How the Immediate and the Extended Family Structure will be Influenced - Research Paper Example

 How the Immediate and the Extended Family Structure will be Influenced The proportion of aged individuals is constantly rising in the United States and other regions of the world, since fertility rate is decreasing and life expectancy is increasing (“Aging in Other Countries”, 2009). As people live longer, the world age structure, which is now pyramidal, will become cylindrical, thus influencing the family structures. This is because the number of the elderly in most families will be larger than that of the young individuals.

Additionally, the number of family members will decrease due to low birth rates. In the past, most families, especially the extended families, had three generations, and the middle-aged individuals were the second generation. As the populace lives longer, the families will have four or five generations. Therefore, the middle-aged generations in families will either be very young or very old individuals (“Aging in Other Countries”, 2009).How the change will affect the elderly care Family structural changes will affect the way people care for the old individuals.

In the past, the middle-aged people used to take care of both the elderly and the young in the families. However, due to the family structural changes resulting from that fact that people live longer, there will be more old members in families (Kornblum & Smith, 2012). Since the young ones will be few and most of them go to work or school, the old individuals will be left alone in the homes. This indicates that the past way of caring for the aged and the adult children will change. As the number of the elderly increases in families, their needs also increase, and they depend on the young.

Due to the increased proportion of educated and professional individuals, people do not want to leave schools or jobs to care for the elderly. This has resulted in the increase in the number of nursing homes, and many older adults in many families have to find institutional care (Kornblum & Smith, 2012).How the practice vary across cultures and social classes in the USA Individuals from different cultures like the Chinese and the Latinos have different ways of caring for the elderly. For instance, in their families, one of the women’s responsibilities is to care for the elderly.

However, due to western influence, women from these cultures are educated and professional, and they do not want to be caregivers anymore. The elderly from these cultures no longer depend on the family social and financial support, but they rely on employment to support themselves. In the Asian families, their household duties include the elderly care. However, in the US, many families take the elderly to the nursing homes (“East vs. West”, 2012). The elderly care also varies across socials classes in the United States.

In lower class families, most of the middle-aged individuals are not educated, and most of them are women, who are homemakers. These individuals do not have professional jobs, and they look after the young and old family members at home. On the contrary, in the high-class families, all individuals are educated and all of them go to work. Therefore, they do not have time to care for the old family members, and most of them send them to the institutions for elderly people (“East vs. West”, 2012).

ReferencesEast vs. West: How we treat our elderly (2012). Retrieved from http://advantahomecare.net/east-vs-west-how-we-treat-our-elderlyKornblum, W., & Smith, C. D. (2012). Sociology in a changing world. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Aging in other countries and across cultures in the United States (2009). http://www.pearsonhighered.com/assets/hip/us/hip_us_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/0 205763138.pdf