Introduction
The different experiences and aspects that we have of our culture often have influenced our ideas about family and marriage. We live in such a diverse culture where there exist every type of family and marriage.
The typical American family has been depicted as a nuclear family. This type of family consists of a husband, wife and children all of them living together in a household. Much as this type of family format still exists today, it does not pose the same expectations as it had a few decades back.
This is because of the change that has occurred over time in the different aspects of families in the United States. For instance, remarriage, cohabiting, divorce among other social aspects have been more common in these families.
It is common knowledge that the United States have different ethnicities and races. That said, those aspects have had a huge influence on the family structure and formations in the United States.
For instance, as per the statistics, black children have a high likelihood of being raised in a household of a single parent. That is not likely to happen with Hispanic, Asian and white children (Tsukanova, T. (2016).
Another aspect that has been noticed over time is the decline in the number of children. The size of families has significantly reduced over time. This is mainly because women in the United States over the last few decades have joined the working-class population.
Normally, in a typical nuclear family everywhere in the world, men have been the breadwinners and women house help at home or what is often referred to as housewives. That has significantly changed over time as more women not only in the United States but all women across the world have joined the working-class population.
This report will discuss the set-up of the contemporary dual worker family. This dual worker family consists of both working husband and wife and their children. It should be noted that the number of children has significantly reduced in this type of family.
In essence, this report will also discuss the many challenges posed by this family setup. it can be challenging for men in a nuclear family to have all the financial responsibilities of the family.
Nonetheless, it can be even more challenging for both husband and wife and especially the wife in this case to perform all the duties at home and still report to work. Women and in this case, mothers and wives face a lot of challenges when it comes to care and love for their children versus their performance at work (Blossfeld, H. P.,2019).
Those challenges like waking up very early in the morning to prepare their kids for school and sleeping late at night while going through their home works and such issues will still be discussed here.
Body
Sociological factors that influenced the formation of dual working families
Employment conditions and the economic climate
Various sociological factors have influenced the formation of dual working families in the United States and across the world. Such sociological factors include employment conditions and the economic climate.
People, especially in the United States, marry at a pretty young age and it is important for every young person whether married or not to work towards their dreams and achieve them. For that reason, work is a very crucial way for young couples to achieve several inevitable developmental tasks including and not limited to emotional independence and stability and financial independence.
However, changes in the structure of the workplace and the economic climate have in a significant way impacted this field of opportunity for young couples. Much as youth unemployment is a serious issue of concern, a lot of young couples are fighting day and night to make sure that they achieve financial independence. They seem to be hungry for positive changes in their lives.
The United States have a significant number of young couples who are classified as youth. For that reason, the government through various policies have seen it necessary and more important now than ever before to push for the agenda of the young people.
Contemporary young couples and youth generally understand and have greater care about development than ever before. This change in the young couples has been brought about by their will and desire to bring a meaningful change in society.
These young couples have taken advantage of such great government initiatives. Such initiatives have provided a meaningful platform for them to build their lives and bring about meaningful both to them, to their children and at large to society.
Some of these couples come together at a pretty young age. For that reason, they will live the rest of their lives in their marriage, as it is traditionally supposed to be like that and even more importantly have a huge drive to make a meaningful impact in their lives.
The better economic climate created by the government has in an enormous way influenced the change that these young couples are making in society. In addition, the government has been able to come up with initiatives that have promoted the employment of young people across all the states of the country.
Of particular importance is the need to achieve their dreams much faster. In a typical nuclear family where the father or the husband is the breadwinner and the wife a homemaker, it is fairly difficult for that family to achieve their financial independence and dreams since there is only a single source of income (Shirokova, G.,2016).
But for the dual working families, both the father and mother are working making it much easier for that family set up to go ahead and achieve their dreams with even much lesser time compared to other setups.
Discrimination and prejudice
Prejudice and discrimination especially based on gender, race, ethnicity and social class have a huge impact on the growth and development of young people, in this case, young couples and their respective families.
Discrimination and prejudice in society and in particular in the United States have had a huge impact on the formation and structure of dual families. Some young couples for that matter feel like they are discriminated against as a result of their social class.
For instance, as indicated earlier, the United States of America enjoy a broad range of races. Black people more than any other ethnicity in America experiences a high level of discrimination.
These people face a lot of challenges. First and foremost, these ethnicity faces a lot of challenges especially while seeking jobs in corporate America. One of the case studies conducted in one of the corporate meetings in major organizations including banks indicated that there was minimal or no chance of a black person being the next Chief Executive Officer of such organizations.
In response to that and many other reasons, couples that belong to this ethnicity have more than enough reasons to work to enhance their sources of income for a better life not only for themselves but also for their children.
Consequently, there is discrimination that arises as a result of social class. A person is not treated equally with other people in society just because of their low level of wealth. This is one of the major reasons that has led to the formation of dual working families in the United States.
Such kind of discrimination prevents or in other words hinder people from achieving their full potential. Social discrimination also plays a huge role in hindering the community from achieving its full potential. The impacts that social discrimination has on individuals directly translates to the community.
Features such as education, power, status, income and occupation are among the aspects that influence and inform social discrimination. Normally, the conflict revolves around two significant players.
In this scenario, take an example of wealth. There are two significant classes normally the upper class and the lower class. In a typical society, the upper class consists of wealthy people and the lower class consists of the poor in the society.
This upper class are considered the higher class in status and wealth while on the other hand, the lower class are considered low in terms of status and wealth. Due to such significant differences in status and wealth, then the two groups of people end up being offered unequal services.
There is a general feeling that upper-class people are more important and more impactful to society compared to lower-class people. Some service providers feel that the lower-class people can wait while the upper-class people are prioritized in services.
When young couples experience such kind of discrimination, then there emerges a higher need for them to work tirelessly to experience better services in the future. Social discrimination has led to such kinds of initiatives from younger couples (Edelman, L. F.,2016).
Community Resources
Easily accessible and high-quality services that provide support to young people and their families are inevitable in reducing the impact of cultural and social risk factors such as single parents and families and unemployment.
Intangible support from the community is important just as structured community resources. This kind of support allows children and their families to feel a sense of belonging and connection to the community.
When a community provides such kind of support both from the physical resources and from the moral aspect then the young people feel and witness such kind of support from their communities then they are more likely to even work harder in the pursuit of the realization of their dreams (Shirokova, G.,2016).
Such kind of support enhances their morale and they can even work more to achieve their dreams. The same community offer moral support for women and young ladies to get into the corporate world and have a huge influence on the world.
The community through its support morally and through its resources have offered more support to women in the United States to even vie for public offices. Through such initiatives, there has been a significant increase in women and young ladies in major organizations working.
And hence the support from the community has had a huge influence on young ladies and women in general working. Consequently, there has been an increase in the number of dual working couples in the United States (Tsukanova, T. (2016).
Much as there are a lot of significant achievements that have been registered through the formation of dual working families, there are still some hardships that these families have had to go through in this endeavour.
Challenges faced by dual working families
When dual working couples have a child, then it is true that both of the parents will not spend enough time with their children as they should due to the demands at work. For that reason, then both the parents will have to look for house help to help them with their kids.
For that reason, then those parents will significantly be absent in the lives of their children. Research conducted in Thailand on the absence of parents in the development of their children suggests that mothers play a significant role in the life of their children.
In addition, and consistent with the above information, the same research indicates that children who are not given the first care by their mothers face a high risk of delayed development.
Moreover, the same report suggests that the absence of a father in the early days of development does not have any significant differences in the life of those children. Furthermore, another research conducted in China in 2020 in the same pursuit suggests that children who are normally left during a young age by their parents in search of job opportunities have lower cognitive and academic test scores.
The same children are less likely to attend college. In summary, this report suggests that the absence of mothers in the development of their children have a negative general impact on development.
No parent is ever willing to be absent in the lives of their children. But due to the search for job opportunities and greener pastures in life, such experiences may occur. Due to that absence especially for mothers, their children may have slowed growth and development.
As indicated by scientists, the experiences that children have in their early childhood greatly impact their later life developments and perspectives. For instance, if a child missed certain aspects of the discipline, then that is going to portray some years later in their development (Shirokova, G.,2016).
The management of a career-family affair is not easy. One has to find his or her ways of attaining career satisfaction versus having quality time with family members and being present in the life and the issues of family. The latter leads to a lively and happy family. There are always challenges in any endeavour and in this time, challenges are better solved since the members of the family are there to solve them.
This report will focus on the Social Learning Theory and its influence on family formation. This theory leans to the social aspect of life. It has various characteristics. They include: the Social Learning Theory recognizes that the behaviour of human beings is influenced by observation.
Secondly, as part of the aspects of this theory is the emphasis which is renewed on symbolic functions as a way of thought analysis. And thirdly, this theory allocates the core role to the self-regulatory processes.
In this and other ways, the Social Learning Theory depicts the behaviour of human beings as a never-ending reciprocal behaviour between behavioural, environmental and cognitive determinants.
This theory indicates that social behaviour is learned by imitating and observing the behaviour of others. On the other hand, behavioural psychological aims at how reinforcement and the environment affect behaviour. By extension, every person can learn behaviour through observation.
There are various processes of this theory. These processes indicate how individuals learn new behaviours. The first aspect is attention. Before one can imitate a behaviour then it must grab one’s attention. Attention is important in noticing whether a behaviour influences imitation since we observe a lot of behaviours daily (Manolova, T.,2016).
Attention forms one of the unique ways in which a child learns new things. It’s through observation that a child can notice a certain behaviour and after a while, they can imitate it (Edelman, L. F.,2016).
For that reason, it is more than necessary for a parent in this case the mother whether working or not to be present during the initial stages of development of a child. Mothers form the best teacher for their children.
The mother must be present in those initial stages of development to be able to influence the observation and imitation of behaviors of their young ones. When children learn such skills at such an early age, then there are more than able to take this with them in their later development (Edelman, L. F.,2016)
Another principle of this theory is retention. Performing the observed behavior forms part of the remembrance of the behavior. Children can retain the observed behavior through repetition until memory is formed.
This theory indicates the importance of mothers in the lives of children. It suggests that mothers build a strong connection with their young ones and hence they are v=bale to learn more from their mothers (Sampson, R. J. (2017).
Children learn every bit of their lives from their mothers. So, one can imagine the life those children would have if their mother would be absent. Mothers are very instrumental information and development of the memory of their children.
According to this theory, fathers have a minimal role to play in the development of their children during their young age. It is solely the responsibility of mothers to make sure that their children grow and develop in better ways.
The most outstanding thing and perspective that have been suggested by this theory are that children learn through observation and imitation of the observed behavior. This theory continues and suggests that mothers are solely assigned the responsibility of making sure that their children learn.
Mothers from the best teachers that children learn from. Through their talking and sound of issues, children learn. Besides the role played by others in the early development of their children, this theory puts more emphasis on the availability of both parents in the lives of their children.
Being present in the lives of their children enhances their development. Fathers and mothers should try to find a balance between their careers and the time for family. Family should be valued more than work.
This is solely for the reason that everything boils down to family at the end of it all. After retirement, both the father and mother go back to their families and spent the rest of their lives there.
Conclusion
In conclusion, various aspects of our society affect the formation of different families. This report has focused on dual working families. There are various reasons which have led to the formation of such kind of a family as stated and discussed above.
One such reason is social discrimination. Consistent with the above-detailed information, the Social Learning Theory gives emphasizes the importance of mothers being present in the lives of their children. Their importance plays a significant role in the development of their children. Dual working parents should always strive to strike a balance between attaining a successful career and a happy family.
References
Sampson, R. J. (2017). Family management and child development: Insights from social disorganization theory. In Facts, frameworks, and forecasts (pp. 63-94). Routledge.
Edelman, L. F., Manolova, T., Shirokova, G., & Tsukanova, T. (2016). The impact of family support on young entrepreneurs’ start-up activities. Journal of business venturing, 31(4), 428-448.
Garbarino, J. (2017). Children and families in the social environment. Transaction Publishers.
Cascio, C. J., Moore, D., & McGlone, F. (2019). Social touch and human development. Developmental cognitive neuroscience, 35, 5-11.
Lamb, M. E., Pleck, J. H., Charnov, E. L., & Levine, J. A. (2017). A biosocial perspective on paternal behaviour and involvement. In Parenting across the life span (pp. 111-142). Routledge.
Blossfeld, H. P., & Kiernan, K. (2019). The new role of women: Family formation in modern societies. Routledge.
Al-Haj, M. (2019). Social change and family processes: Arab communities in Shefar-I’m. Routledge.
Garbarino, J. (2017). Children and families in the social environment. Transaction Publishers
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