背景知识(background info) :Changes in modern family

Changes in modern family: Families have undergone a major transformation in the past generation and are poised to change even more in the coming century. Households will move further away from the family-structure model of a stay-at-home mother, working father, and children, according to a new report from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. Because of divorce, cohabitation and single parenthood, a majority of families rearing children in the next century will probably not include the children's two original parents. Moreover, most households will not include children. Marriage has declined as people marry older and divorce and cohabit more. A growing proportion of children has been born outside of marriage. Even within marriage the changes have been profound as more and more women have entered the labor force and gender roles have become more homogenous between husbands and wives. Those changes are having an impact on how people think about family life, and as a result, the concept of family tends to be more elastic. Look at the websites at http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/99/991124.family.shtml and http://www.dufi.duq.edu/family/ and you can find more detailed information. The website at http://www.trinity.edu/~mkearl/family.html lists extensive links on the study of family and marriage.