Questions:Explain the debate surrounding the contemporary changes in American families (밃merican Family Decline?debate). According to Popenoe, what indicates that American family is in decline? What are the Stacey뭩 and Cowan뭩 critiques of his argument? What position would you take in this debate and why?

The three articles by Popenoe, Stacey, and Cowan theorize on the changing dynamics of the institution of the contemporary American family and whether or not it is failing to meet its expectations. Popenoe by analyzing the changes of the modern family such as the rising rates of divorce, decreasing number of children, increasing average age of marriage, more working mothers, etc is arguing that the contemporary institution of the family is in decline. In order to analyze certain aspects of the family, Popenoe refers to the family as a domestic group of kin consisting of at least one adult and one dependent. Popenoe argues that there is evidence for family decline demographically, institutionally, and culturally and that the two functions of the family- childbearing and provision of affection and companionship to its members- are not being fulfilled. Further, because more individuals are focused upon bettering themselves, the institution of family has lost power and authority.

Stacey, with a broader notion and definition of the family, argues that the changing dynamics of family and the rising rates of divorce (a.k.a single parenting) is not detrimental to the raising of children. Instead of blaming the family changes as the problem, Stacey states that Popenoe errors in regards to three points; firstly, the family is not the only social institution in society, that his historical framework in which he provides his argument is flawed, and finally, his assessment of the decline of the family. Stacey contends that Popenoe's definition of the family is too narrow. However, Stacey agrees with Popenoe that the growing independence of women has been a major factor of rising rates of divorce and single parenting, marriage has become less obligatory, and there are grim prospects for the children. Stacey suggests there should be "legal, economic, and social policy reforms" to aid familial responsibilities.

Cowan critiques Popenoe that he does not take into further consideration other social and psychological factors that go beyond the immediate focus on the family such as violence, mental illness, etc. Cowan states that there are more important questions than whether or not the family is declining like what are the causes of the problems Popenoe addresses, are the changes harmful to family members, and what can be done to reduce the distress within the family and help aid in the adaptation of modern families. Cowan argues that there are more complex factors that need to be considered about the consequences of the changes within the family. He states that various factors should be kept in mind when studying research about the institution of family: within the accounts of families there are implied values of the researcher's preconceived notion of family, our definitions of the family should be considered, more sophisticated models of the family should be developed, newer differentiated family models should be researched, and that the role of the genders are changing and are affecting the inside and outside the family.

In this debate on the declining of the institution of family I agree with Cowan in that researchers should consider various contingent factors in deciding the consequences of the changes within the modern family.