The American Family is Changing
Growing up, my grandparents, parents, aunts, cousins, and I gathered for a shared meal each Thanksgiving. Cousins who had moved away would often travel home. We had as many as five generations gather each Thanksgiving. Everyone prepared a dish or two. Eating was the main event, but there was always football, looking through Black Friday ads in our local paper, a marathon of dessert eating, and spending time together.
This year, I’ll travel to Charleston, South Carolina to visit my in-laws with my wife and our dog. My mother-in-law is excited for her “granddog” to visit. My sister-in-law isn’t coming home from Omaha this Thanksgiving, but she’ll travel for Christmas. We will be joined by a neighbor, a divorced woman whose adult sons are visiting their own in-laws.
Thanksgiving traditions haven’t changed too much over the years. Most Americans still gather with loved ones. Turkey is still a staple, though its price has skyrocketed in recent years. The Lions and Cowboys still host football games, but the Lions are now Super Bowl contenders.
On the other hand, the American family has changed a lot over the past few decades. There have been major shifts in the living arrangements and family structure of Americans, according to data from the US Census Bureau’s decennial census and the American Community Survey. There is no longer one dominant family form. Family is now experienced in increasingly diverse ways, including a “chosen family” with commitments that are independent of biology or marriage.
Marriage is less common than a generation ago. Married-couple households made up only 47% of all households in 2022, down from 71% in 1970. Changes to family become even more stark if you look at younger adults. In 1970, 67% of Americans ages 25 to 49 were living with a spouse and one or more kids. In 2021, it’s only 37%. Americans ages 25 to 49 have a range of family living arrangements, including cohabitating with kids (5%), unpartnered with kids (6%), married with no kids (21%), cohabitating with no kids (7%), or living with other family members (11%).
Marriage is changing in the US. Americans are getting married later in life. A rising share of American have never been married. Same-sex marriages now make up over 1% of all marriages. Interracial or interethnic marriages are more common. Americans with a bachelor’s degree or higher are more likely to be married and less likely to have children.
Americans are having fewer children than ever before. Fertility rates in the US have declined drastically in recent decades. Fertility has declined by about 2% annually in recent years, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics. The total fertility rate for the US was 1616.5 births per 1000 women in 2023. This is far beneath the 2100 births per 1000 women that are necessary to replace a population. The US has typically been below replacement level since the early 1970s and has been below replacement level every year since 2007. Those who do have kids are having them later in life and having fewer kids overall.
More Americans are living alone, while a rising percentage of young adults are living with their parents. Women living alone are 16% of all US households in 2022, compared to 12% in 1970. Men living alone are 13% of all US households in 2022, compared to 6% in 1970. Conversely, adult children are more likely to live with their parents than in the past. 55% of women and 57% of men ages 18-24 lived with their parents in 2022, compared to 35% of women and 55% of men in 1960.
As you sit around the table with family this Thanksgiving, you’re likely to see that your company reflects changes to the American family. The demographics of family have changed, but the functions of family have not. I wish you and your family a happy Thanksgiving!
Roscoe Scarborough, Ph.D. is chair of the Department of Social Sciences and associate professor of sociology at College of Coastal Georgia. He is an associate scholar at the Reg Murphy Center for Economic and Policy Studies. He can be reached by email at rscarborough@ccga.edu.