Extended vs Nuclear Families

Prior to World War I, practically everybody in the United States lived in an extended family.  After World War II, almost everybody lived in a nuclear family.   This change has had an enormous effect on social structures.

In an extended family, there are several families living together, or at least close by, fathers, mothers, unmarried adults, children, grandparents.  This is a very powerful thing: For example, if someone needs a babysitter, or a permanent substitute parent for some reason, there's probably another family living in the same house or at least within a few blocks.  If someone can't get a job, gets sick, becomes too old to be productive, or feels compelled to do something non-remunerative, there are other family members to take up the slack.  If someone is inclined to act in self destructive way--spend way more than their means for example--there is probably a wise and respected family member there to talk them down  (I believe that fewer than 10% of people are competent to run family finances--for evidence, the average credit card debt is over $14,000).  This comes with a lot of baggage though: family members don't always get along, and often unwanted pressures are exerted.  Still, the system worked, from the dawn of humanity (or before it--the apes have extended families too), until the 20th century.

The nuclear family is the smallest family unit that can work.  Mom, dad, and a few kids, strike out on their own.  They have no support system outside of the immediate family, and as long as everybody is healthy and fulfills their assigned roles, it can work.  It's a central theme of the westward movement that started with the homestead act and reached its peak with the GI bill--and millions of people have benefited.  But it doesn't always work, and because the support of the extended family is missing, when it doesn't it can have very serious consequences.  Lots of things can cause failures: illness or injury, money problems, divorce or abandonment.  They're often related--money is a large factor in a great many divorces, and illness is a big cause of money problems.  When the family breaks down, the ones that are hurt the most are the helpless: children, the elderly or the incapacitated.  The adults are often hurt plenty too.

Supporting this trend is the  "social safety net"--unemployment insurance, social security and company pensions, employer health care and medicare, and more.  Without all of the safety net, 95% of families are just a few months from destitution.  Losing a job, someone getting sick, an investment mistake, and many other things, can destroy lives.   With them, many families end badly anyway, but a lot more can survive the loss of a job, illness, accident, divorce, or any of the other pitfalls that are part of life.   Most families have one or more these problems at some point in their lives.  When the economy is troubled, more people have problems.

The bottom line is this:  if you're in favor of anything less than a full, taxpayer funded social safety net, you're implicitly in favor of forcing everybody back into an extended family.  This doesn't have to mean a biological family--a group of employees or a "commune" may serve the same purpose.   But without the safety net, nuclear families become very difficult for most people in the face of problems.