Families in the Global Technoculture [2004]
In developed countries, birth rates are falling and the age at which women have their first children is rising. At the extreme edge, the average age of the birth of a first child is around 30.
That's where it is in New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany and a host of other similar countries.
People still want kids but they can't fit too many into their busy lives. With greater affluence and social sophistication, there's not the same need for a large productive family.
Young people don't want to feel as if they've missed out on anything. And children and careers definitely clash.
There's still a point to partnership - and for sound economic reasons as much as anything else. Women may not need a man for their economic survival but couples have far more assets than single people.
That doesn't mean marriage though. In the UK 39% of children are born to unmarried parents - up from 12% in 1981. There's quite a strong belief among the young that you don't need marriage just because you want to have children.
This is a signal of a true revolution in personal relationships. What was once destiny is now a choice. And if only human children emerged from the womb ready to get their own apartment everything would be perfect again.
The new family has to respond to a social environment that is not entirely supportive, but is nevertheless edging them in a particular direction - towards more reliance on external forms of child care - and on the resources of the child itself and to greater complexity in child care arrangements.
.With greater affluence and social sophistication, there's not the same need for a large productive family.
"People still want kids but they can't fit too many into their busy lives. "
