n.
A family unit consisting of a mother and father and their children.
[From NUCLEAR, basic, cardinal, central.]
| Dictionary: nuclear family |
[From NUCLEAR, basic, cardinal, central.]
Dental Dictionary:
nuclear family |
A family unit consisting of the biologic parents and their offspring. The nuclear family is less inclusive than the extended family. Although the nuclear family is a relatively recent product of Western society, it is threatened by the increasing dissolution of marriage.
Geography Dictionary:
nuclear family |
The small family unit of parents and children. This is not the most frequently occurring household unit; in the UK, for example, more households contain one person than any other category, and there are increasing numbers of single-parent and step-parent families, while, in other parts of the world, the extended family is a common household unit.
Archaeology Dictionary:
nuclear family |
A family group consisting of wife, husband (or one of these) and dependent children.
Science Dictionary:
nuclear family |
A type of family made up only of parents and their children. (Compare extended family.)
Wikipedia:
Nuclear family |
A nuclear family is a family group consisting of only a father and mother and their children, who share living quarters. This can be contrasted with an extended family. Nuclear families can be of any size, as long as there are only children and two parents. Nuclear families meet their individual members’ basic needs because available resources are divided among only a few individuals or the family would be known as an extended family.
In China, the most populous nation in the world, the nuclear family has become the most common family arrangement.[1] In the more urban parts of India, the second most populous nation, the number of nuclear families is overtaking other forms of family arrangements, although unpopular among Hindu orthodoxy who advocate a form of extended family structure called the joint family.[2] In the United States, the third most populous nation, 70% of children live in traditional two-parent families.[3].
|
Contents
|
Historical records indicate that it was not until the 17th and 18th centuries that the nuclear family became prevalent in Western Europe. With the emergence of Proto-industrialisation and early capitalism, the nuclear family became a financially viable social unit.[4]
After the Second World War the United States experienced a renewed interest in 'the home' and building family units. The family unit became a symbol of security and a return to traditional gender roles. Distinct from the wartime period in which women held jobs conventional for men, the postwar era encouraged the notion that men should be the primary wage earners and women should spend their time cultivating the home and exerting their energy towards raising children.[5]
At least one study suggests that the nuclear family is natural to Homo sapiens. A 2005 archeological dig in Elau, Germany (analyzed by professor Wolfgang Haak of Adelaide University) revealed genetic evidence suggesting that the 13 individuals found in a grave were closely related. Said Haak, "By establishing the genetic links between the two adults and two children buried together in one grave, we have established the presence of the classic nuclear family in a prehistoric context in Central Europe."[6] However, even here the evidence suggests that the nuclear family was embedded with an extended family. The remains of three children (probably siblings based on DNA evidence) were found buried with a woman who was not their mother but may have been an "aunt or a step-mother."[7]
Merriam-Webster dates the term back to 1947, whilst the Oxford English Dictionary has a reference to the term from 1924, thus it is relatively new, although nuclear family structures themselves date back thousands of years.[8][9] The term "nuclear" is used in its general meaning referring to a central entity or "nucleus" around which others collect.
In its most common usage, the term "nuclear family" refers to a household consisting of a father, a mother and their children all in one household dwelling (siblings).[10] George Murdock also describes the term in this way:
Some also use the term to describe single-parent households and families in which the parents are a cohabiting, unmarried couple.
An extended family group is immediate family members living together with extra-nuclear family members such as grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and nieces and nephews.
The popularity of the nuclear family in the West, as opposed to extended family living together, came about in the early 20th century, prompted in part by business practices of Henry Ford, such as the "8 hour day, $5 week", and later the New Deal policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt. This enabled more and more families to be economically independent, and thus to own their own home.
Current information from United States Census Bureau shows that 70% of children in the US live in traditional two-parent families, with 60% living with their biological parents, and that "the figures suggest that the tumultuous shifts in family structure since the late 1960s have leveled off since 1990.".[12]
If considered separate from couples without children, single parent families, or unmarried couples with children, in the United States traditional nuclear families appear to constitute a minority of households with rising prevalence of other family arrangements.
Family arrangements such as blended families, binuclear families (separated spouses marrying new spouses with children), and single-parent families are typically referred to as postmodern families.
Today nuclear families with the original biological parents constitute roughly 24.1% of households, compared to 40.3% in 1970.[11] Roughly 75% (or percent) of all children in the United States will spend at least some time in a single-parent household.[citation needed]
According to some sociologists, "[The nuclear family] no longer seems adequate to cover the wide diversity of household arrangements we see today." (Edwards 1991; Stacey 1996). A new term has been introduced, postmodern family, which is meant to describe the great variablity in family forms, including single-parent families and child-free couples."[11]
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
| conjugal (Science) | |
| Sibling rivalry (in medicine) | |
| Bare Creek Phase (in archaeology) |
| What percentage is the nuclear family in the uk? Read answer... | |
| Are Mexican family's nuclear or extended? Read answer... | |
| What is the Disadvantages of a nuclear family? Read answer... |
| How are nuclear family modern family and post-moder family compare? | |
| What is the family is the nuclear family same as the family? | |
| Why is nuclear family a boon? |
Copyrights:
![]() | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Dental Dictionary. Mosby's Dental Dictionary. Copyright © 2004 by Elsevier, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Geography Dictionary. A Dictionary of Geography. Copyright © Susan Mayhew 1992, 1997, 2004. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Archaeology Dictionary. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Archaeology. Copyright © 2002, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Science Dictionary. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more | |
![]() | Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Nuclear family". Read more |
Mentioned in