Lone Parenthood
Over the last 25 years, one of the biggest changes in the family has been the growth of the lone-parent family. Britain now has one of the highest proportions of lone-parent families in Europe, and the percentage of such families is still growing today. About 23% of all families with dependent children are lone-parent and women head 90% of those. Also more than 21% of all dependent children in Britain actually live in lone-parent families compared to 7% in the early seventies. There are a number of factors that explain the increase in lone-parent families in society today. The main causes of lone-parent families are through divorce, death, and separation and in some cases; people never get married at all.
Divorce is the legal termination of a marriage, but this is not the only way that marriages and homes can become ‘broken’. Homes and marriages may be broken in ‘empty shell’ marriages, where the martial relationship has broken down, but no divorce has taken place for the sake of the children because people thought it was better to stay together rather than separate. Separation happens either through choice or necessity may also be a cause for causing broken homes, as may death of a partner. However, divorce itself is often only the result of a marriage, which has broken down long before. Estimates have suggested than more than 50% of marriages today will end in divorce. To add to this point it is now easier and cheaper to divorce. There are two broad groups of reasons for the increase in divorce. Firstly, there have been changes in the law, which have gradually made divorce easier and cheaper to get. Secondly, changes in society that have made divorce a more practical and socially acceptable way of terminating a marriage.