David Popenoe: American Family Decline

David Popenoe's argument for the decline of American families is based on the assertion that the domestic group that he defines as family is failing in performing the primary functions of procreation and socialization of children. He defines a family as consiting of at least one adult and one dependent person, but througout the article continues to revert back to a much more conventional construction of family than this looser definition allows. He cites three broad societal indicators as proof of his thesis. First, he speaks of the decreasing number of children in families. He says that although decline in population is not an imminent problem, this trend displays the sentiment among many adults that they do not value having a family as a lifestyle that will "fulfill their major values." In addition to this trend he correlates the increase in divorces as an indication of a decline in the value of family. He points to the fact that women are increasingly economically independent and therefore able to divorce, as welll as the dissolution of the idea of "separate spheres" of work for the male and the female: the wife at home and the husband as the bread-winner. He points out that regardless of the fact that this decline is seen in the eyes of feminists as a gain in equality for women, it does not change the fact that it is as main cause of the breaking up of the nuclear family unit. He brings up that people feel less inclined to marry or live in situations other than a family of kin. After listing these as the main factors of decline, he concludes that the source of these trends of decline in family values as springing from the "me-centered" culture that has emerged over the past couple of decades. He attempts to disclaim the word "decline" as one that connotes negative changes by making a distinction between family in the traditional form and family as an institution. He ends with the foreboding message that the decline of the family in this age is unique because while the family can be said to have been in decline since its beginnings, it is now in its final stage with the breaking up of the essential family unit of mother, father, and child.
I felt Popenoe's thesis and arugment on the whole to be extremely vague and obtuse. It seemed that he came at the issue through a very narrow track of research that did not take into account other societal problems that contribute to divorce and other reasons he cites for the decline of family values. Although he wrote in a disclaimer saying that decline does not neccessarily mean negative change, I found his incessant claim that women breaking out of the traditional role of housewife is the cause of decline to be sexist. I also did not understand why at some points in the article he began to cite statistics for black and white American families separately. Does this mean that that the rest of the statistics without parenthesis after giving the black family data were based only on white families? He did not give a reason for making this distinction and did not comment on what these differences might indicate. Another statement he made that I questioned was the fact that children are only a minor inhibitor of divorce, although more so when children are male than female. I was unsure of how to intepret this statement, and I think its inclusion proves that he needed to pay much more attention to gender inequality in the formation of his argument. I disagree with his implicit assertion that marriage as a voluntary relationship with the purpose of self-fulfillment brings about the demise of family values, because I believe that striving to be a person with self-esteem and a feeling of fulfillment does not exclude but incorporates the idea of family is a healthier way of viewing within our society than simply as a structure for procreation.
After reading Popenoe's article, I was glad to read Philip Cowan's criticism, because I think he was able to break down with great precision the weaknesses of Popenoe's argument and analysis. First of all, I think his statement that "corrleation does not establish proof of causation" is a perfect way to describe the faults of Popenoe's paper. He never explains, as Cowan rightly puts it, exactly how "inevitiably deleterious" these changes in the family are on its members. Cowan not only criticizes Popenoe, but all those who studied family to break free from the mode of simply predicting the deterioration of certain aspects of the family, and instead focus on why they are happening and how to prevent and alleviate them.
Judith Stacey's response to Popenoe's article was also helpful in understanding some of the assumptions he made within his article that are not facts to be taken for granted. She takes a decidely feminist perspective in her defense of her own statements on the family. She comes to the defense of women, who are blamed by Popenoe for the rise in divorce, by pointing out that there larger issues at stake for women such as lower wages, and single-parenting while working are the real problems that women face although Popenoe seems to view divorce as the greatest of these evils. She points out that Popenoe does not think about what an egalitarian family set up might look like and how it would function within society.
In this debate, I do not agree that the American family is in decline and in danger of soon becoming a non-existent entity within our societal structure, but that the feminist ideals of equality are pushing the family to take a new shape. This may leave the family, specifically the mother, in a strained situation, but I believe it is a necessary and inevitable change. Before reading the article I had thought that it was going to be about the isolation of each individual family member within the home because of technolog that allows greater autonomy, but obviously this was not the argument Popenoe meant to make. I would agree with a disintegration of family on this front, but not in the way that Popenoe assessed the problem.
-Jackie Hubbell