Editing Nuclear family (section)

== Changes to family formation ==
[[File:American Household Composition Past and Present.png|thumb|400x400px|Between 1960 and 2017, the nuclear family lost its dominant position in American society to other household arrangements.]]
In 2005, information from the [[United States Census Bureau]] showed that 70% of children in the U.S. lived in two-parent families,<ref name="Marriages, Families & Intimate Relationships">{{cite book |last=Williams |first=Brian |author2=Stacey C. Sawyer |author3=Carl M. Wahlstrom  |year= 2005 |title=Marriages, Families & Intimate Relationships |publisher=Pearson |location=Boston, MA |isbn=978-0-205-36674-3}}</ref> with 66% of those living with parents who were married, and 60% living with their biological parents. Furthermore, "the figures suggest that the tumultuous shifts in family structure since the late 1960s have leveled off since 1990".<ref name="uscensus">{{cite news |first=Sam |last=Roberts |title=Most Children Still Live in Two-Parent Homes, Census Bureau Reports |date=February 25, 2008 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/21/us/21census.html?_r=1&oref=slogin |access-date=2008-03-05 |work=The New York Times}}</ref> The Pew Research Center's analysis of data from the American Community Survey and the decennial census revealed that the number of children living outside of the traditional ideal of parents marrying young and staying together till death has risen precipitously between the mid-to-late 20th century and the early 21st century. In 2013, only 43% of children lived with married parents who are in their first marriage, down from 73% in 1960. Meanwhile, the share of children living with a single parent was 34% in 2013, up from 9% in 1960.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Livingston |first=Gretchen |date=December 22, 2014 |title=Fewer than half of U.S. kids today live in a 'traditional' family |url=https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/22/less-than-half-of-u-s-kids-today-live-in-a-traditional-family/ |access-date=November 15, 2020 |website=Pew Research Center}}</ref>

When considered separately from couples without children, [[single-parent]] families, and unmarried couples with children, the United States nuclear families appear to constitute a minority of households—with a rising prevalence of other family arrangements. In 2000, nuclear families with the original biological parents constituted roughly 24.10% of American households, compared with 40.30% in 1970.<ref name="Marriages, Families & Intimate Relationships"/> Roughly two-thirds of all children in the United States will spend at least some time in a single-parent household.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://web1.msue.msu.edu/msue/imp/modii/ii493007.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070703063353/http://web1.msue.msu.edu/msue/imp/modii/ii493007.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 3, 2007|title=Focus on Michigan's Future: Changing Family and Household|date=July 3, 2007}}</ref> According to some sociologists, "[The nuclear family] no longer seems adequate to cover the wide diversity of household arrangements we see today." (Edwards 1991; Stacey 1996). For this reason, a new term ''postmodern family'' has been introduced to describe the great variability in family forms, including single-parent families and couples without children.<ref name="Marriages, Families & Intimate Relationships" /> Nuclear family households are now less common compared to household with couples without children, single-parent families, and unmarried couples with children.<ref>{{Cite news|last=Brooks|first=David|title=The Nuclear Family Was a Mistake|work=The Atlantic|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/03/the-nuclear-family-was-a-mistake/605536/|access-date=2020-10-02|issn=1072-7825}}</ref>

In the UK, the number of nuclear families fell from 39.0% of all households in 1968 to 28.0% in 1992. The decrease accompanied an equivalent increase in the number of single-parent households and in the number of adults living alone.<ref>{{cite journal |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pgPxQaF4bDAC&pg=PA25 |pages=25–28 |last=Pothan |first=Peter |title=Nuclear family nonsense |journal=Third Way |date=September 1992 |volume=15 |number=7}}</ref>

Professor Wolfgang Haak of [[University of Adelaide|Adelaide University]], detects traces of the nuclear family in prehistoric Central Europe. A 2005 archeological dig in Elau in Germany, analyzed by Haak, revealed genetic evidence suggesting that the 13 individuals found in a grave were closely related. Haak said, "By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe.... Their unity in death suggest[s] a unity in life."<ref name=":17">{{cite journal |last1=Haak |first1=Wolfgang |last2=Brandt |first2=Guido |last3=Jong |first3=Hylke N. de |last4=Meyer |first4=Christian |last5=Ganslmeier |first5=Robert |last6=Heyd |first6=Volker |last7=Hawkesworth |first7=Chris |last8=Pike |first8=Alistair W. G. |last9=Meller |first9=Harald |last10=Alt |first10=Kurt W. |title=Ancient DNA, Strontium isotopes, and osteological analyses shed light on social and kinship organization of the Later Stone Age |journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences |date=25 November 2008 |volume=105 |issue=47 |pages=18226–18231 |doi=10.1073/pnas.0807592105 |doi-access=free |pmid=19015520 |pmc=2587582 |bibcode=2008PNAS..10518226H }}</ref> This paper does not regard the nuclear family as "natural" or as the only model for human family life, expressed as, "This does not establish the elemental family to be a universal model or the most ancient institution of human communities. For example, polygamous unions are prevalent in ethnographic data and models of household communities have apparently been involving a high degree of complexity from their origins."<ref name=":17" />

Lastly, large shifts in the financial landscape for families has made the historically middle class, traditional, nuclear family structure significantly more risky, expensive, and unstable. The expenses associated with raising a family; notably housing, medical care, and education, have all increased very rapidly, particularly since the 1950s. Since then middle class incomes have stagnated or even declined, whilst living costs have soared to the point where even two-income households are now unable to offer the same level of financial stability that once was possible under the single-income nuclear family household of the 1950s.<ref>{{cite magazine |last1=Warren |first1=Elizabeth |title=The middle class on the precipice |magazine=Harvard Magazine |volume=108 |issue=3 |date=2006 |pages=28–31 |url=https://harvardmagazine.com/sites/default/files/pdf/2006/01-pdfs/0106-28.pdf }}</ref>