More children are born in Britain today outside of marriage than in most other European countries. This has been linked to many explanations such as; poor education in sexual health and the lack of knowlege on different types of contraceptives. Nearly a quarter of children lived with only one parent (25%) last year and nine out of ten of these households were headed by mothers. Dennis and Erdos believe that is is down to most families being fatherless, meaning they automatically have poor health and lower educational attainment, however this is only one theory. Another main reason is the simple fact people are marrying later for many reasons, more because of the change in attitudes towards education and religion (seclurisation).
Divorce rates in the past 20 years have been declining the majority of that decline has been attributed to both men and women waiting longer to marry at a more advanced and mature age. Those who choose to wait until they are more mature to marry have a greater chance of being prepared to and have the ability to work through any issues that may arise early in the marriage. (Lamanna & Reidmann, 2011, 405). Perhaps more education can increase this likely hood as well, as often times during the education process most people would agree that they have had to deal with some sort of adversity weather that be a difficult test, the stress of having tons of work and very little time or maybe the class that is not going as well as you would like. Usually we learn not to give up but to try and isolate the reason for the stress and to find a solution to get through the issue(s) these lessons can also be
This means children are now expensive to have and people do not have the money to have as many children as they used too. Medical advances have been a consequence to the changes in population. Due to improvements in midwifery and immunisation, the infant mortality rate has decreased significantly. This now means partners do not need to have as many children as it is more certain their child will live through their childhood. This was not the case at the beginning of the 20th century.
Every day more people die in America than are born. Any increases in population since 1972 have been due to immigration.2 The sociological perils we face are not those of population explosion, but population reduction. The Population Research Institute agrees, and concluded, “Our long-term problem is not too many children, but too few children.”3 The legalization of abortion resulted in a drastic reduction of the number of children in this country. By 1980 there were 6.5 million fewer school-age children in America than just a decade earlier. This required the closing of nine-thousand elementary schools.4 Legalized abortion has resulted in over 46 million fewer taxpayers in America to support the elderly.
A change that has happened to childbearing since the 1970's is that over four in ten children are now born outside of marriage, which is five times more than it was in 1971. This means that more children are being born into lone-parent families or cohabilitating families. A reason for this is that there has been a huge decline in the stigma that used to be held over births outside marriage and also a increase in cohabiliatation. An example of this is that only one third of 18-24 year olds think marriage should come before parenthood, meaning that the rise in births outside of marriage is more to do with the increase in cohabilitating couples than it is to do with single parents. Another change that has happened in childbearing since the 1970's is that women are having fewer children and children later in life.
Most recent research conducted shows that attendance is projected to drop from 6.3% to 4.7% by 2015. This feature has also been reflected in the English Church Census that attendance in the Church of England and Catholic Church has declined. Secularisation is now not only just a feature in Europe as it has now featured in the USA, public polls have suggested that 40% of Americans attend church however research carried out by the church did not match the figure in the polls. If 40% of Americans were going to church, the churches would be full – but they were not. Therefore this tells us that secularisation has developed in other societies across the world not just in Europe.
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.
Overall women are having less babies than they used to this is causing the birth rate in the UK to drop. In the 1960’s the average number of children being born went from 6 to 2.7. Women are also delaying having children in the 1970’s the average age for a women to have a child was 24 it is now 30. Some women are even choosing not to have children at
Religions such as Islam are on the increase unlike Christianity which is declining at a rapid rate. However other factors such as in new religious movements and New-Age spirituality as evidence of a resacrilisation of society. Although opponents such as Bruce, argue that the actual numbers engaging with new religious movements and New-Age spirituality is relatively small and marginal to society. There is evidence that can prove the theory of secularisation, such as statistics show that only 6.3% of adults attended church on a Sunday in 2005, therefore churchgoing has halved since Wilsons research in the 1960’s and it is predicted to fall again to 4.7% by 2015, Sunday school attendance had declined as well and now only a small amount of children attend. However others may disagree with the view of Secularisation such as Martin who denies the view that there was ever a ‘golden age’ of religion and he argues that the reason for higher attendance of church in the past is due to the view that it was seen as respectable to attend church.
Discuss the idea that religion is on the decline in society (40 marks) It has been proven throughout the 20th century that religion is on the decline in society this is because less people are able to attend, possibly due to work and/or family commitments, although the decline rate seems to be slowing. According to the 2005 church census there are two major reasons as to why there is a slowing decline, which are the growing number of churches and the fact that there is a considerable increase in ethnic minority church goers. In 1851, fewer than 40% of the population attended church, whereas in 2005, an average of 6.6% of the adult population would attend church. This dramatic decline could be because in 1851, Sunday was known as the day of rest, where everyone would go to church as a family and there would be no shops open whereas today, businesses are open as usual and so more people are going to work or spending time with their families after having had a hard week at work instead of going to church. The decline in church attendance in Britain can be interpreted in a number of different ways.