Conveying Concerns: Women Report on Families in Transition
Contents
Global Overview: Families in Transition
Acknowledgments, About Women's Edition
Preface
Many features of modern life are changing the structure of households and the nature of family life. More women are seeking paid employment, and the number of single-parent and two-earner families is growing. At the same time, family members are more dispersed as those who might normally share a home leave their villages, towns, and even their countries to find work. In many parts of the world, people are living longer, and increasing numbers of older people are facing questions of where to live and how to support themselves. In some African countries, where AIDS is claiming the lives of millions of parents, older people are raising their orphaned grandchildren. While families have always adapted to new trends, the current changes appear to be coming faster than ever.
This Conveying Concerns, the fourth in a series compiled through the Women's Edition project of the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), highlights these changes in family life from the perspective of women journalists. In 1999, PRB assembled senior journalists from 11 countries to discuss families in transition. The journalists subsequently produced special supplements in their newspapers and magazines as well as radio programs that highlighted local and international aspects of the issue. Excerpts from these supplements and programs are printed here.
The articles and scripts are abridged and appear in five sections, each with a brief introduction. These sections represent the specific topics addressed by the journalists. The first section looks at ways of defining the family and is followed by sections on families on the move, single-parent families, older relatives, and AIDS orphans. This booklet is by no means a comprehensive analysis of changes in the family. It is meant instead to highlight the ways people of varying cultural and economic situations are experiencing these changes.