A New Study Suggests That Family Sizes Are Getting Smaller, With Researchers Expecting The Overall Size Of Families To “Decline Permanently” Throughout The World
Family sizes are currently on the decline, and this trend is expected to last for the foreseeable future.
Recent research has highlighted a major shift in family structures, with forecasts showing a notable reduction in the number of relatives an individual will have in the coming years.
Researchers in Germany suggest this change will particularly impact the makeup of younger family members, such as cousins and grandchildren, which are anticipated to decrease. In contrast, there will likely be a notable increase in older family members, including grandparents and great-grandparents.
The study, conducted by an international group of researchers, forecasts the development of human kin relationships across the world. The team’s main objective was to explore how shifts in demographics might influence the composition and size of families.
“We asked ourselves how demographic change will affect the ‘endowment’ of kinship in the future. What was the size, structure, and age distribution of families in the past, and how will they evolve in the future?” explained Diego Alburez-Gutierrez, one of the study’s authors.
So, the team examined historical and future data from the 2022 revision of the United Nations’ World Population Prospects.
According to Alburez-Gutierrez, their approach involved using mathematical models to represent the connections between an individual, their ancestors, and their offspring during a specific time frame. This yielded average age and gender distributions for various kinds of familial relationships for each year.
This revealed a worldwide pattern of family sizes on the decline. In 1950, for instance, a typical 65-year-old woman had around 41 living relatives. Yet, in 2095, this figure is anticipated to fall to only 25.
The reduction is also more significant in certain geographic areas. In South America and the Caribbean, a woman aged 65 is forecasted to have just 18.3 living relatives in 2095 compared to 56 living relatives in 1950– marking a 67% decline.
Konstantin Yuganov – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual people
“We expect the overall size of families to decline permanently in all regions of the world,” Alburez-Gutierrez revealed.
This reduction is also particularly significant, given the aging population. With fewer younger family members, there will be fewer potential caregivers available for the elderly generation.
“As the age gap between individuals and their relatives widens, people will have family networks that are not just smaller, but also older. Consider the case of grandparents and great-grandparents, who are expected to be in greater supply in the future. While this could theoretically help ease the burden of childcare for parents, these grandparents may actually need care themselves,” Alburez-Gutierrez concluded.
“These seismic shifts in family structure will bring about important societal challenges that policymakers in the global North and South should consider.”
To read the study’s complete findings, which have since been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, visit the link here.
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