europe have focused on children as the statistical unit (Qvortrupet al. 1994). Given that the presence of children is a main reason for the concern about family changes, this is quite surprising. There has been a paucity of information about children and childhood in general in Europe, whereas the USA has a long history of treating children individually in analysis and has led the field in this change of analytical perspective (Bumpass1984; Hofferth1987; Hernandez1989). Over the past decade other countries have begun to follow suit and more attention is being given to children as a focus in the study of family change.This wider theoretical focus for the social demography of children has been termed ‘the sociography of childhood’ (Saporiti1994). Few such demographic studies have been carried out in Britain (Clarke 1992, 1996, Clarke et al. 2000). However, a refocusing of analytical perspective has emphasized treating children as active participants in social study (James, Jenksand Prout1998).

In this chapter we set the statistical backdrop for the following chapters.We will use children as the focus of study to document the evidence on the demography of children’s family location and the transitions they are likely to face, and present new data on the social and economic conditions of children. We will examine whether there is evidence of increasing social inequality among children as has been reported for adults (Oxleyet al. 2001) and investigate how this can be linked to the family structures of children. We wish to investigate how far children’s family structure at birth or later family breakdown is associated with subsequent adverse socio-economic circumstances.

In order to explore the differentials in children’s socio-demographic background we will utilize data from the 1981 and 1991 censuses of England and Wales, tracing children throughout their childhood via the ONS Longitudinal Study.This allows an unprecedented insight into the living conditions of children and how these change throughout childhood. The British Office of National Statistics (ONS) links census records (beginning with 1971) with vital registration data for one per cent of the population of England and Wales born on four selected birthdays to create the Longitudinal Study (LS) (Hattersley and Creeser,1995).

Children’s family type at birth and transition during childhood

There were around 8.3 million children aged between five and 17 in England and Wales in 1991, i.e. between the age of compulsory schooling and voting age. Eighty-two per cent of them lived in two-parent families and 16 per cent in one-parent families, with 1.5 per cent not living in a family or heading their own.

The linked data from the ONS LS can be used to reveal the history of family change behind this snapshot, distinguishing (most of) the two-parent couples as either stepfamilies or as ‘intact’ couples who had been together since the child was born. Children’s family situation at birth is shown in the registration of births on a sample birthday after 1971.The birth may be registered in marriage by two parents; jointly by two parents who are not married; or by the mother only, also outside marriage. Changes in children’s family status are then detected at subsequent censuses in 1981 and 1991, by comparing the number of parents, and their dates of birth at registration and census.

As outlined above, it is already well known that children of this generation have encountered changing family structures.These new analyses of the dynamics of the process show that a large minority of the 5–17 age-group have experienced at least one change in living-in parents. However, two-thirds of the sample (65.6 per cent) were still identifiably living with both their birth parents. Stepfamilies constitute about one in ten of the two-parent families for children in this age group. Usually the step-parent is the father: only one per cent of the children lived with a stepmother. Living with stepfathers is highest proportionally amongst children whose births were registered by a mother on her own (sole registration), although these were only a minority (one in 20). The group of solely registered children has the highest chance of living with a lone mother in 1991 (46 per cent).¹ Among the children with two parents named on their birth certificate, the married couples have a higher chance of living together in 1991 (85 per cent) than the unmarried couples who made a joint registration (57 per cent). However, since the married couples were by far the biggest group at registration, there were more children in absolute numbers experiencing non-intact living arrangements from these origins (71 per cent of children in stepfamilies and 64 per cent of children in lone-parent families were born to a married couple). In population terms, out of 700,000 children aged 5-17 years in stepfamilies, around 500,000 had been born to a married couple; out of 1,300,000 children aged 5-17 in one-parent families, around 830,000 had been born to married parents.

Change throughout childhood can be seen in another perspective if we examine the change over ten years for children under ten years old in 1981. This shows that children who were born to married parents were much more likely not to experience family breakup than children registered jointly at birth by two parents outside marriage. Over seven in ten (73 per cent) of children born to married parents were still with both parents ten years later compared with under four in ten (37 per cent) of children jointly-registered outside marriage. There is evidence of transition into two-parent families for children registered by a mother alone at birth but lone motherhood persists for many children (24 per cent were in this type of family at both time points²).

It might be supposed that families who part are also likely to move location, which could be an additional disruption for children.While it was more common for children in families who had experienced a change in structure than those who had not to move location it was common for all children. Half of children in intact families (50 per cent) had moved compared with three-quarters of intact families who had become stepfamilies by 1991 (76 per cent) and lone-parent families who became stepfamilies (73 per cent).More than half of children under ten years old in 1981 had moved in the subsequent ten years (55 per cent).

The varied demographic context of these children’s families can also be seen if we consider the age of their mother at their birth. Children whose mothers were teenagers were most likely to be experiencing lone parenthood (31 per cent) and stepfamilies(23 per cent) by the time of the 1991 census, although some of their mothers had been, and remained, married (36 per cent were in intact families). Relatively early motherhood, between 20 and 24 years, was associated with an intermediate degree of family ‘disruption’, which attains a floor of around 15 per cent for children whose mothers were over 25 when they were born. This illustrates an important association between early childbearing and family instability – both by losing a parent and gaining a stepparent, usually a stepfather.

Another source of variation in children’s family structures is ethnic origin. Black children were much more likely to be living in a lone-parent family than children from other ethnic groups in 1991: nearly half (49 per cent) of black children were living with a lone parent compared with 10 per cent of Asian children and 16 per cent of white children.³

Family employment

The number of parents in a child’s family could have several implications for the well-being of that child – the time available to pay attention to the child, for instance, but also the person-hours available for earning and bringing cash into the home.The ‘workless’ family, where no parent earns, accounts for one-sixth of all these children in total (17 per cent) but is more common for the youngest children, aged five to ten years. More children were living in dual-earner and no-earner households in 1991 than in 1981 as the proportion in one-earner households had decreased (from 43 per cent in 1981 to 34 per cent in 1991).

The absence of any earner in the family is relatively most frequent among one-parent families (57 per cent of lone mothers).Among two-parent families, living in a no-earner family is twice as likely for children living in stepfamilies than intact families (16 per cent compared with 8 per cent of the intact couples). Among the two-parent families with earners, cases are roughly equally divided between one-earner (around 31 per cent) and two-earners with the woman earning part time (40 per cent of intact, 27 per cent of stepmother and 24 per cent of stepfather families) and dual full-time earners (20 per cent of intact, 27 per cent of stepmother and 23 per cent of stepfather families). ...