Abstract
In this chapter, we examine the multiple and different trajectories that the baby boomers’ adult lives have taken and how these trajectories have impacted on their family lives. Different types of living arrangements, including leaving the parental home to live alone, living together before marrying, staying married and separating are examined through the narratives of the baby boomer informants. The chapter shows how new family configurations such as solo parenting, and recomposed families have been adopted by the baby boomers. The chapter shows how the ‘we’ of the family has gradually been replaced by a ‘me’, and although the family group still matters, its role has developed so as to allow each of its members to achieve self-fulfilment. The baby boomers have contributed to this revolution by introducing a different conception of the family from that of their parents, and the large and stable family has been replaced by a less stable, two-child family. This trend towards families with just two children and the sharp decline in large families above all reflects how the child’s place has changed. Henceforth desired and planned, it is the child that makes the family, for as more and more births occur out of wedlock, they embody the partners’ long-term commitment to each other. Since the 1970s, children’s status has therefore changed considerably as a result of growing individualism. Parents, whether they are married, in recomposed relationships or going solo, have had to invent new ways of interacting with their offspring.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
One of the pioneers of the family lifecycle concept was B. Seebohm Rowntree, who described the various stages in the lifecycle in his Poverty: A Study of Town Life, published in 1901.
- 2.
INED’s 1985–1986 Family situations survey. In his article, Laurent Toulemon (1996) uses the term living alone to refer to every situation that does not involve living with one’s parents or in a couple. It therefore covers not only people occupying accommodation on their own, but also those sharing a flat, or living in a hostel or with a family member.
- 3.
According to François Bédarida (1990), “an extremely deep rift opened up between the generations in the 1950s”.
- 4.
The modern family is based on fusion but with respect for institutions, the fusional family relies on the continuing bond of love, and the club family depends on the autonomy of each member of the couple. As for the history couple, it sees its solidarity develop over time, as the imagined partner turns into the tried and tested spouse.
- 5.
The patrimonial type is associated with the need to safeguard the family wealth, the conjugal with the reconstruction of the family workforce, and the associative with the ability of each spouse to pursue an autonomous strategy of social insertion.
- 6.
The bastion style is a combination of highly fusional cohesion, a traditional, gendered division of tasks, and retreat from the world. The cocoon style also relies on fusion and retreat, but the gender roles are more egalitarian. The companionship style combines fusion with an egalitarian division of tasks, plus an openness to the outside world through shared activities. The association and parallel styles both place little emphasis on fusion, preferring spousal autonomy, but the former is open to the outside world, unlike the latter.
- 7.
This model was left out of a subsequent typology (Roussel 1989).
- 8.
It is worth remembering that in 1970, one in four brides was pregnant (Daguet 1996).
- 9.
Several researchers, with a number of fathers’ groups following suit, criticized the term one-parent family, arguing that only a residence can be described as one-parent in the event of divorce or separation.
- 10.
This discourse is generally directed at women, as they are supposed to be responsible for family life and are therefore held guilty for any failings. In the past, they were made to feel guilty about going out to work, with people not just suggesting but actually asserting that this was bad for young children, but now they are blamed for their lone parenthood, an essentially female status.
- 11.
“That’s why, if I were a man divorcing his wife, my greatest concern would be for her to find another man who satisfied her as soon as possible, for the happiness of my children” (Naouri 1995).
- 12.
When men are asked to fill out questionnaires, they tend to skate over the section about their offspring, especially when it comes to births outside marriage and children from marriages that have been dissolved. These omissions primarily concern children with whom they have very few contacts. This has been observed in Canada, the United States, Britain (Festy 2002) and, to a lesser extent, France (Mazuy 2008).
- 13.
The lower lifetime fertility observed among our French respondents, compared with the 1945–1954 generations, can be explained by the fact that we conducted our survey in Paris, where the figures are always lower than they are for France as a whole.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Bonvalet, C., Clément, C., Ogg, J. (2015). The Family Wins Through. In: Renewing the Family: A History of the Baby Boomers. INED Population Studies, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08545-6_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08545-6_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-08544-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-08545-6
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and LawSocial Sciences (R0)