Introduction

Generally, we think of a family as a domestic group of people, or a number of domestic groups linked through descent from of a common ancestor, marriage, or adoption. Families generally have some degree of kinship.Ideally, the family provides its members with protection, companionship,

security, and socialization. The structure of the family, and the needs that the family fulfills vary from society to society. The nuclear familytwo adults and their childrenis the main unit in some societies. In others, it is a subordinate part of an e tended family, which also consists of grandparents and other relatives. ! third family unit is the single"parent family, in which children live with an unmarried, divorced, or widowed mother or father.
Changes Over Time: In the past few years there has been a great revolution in the family structure that is followed from the begging of this world. Yet still , nuclear form of the family is the primary form of family structure in most Asian countries but trends are shifting now to more broadened view of family and the nuclear family is no longer the primary form of social life. So, what many people consider a family is not the only family form; families are diverse in both form and function. Traditional family consists of husband, wife & their children s. !ut now the marriages pattern has also changed & marriages are happening not only between the opposite se"es but also between the homose"ual people. #any countries have given them the right to marry and spend their life the way they want to. $hile travelling from %&'( s to today, we observe, there are still families with parents and children, but the definition of a family has broadened considerably. )hildren are raised by many varieties of caring adults* single parents, grandparents, +in,networ+s, homose"ual couples, and others. -ven traditional appearing families are often blended families of children from different biological parents. $ell, These modern era changes in family structure, have created many difficulties for the children s who are brought up in these families .If we +eep .a+istan in view then we can see many changes happened in past few years. !ecause of the fact that globali/ation is ta+ing place and the whole world is connected through many means and what is happening in west has started shedding its effects to this part of world and is now generally accepted by the people of this region.
Our report attempts to provide answers to some basic questions regarding the changes in family structure:- whether there are systematic global changes in the family, what might be some of the important determinants that characterize family and change in its structure, and how they function.

Family arrangements in the #nited $tates Background: The primary discrepancies of opinion that occur in theories involving the reconstruction of family composition in Europe during the early modern period of the !th and "th centuries are based upon issues of comple#ity and time. $omple#ity is a core issue of debate in that while a great number of historians have assumed that only one prominent and essentially linear pattern could e#plain the evolution of the family over the last three or four centuries, others view the issue as a multidimensional blueprint that delineates family structure on a variety of levels. This is an issue discussed in further detail below. %owever first & would li'e to address the issue of time. &n regards to time, there has historically been considerable debate regarding the emergence of the nuclear family. (or e#ample, one of the founders of modern sociology, )a# *eber + ",-- ./01, attributed all family structural changes to the social changes spawn by the industrial revolution. %e asserted that technology infiltrated society by replacing family loyalties with materialism and egocentricity, and that state bureaucracies began to ta'e over family functions and reduce them to dependent client populations. *eber believed that a society based on technology was a society that had lost its passion and commitment to the priorities of the morally righteous +such as family1 because the ethics of our charismatic leaders had been corrupted. %e believed that as a new type 2, new principles of social structure caused a shift to a predominance of nuclear family households as opposed to e#tended ones. 3et 4eter 5aslett6s careful reconstruction of past populations in England and other countries in western and northern Europe, which emerged long after *eber6s, revealed the predominance of the nuclear family household long before the commencement of the industrial revolution.

5aslett clearly shows that both before and after the industrial revolution, young couples in England were e#pected to set up their own separate households and, that the elderly were also e#pected to live in different households from their children. *eber on the other hand, asserted that prior to the eighteenth century, it was not common for members of the same family to live separately. &n his view however, it was unusual for a group of individuals to put wor' and material possessions before family, yet the impact of technological change and the increase of material wealth that occurred during the industrial revolution seriously affect family and social relationships and structures. 7ccording to *eber this occurred primarily because prior to the industrial revolution, the primary unit in traditional society was the group, not the individual. &ndividuals functioned as part of groups in such a manner that their lives were greatly influenced by the group even more so than by their own individual beliefs. 4eople spent more time together in groups in both a physical sense and a social one in that homes were smaller and communities were more tightly 'nit. Of course, the most important group had always been the family, which encompassed a broad sense of 'inship even among those family members living in separate residences. &n addition, social groups, guilds and associations were instrumental in providing a feeling of belonging. Determinants of family changes

Fertility Change The reduction in average annual rate of population growth, which is a global phenomenon, primarily occurred due to reductions in fertility levels. !n inevitable outcome of declining fertility rates and increasing age at first birth in most of the countries in the world is a reduction in family size. !lthough the fertility rates in the rest of the !sian countries have declined significantly, in $outh !sia, the decline has been much slower %Freedman, &''(). The Total Fertility *ate %TF*) of +hutan, ,aldives and -akistan was well over five live births per woman, even during the period of &''("./// %Table .). India still reports a TF* of over three children. $ri 0anka is the only country in $outh !sia to have reached the replacement level fertility with a TF* of ..&. It is especially noteworthy that ma1or fertility declines in !sia have occurred in populations that are poor, with large rural proportions %2aldwell, &''3).

Fertility decline is due to the combined effect of substantial socio"economic development achieved during in the last two decades and the effective implementation of family planning programmes. The contribution of socio"economic development to fertility decline was mainly by increasing the cost of children. It became irrational for many people to have large families. ! main, emerging feature in the modern family system is the changing attitude towards the value of children. In traditional societies, where human labour was a source of strength to the family, more children were preferred to fewer. +ut as the economic contribution from the children in a family decreased, because of a move away from agriculture, the need for large numbers of children

decreased. Improvements in health care and child survival also contributed. The emphasis was on the 4uality of life rather than the 4uantity of children, a new concept added to family values. 5 perience of some $outh and 2entral !sian countries indicates that achievement of low fertility levels does not re4uire a collapse of traditional familial values and behaviours. 6evertheless in most of these countries, the recent movement towards replacement level fertility or below has at first partly, and then wholly, been a result of delayed marriage and, to a lesser degree, increased single hood, both linked to the rising status of women. Change in Age at marriage and age at first birth In many countries in !sia where significant declines in fertility are being e perienced, reductions in the proportion of people married have often coincided with or preceded declines in marital fertility. ! substantial increase of the proportions never married, among both males and females, at young ages, has been noted in many countries. For instance, in +angladesh, the proportion of females never married in the age group ./".7 increased from 7.8 per cent to &9.( during the period of &':/ and ./// %Table 3). 2orresponding estimates for $ri 0anka do not show a marked increase in the proportions of never married, but they remain at a significantly high level of 8&"83 per cent. The same is noted in ;azakhstan where an increase from 3. per cent to 7/ per cent is shown. In the year ./// Turkmenistan reported a significantly higher proportion of never married females in the age group ./".7. gradual upward trend of the average age at marriage. In the &':/s the singulate mean age at marriage of females was lowest in +angladesh and highest in $ri 0anka %Table 7). The highest increase in average age at marriage of females during the period &':/ to&''/ was observed in India and the least in $ri 0anka. In the 2entral !sian countries, too, similar trends in females postponing their age at entry to marriage can be observed. .

Change in Mortality ,ortality declines, particularly infant mortality, everywhere preceded fertility declines. Improved survival rates of children mean that when women reached the age of 3/ they increasingly had achieved the completed family size they desired. 5arlier, much larger numbers of births were re4uired to achieve the desired completed family size. The countries in $outh and 2entral !sia that have achieved a low level of fertility also have a low level of infant mortality %Tables . < 8). =uring the period &':/"&':( in all the $outh !sian countries e cept $ri 0anka, the infant mortality rates e ceeded &// infant deaths per every &/// live births. In the last three decades infant mortality has declined significantly in every country and this trend undoubtedly influenced the fertility decline. $ri 0anka, which initiated its mortality transition much earlier than any other country in $outh !sia, reached an infant mortality rate of .3 by &''(".///. !fghanistan and -akistan, where the decline of infant mortality is significantly lower, over the last three decades have reported a relatively high fertility =iverse situations can be seen in infant mortality at present among the

$outh !sian countries, where $ri 0anka reported an I,* of only .3 compared to &8( in !fghanistan. ,ortality decline, followed by fertility decline, alters the age structure of the population and also the structure within individual families. Change in Size and Structure of the Households ! family may be defined as a group of persons related to a specific degree, through blood, adoption, or marriage. The difficulty is that comparative data on the family in the broad definition of the term is not available. The available statistics relate to households, defined by location, community or living arrangements. ! household is defined in many surveys as a person or a group of persons that usually live and eat together. It is important to distinguish between a family, where members are related either by blood or by marriage, and a household, which involves the sharing of a housing unit, facilities and food. $urveys and censuses usually cover all households, not merely family households. 6evertheless the latter type constitute a ma1or proportion enabling the characteristics of the totals to be identified as those of family households %#$ +ureau of the 2ensus, &'::). $ince average household size could be considered as pro y for the average family size, estimates obtained for the former is presented in Table :. ! comparison of average household size over the period of &':/s>&'9/s to &''/s for $outh !sian countries in general indicate a declining trend. The largest country in the region, India indicated a marginal decline in average household size from (.( to (.7 persons during the &'9/s and &''/s. ?ver the period of &':/s>&'9/s to &''/s an increase in average household size is noted for !fghanistan and -akistan where fertility had not declined significantly. In these countries, the nuclear family is not the norm. @igh fertility and social and cultural factors favour co"residence of the e tended family where non"relatives also may live. ?ver the past three decades $ri 0anka has demonstrated a clear decline in the average household size and reported the lowest figure for the region %Table :). The $ri 0ankan trend is believed to be strongly associated with the nucleation of the household unit along with a significant reduction in fertility. !verage household size of 2entral !sian countries, in general, is smaller than that of $outh !sian countries, as the fertility transition, which was initiated earlier in 2entral !sia. =ue to many demographic, socio"economic and political reasons family members may disperse. 2onse4uently, the size of the household could be reduced but not the size of the family.

Female Headed Households In many societies in !sia, the oldest male is designated as the head of household regardless of whether he is the primary source of economic support, the authority figure, or fulfills other tasks purportedly performed by household heads %!yad et al., &'':). In the mean time female headed households have become a steadily growing phenomenon. The increase in female headed households could be due to variety of reasons including widowhood, migration, non"marital fertility and marital instability %+ruce and 0loyd, &''.). In recent decades an increasing number of women, particularly rural

women, have become heads of households because men, the traditional heads of households, had left for work or other reasons. ,oreover due to civil unrest, and displacement, a refugee situation e ists in a number of countries in the region, often resulting in females taking over the task of running the household. Marriage Dissolution It is no longer the case that all marital unions, whether formal or informal reach the final dissolution through death. ! considerable proportion of unions are disrupted suddenly for reasons such as desertion, separation or divorce. !n obvious failure in family relationship is where husband and wife cease to live together. =ivorce is the final dissolution, leaving both spouses legally free to enter another marriage contract. ! variety of grounds for divorce is recognized across the countries in the !sian region, and of those the two broad categories are cruelty and desertion. The law has not only initiated legal changes to enhance the status of women and their children within the family, but also it contributes largely to dissolution of unsatisfactory marriages. $eparation or divorce may stigmatize a woman in !sian countries, reducing her social status and shrinking her support network, causing sometimes community members or her e "partnerAs kin to re1ect her %+ruce, &''(). In many countries, the incidence of divorce is increasing and this phenomenon is no e ception to the $outh and 2entral !sia. In the last decade, +angladesh, India and $ri 0anka reported an increase in the proportion of divorced women in the age group 7("7' %Table &&). Incidence of divorce is more prevalent and increasing among, women in 2entral !sia than in $outh !sia MIGRATION -opulation movements beyond country boundaries have increased, particularly during the last two to three decades. $ome of the ma1or causes of such migratory trends are increasing globalization, economic interdependence, rapid population growth, ecological deterioration, civil war, ethnic and religious conflicts and increased poverty. International Migration The out migration of professionally and technically 4ualified persons in search of employment overseas, particularly to the #nited ;ingdom, 6orth !merica and !ustralia, dates back to the late &'8/As. In recent decades labour migrants, refugees and asylum seekers have also migrated from this region. . Labour Migration 5conomic development in the ,iddle 5ast countries since the &':/As, which paved the way for a massive technological development and an e panded construction industry, opened up new employment opportunities in overseas employment for skilled, semiskilled and unskilled labour from $outh and 5astern !sia. This market e panded in the &'9/s and &''/s. 2ontract migration, where migration was defined to be for a short period only, mostly one to two years, with a facility for renewal was a popular form by which migration was organized. The impetus of contract migration for families in the region, was large and varied. !n economic impact was seen at the family, community and village level of the out"migrants and a socio"cultural impact was e perienced at the point of destination and also among return migrants at the point of origin.

Internally Displaced Persons and efugees 6early all the $outh !sian and 2entral !sian countries are afflicted by refugee -roblems. The refugee issues may affect more than the two directly involved countries. +hutanese refugees, for instance, are an issue both in India and 6epal %6aveen .//&). !fghanistan is the ma1or refugee producing country in the region. There is no scope for complacency as many areas are not free from regional and ethnic problems and sectarian activities which cut across national boundaries significance of these changes for society !lthough there are more divorces, the fre4uency of remarriage shows that people want to have a stable, fulfilling family lifestyle and are even willing to suffer through divorce in order to be in a better marriage. -roblems and pressures caused by rigid family e pectations in the &'(/s created changes with new problems and pressures in the years in between then and now. $ociety is changing rapidly now, much faster than in previous decades and centuries. Technological advances in communication increase awareness of other cultures and lifestyles, further eroding the idea of one ideal family type and increasing acceptance of a variety of definitions of a family. ?ne of the last variations on family life to be accepted is the gay family. Their family structure is far from the &'(/Bs normative family, but eventually their threat to society will appear as benign as the other previously unacceptable families that are now accepted into mainstream society. *efrences www.un.org>esa>socdev>family www.essortment.com
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