Is the 'family' in decline?

First of all, the debate we read for this class which is part of what has been called ‘the family wars’ reflect contested issues in the social sciences (modern versus postmodern theories, small versus large n studies) and bad practices (rhetoric and ideology versus empirical testing, personal opinions versus evidence). The debate is already thirty years old and I wonder how this discussion has changed to date in academic research.

Second, the readings reflect also a major problem in bad research: concluding causality. Popenoe’s arguments are full of causal links that have not been tested. For Popenoe, each of the five dimensions of the family decline is cumulative and causes each other but he does not provide a sound study of the mechanisms that may produce this and that would link family risk factors with the outcomes. In this sense, I agree with Cowan when he reminds the readers that correlation does not prove causation and that Popenoe fails to “consider alternative causal hypotheses, especially those at levels of analysis other than antichild and antifamily values” (1993, p. 549). If Popenoe would have provided a serious research account, he would have had to consider in his analysis important historical, economic, political, technological, social and cultural transformations that may shape family and fertility patterns.

Third, when Arlie Hochschild (1991) writes “Wallerstein does not compare children of divorce with a matched sample of children from intact marriages” (p. 3) she points out a major flaw in the family wars: what is the counterfactual? What are the appropriate comparison groups? I would say this needs a further thought.

Finally, the set of readings remind me a problematic in social policy: the unclear division of the private and public spheres. Can we enforce people to have a certain number of children? Should we even think of enforcing people to live with someone? What are the implications of designing family and fertility policy? Is the purpose to reduce risk factors or to impose values?

Questions.

1. What is the impact that policy has on family and fertility outcomes? How can we better design policy that respects the private decisions of individuals but offers means to reduce risks? For example, is legalizing abortion a way of reducing family, health and psychological risks?
2. What are the legal, social, cultural, economic, political differences that have made Canada and the US similar or different in terms of family outcomes?
3. What has more recent empirical research found on the changes in the five dimensions that alarmed Popenoe and that fueled the ‘family wars’?