eamily types is a te

of the family. The traditional family type in most cultures has been based on the

extended family, where members of several generations of the same biological family

live together, In a society based on agriculture, there was a need to have children who

sin farm the land and provide for the whole family young

wou

But the Industrial Revolution made manpower less valuable within the family, which

see

meant that children then had to find work elsewhere, for which they needed education

In advanced industrial societies this led to the nuclear family, where only the father,

mother and their immediate children live together and see other members of their

extended family with varying degrees of frequency. The nuclear family is the traditional

be

pattern of many Western families, although there is of course much variation in

individual circumstances. One important feature of the nuclear family, especially in

English-speaking countries, is that even when grandparents grow older, there is a

tendency for them to want to stay in their own home and to keep their independence

for as long as their health allows

Today there are many other family types, which are described as non-traditional, More

and more common is the blended family or stepfamily with parents and their children

from different partnerships living together. Furthermore, marriage is no longer

considered an essential feature for creating a family. Rising divorce rates have led to

the one-parent family, in which the mother or, less common, the father brings up their +S

ildren on their own. It has been estimated that in the US, more than 80 per cent of

families can be described as non-traditiona/

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