In Larry Bumpass' Presidential Address to the Population Association of America (PAA), he documented sweeping changes in the family over the past five decades, including the rise in divorce, remarriage, non-marital childbearing, and cohabitation, and the decline in fertility and the proportion of the life span spent in marriage. Bumpass argued "there is no reason to think that ... [these changes] are likely to reverse." Consequently, he recommends that social policies focus on the "amelioration of the negative consequences, rather than ...attempts to reverse the tide."
Please choose one major change in family structure that has occurred over the past five decades (such as increases in non-marital childbearing, divorce, cohabitation, single living, etc) in the United States. Then answer the following three questions regarding that
change. Your written assignment, in total, should be no more than three pages, double-spaced.
1. Provide a brief historical overview of this pattern. You can find trend data on most family behaviors at https://www.census.gov. You should document patterns of change (or continuity) over the past five decades.
2. Provide your own predictions about whether and how the pattern you've described will change over the next fifty years. In your argument, please be sure to consider at least three of the following forces of social change: birth cohorts, the composition of the United States population, technology, legal changes, economic forces, and normative/cultural influences.
3. What public policy recommendations would you make, to either: (a) "reverse the tide" of the pattern you've documented; or (b) "ameliorate the negative consequences" of the patterns you've documented, or (c) simply facilitate the experiences of those individuals (and families) who experience the behavior you've documented?