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Upholding the Nuclear Family: A Study of Unmarried Parents and Domestic Courts

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Abstract

The conventional nuclear family, consisting of a co-residing husband, wife and children, has been on the decline since the 1960s, as other chapters in this book have ably documented. Change in the 1980s has been particularly rapid. At the beginning of the decade, 12 per cent of births were outside marriage (OPCS 1986). By the end of the decade, the figure had risen to 27 per cent (OPCS 1990a). During the same period, families headed by a single person rose by about 20 per cent from 840,000 to well over a million (OPCS 1989c).

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© 1992 British Sociological Association

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Collins, R. (1992). Upholding the Nuclear Family: A Study of Unmarried Parents and Domestic Courts. In: Marsh, C., Arber, S. (eds) Families and Households. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-21894-3_10

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