February 2, 2000

Research finds
Ozzie & Harriett fading fast
___By Bob Allen
___& Sarah Griffith
___Associated Baptist Press
___CHICAGO (ABP)--The American family is moving away from the traditional model of a stay-at-home mother and working father with children, according to a recent survey.
___Dual-income and single-parent families are replacing the "Ozzie-and-Harriet family," said Tom Smith, author of "The Emerging 21st Century American Family," a report by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.
___Women in the workplace, redefinition of the roles of husbands and wives, smaller families and changing mores about marriage and sex are "fundamental changes" affecting American families, Smith said.
___"Both family structure and family values have been changing, and as a result of these changes, the American family is a much-altered institution," Smith said.
___While many of Smith's findings may not match the social culture most evangelical Christians would desire, churches ought to learn from this research how better to meet the needs of modern people, said a Baptist ethicist.
___"These demographic changes are unsettling and challenge the 1950s style of church programming," said Robert Parham, a Baylor University graduate who is executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics in Nashville, Tenn. "Yet the biblical witness teaches us that Jesus defined family in terms of those who hear and do God's word.
___"Jesus emphasized family turned God-ward, not inward. He spoke against the self-centered family. He expressed concern about his mother's family placement, pronounced salvation on a household and told a parable about family. We must teach Jesus' teachings on family, not a comfortable cultural model."
___"The changing structure of the American family requires churches to meet real needs that support dual-income families and single-parents, not political statements of faith that prioritize the husband as bread-winner and wife as household manager," Parham said.
___He encouraged church leaders to "teach authentic biblical values, instead of baptizing the cultural model of Ozzie and Harriet as the normative Christian model for family structure."
___Among the most profound changes taking place in the last generation are the increased role of women in the workplace and redefinition of gender roles by married couples, the University of Chicago study said.
___"Women have greatly increased their participation in the paid labor force outside the home," the study said. In 1960, 42 percent of women ages 25-64 worked outside the home. That percentage grew to 49 percent in 1970, 59 percent in 1980, 69 percent in 1990 and 71 percent in 1995.
___Women are bringing in a greater share of the family's joint income. By 1994, women had a higher income than their husbands in 22 percent of dual-earner families.
___That has contributed to a change in gender roles.
___"Among the most fundamental changes affecting American society over the last generation has been the redefinition of the roles of men and women and husbands and wives," the study said.
___"A traditional perspective in which women were occupied in the private sphere of life centering around running a home and raising a family while men engaged in the public sphere of earning a living and participating in civic and political events has been rapidly replaced by a modern perspective in which there is much less gender-role specialization and women have increasingly been entering the labor force as well as other areas of public life."
___Less than one-fourth (21 percent) of American families contained an employed father and stay-at-home mother in 1998, compared to over half (53 percent) of families in 1972, according to the report.
___While gender roles are becoming less traditional, Smith said, stay-at-home fathers in "Mr. Mom" households remain "a rarity."
___The acceptance of women in politics has increased substantially over the last 25 years. In 1972, 74 percent of the population said they would vote a woman into the presidency. In 1998, 94 percent accepted female presidential candidates, according to the report.
___Declining marriage and childbirth rates will mean fewer households will contain children in the future, Smith predicted. Also, fewer children will be living with their original two parents.
___Other factors cited in the study include changing attitudes about:
___ Marriage. "While still a central institution in American society, marriage plays a less dominant role than it once did," the study says. More people are delaying marriage, divorces have increased, and people are slower to remarry than before. More people also are living together without being married. In a 1994 study, 28 percent of married couples said they lived with their present spouse before marriage. Another 1994 study found nearly two-thirds of young men (65.7 percent) and women (64 percent) said their first union was cohabitation.
___ Children. Childbearing has declined, from a peak fertility rate of 3.65 children per woman at the height of the Baby Boom to a rate of 1.75 children in 1995. This is below the level needed for the population to replace itself. People prefer smaller families than in the past. In the early 1970s a majority felt the ideal number of children in a family was three or more. Today, most say the ideal number is two.
___ Sexual mores and practices. Attitudes toward premarital sex have become more permissive. The percent saying unmarried sex is always wrong declined from 36 percent in 1972 to 24 percent in 1996. More than two-thirds, however, say premarital sex between teenagers under 17 is wrong.
___Approval of homosexual activity has never been higher. As recently as 1991, 77 percent said homosexual sex is always wrong. By 1998, only 58 percent said so.
___Disapproval of extra-marital sex, meanwhile, has increased over the last generation. In 1976, 69 percent said it is always wrong. In 1998, 81 percent said extramarital sex is always wrong.
___ Neighborhoods. One hallmark of the traditional family, rootedness in local communities and neighborhoods, has weakened over the last three decades. Social contact with neighbors has declined from 30 percent reporting spending a social evening with neighbors at least several times a week in 1974 to 20 percent in 1998.
___"The American family has undergone a series of fundamental changes over the last generation," Smith said. "Many of the changes have undermined the traditional family, as sociologist Norval Glenn notes, 'If you watch what Americans do, traditional family relationships are in trouble.'"

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