Children are now living with one parents (a lone parent family), with another family member or are being adopted. Divorce was extremely hard to come across in the past, it was very sociallly unacceptable, and took around three years before the divorce was filed. However in the more recent years there have been laws passing in order to allow divoce to be easier and cheaper for families. In 1969 there was the introcution of the 'Divorce Reform Act', making it easier for married couples to get a divorce. It is notivable that religioin is becoming a decline, so more people are accepting divorce as they believe religioin is less important, whereas in the past religioin was highly important and the church would not accept people to remarry.
On the one hand, it can be said that legal changes are the main reason for the increase in divorce over the last forty years due to acts brought into force, such as the Matrimonial Proceedings Act 1984. This act allowed couples to divorce at least one year after marriage, instead of three years, which is what the law enforced before. This meant that people were divorcing sooner and therefore less issues within marriages were being resolved and more marriages were being ended. This is because before, when people had to wait three years before they could divorce, they would often work on the issues in those years, and sometimes move past them and fix the marriage, whereas after the act came into force they could possibly divorce as soon as an issue arose rather than having to deal with it. This is highlighted by the numbers of divorces over the past forty years – in 1974, ten years before the Matrimonial Proceedings Act, there were 113,500 divorces in England and Wales.
Divorce is very common in our current society. All across the world people are accepting divorce in society and it continues to play a role in our society. Starting in the 1960s divorce started to become a more prevalent problem in the United States. The number of divorces per 1000 people, also known as the divorce rate, doubled from a rate of 2.6 to 5.4 between the 1950s and 1980s (Mooney, Knox, & Schacht, 2007). In 1990, when the divorce rate was 4.7, there were 1,182,000 divorces in the United States (Births, Deaths, Marriages, & Divorces, 2006).
Change in divorce rate essay. A divorce is the legal separation of married people through the court. Divorce rate is the number of people per thousand of the married population getting divorced per year. Since the 1900s, divorce rate has been increasing for many different reasons such as secularisation, the changes in the expectations of adulthood and the changes in the laws concerning divorce, however in the last few years it’s been slowly decreasing again. One reason for changes in the divorce rate is the change in how divorce is perceived by society.
A major change that has occurred in the Western family is an increased incidence in divorce. Whereas in the past, divorce was a relatively rare occurrence, in recent times it has become quite commonplace. This change is borne out clearly in census figures. For example thirty years ago in Australia, only one marriage in ten ended in divorce; nowadays the figure is more than one in three (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 1996: p.45). A consequence of this change has been a substantial increase in the number of single parent families and the attendant problems that this brings (Kilmartin, 1997).
One of these policies is the divorce act 1969; which has made it easier for couples to get divorced. Due to this, marriage has become less sacred which has made the family unit weaker. Couples may get a divorce instead of trying hard in the relationship to make it better. Another law affecting the family is the new deal 1998; which makes it easier for lone mothers to get back into paid work. This was introduced by the Labour party, who Lewis argues have taken on the idea of ‘social investment in children’ seriously and have realised family forms are changing.
Unfortunately many states have taken the easy road and have become over-reliant on the federal government for support. In return they are forced to relinquish power and freedom. This is one of the “cons” to following the federal mandate of the universal MLDA of 21. The main argument against lowering the MLDA again, is the inevitable rise in drunken driving related deaths. In the 1960’s and 1970’s when many states had lowered the MLDA, besides the rise in drunk-driving deaths, studies showed that people raised from childhood in under-21 states were involved in higher rates of alcohol and drug use as adults, and had a higher rate of homicides and suicides.
U.S. divorce rates have been rising since the beginning of the 20th century. More than a quarter of people age 18-44 come from a divorced family. Psychologists have known little about the long term effect this has on kids and are just now coming out with useful information. (“BreakupBacklash”) Researcher Sara Hara Estroff Marano(www.psychology.com) found that effects of divorce depend on what happened in the marriage before the divorce occurred. For example, kids that have lots of high conflict in their family are happier after the divorce occurs.
Research shows that 28% of homes are single person households. This is due to the divorce rates increasing to a rate where it is now the norm, whereas in the past, society would look down on an individual who even considered divorce (social stigma). Research shows that now 40% of marriages have ended in
I think the Equal pay act is a good idea for closing in the pay gap it is successful in many cases. However, overall gender inequality still exists and the pay gap is still quite high, therefore I don’t think the equal pay act has done a great job in eliminating gender inequality. Another way in which the Government has tried to get rid of gender inequality was by introducing the sex Discrimination Act this act makes it unlawful to discriminate on the grounds of a persons gender. Sex discrimination is not allowed in employment, education, advertising or when providing: housing, goods,