The Effects of Economics and Education on Family Size

Have you noticed that in our era, most people have fewer siblings than ever before? According to David Popenoe, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University, American families have experienced a decline that can best be described as steep and serious, and defends his views with over three decades of information collected by the U.S. Census Bureau (Pyle, pars.3-6). Within the United States three new marital and family lifestyles seem to be emerging in the second half of the 20th century: unmarried partners living together, childless marriages, and dual-career marriages (Eshleman, pars.6-7). It is becoming increasingly rare to find people that come from families of five or more. Family sizes have generally become smaller in the past century and there are many theories as to why people are choosing to have fewer children.
People today have grown up with the expectation of “having it all”: material wealth, career success, marriage and children. But many find the pa...