Unit 143 American Families Today

W: American families today are very different from what they were about a hundred years ago.

The main difference is that families are now much smaller. In the past, most families lived on farms. They needed children to help them work. Today, most families live in cities. Parents do not expect their children to work for them. It is also becoming very expensive to raise and educate children. Many parents cannot afford to have a large family. Others think that there are already too many people in the world. If they have more than two children, it will increase the population. Also, the types of families are changing. Statistics show that there are more single parents than ever before. More and more unmarried couples are having children, and a growing number of couples are choosing to have no children at all. Traditional families---a married couple with children---live in less than 25 percent of all US homes. One reason for this trend is the greater number of working women. In the past, women depended on their husbands for money. Now, many women have jobs. They don't have to be married to have money. Another reason is divorce. This is when a husband and wife decide not to be married anymore. Almost half of all US marriages end in divorce. Many people decide not to get married at all. They prefer to be single and live without a husband or a wife.