The Family in the UK today is in crisis - Essay Example

absence of fathers in the lives of their children.2 Aside from the after effect of the feminist movement on traditional family lifestyle, Burgess (1926) states that industrialization and modernization also creates a signifincant impact over the continuously changing functions on nuclear family in our society.3 With regards to the increasing rate of divorce in UK, the essence of a child personally knowing and growing up with his/ her biological parents is highly affected. As a result, a lot of social consequences are becoming significant in the lives of the local citizens.

In order to determine whether the family in UK today is in crisis, the researcher will examine the trend related to divorce rate, crime rate, employment rate, early abortion rate and the decline in the UK population as well as its corresponding consequences in our society. One of the main causes of crime is due to poor parenting which is often associated with broken family.4 Many times, children who grew up with a broken family either causes an aggressive behavior or inferiority complex among the children.

5 Eventually, these young individuals may end up searching for other alternative ways such as joining a gangster or end up using drugs and alcohol in order to divert their attention from their family issues.6 In line with this matter, Slapper (1997a, 1997b) suggest that parents who practice poor parenting should be controlled by imposing them a penalty.7 Social and economic resources of each family could affect the parents’ capacity to regulate their children’s behaviour.8 In a traditional nuclear family structure, in case the father could not provide sufficient monetary income for the needs of the family, the wife has no choice but to go out of the house to work.

Based on the report that was released by the Office for National Statistics in 2006, divorce rate in England and Wales fell by 7% as compared to 2005.9 Eventhough divorce rate in UK dropped from 13.1 to 12.2 persons