Examine Patterns of Childbearing

Examine the patterns of childbearing and childrearing in the UK in the last 40 years
Over the last 40 years, there has been less of a need to have childeren because many things have changed since the war. The rise of lone mothers in the 1970's resulted in a increased rate of divorces.The growth of cohabitation also contributed to the rise of childeren. After the war for many women, a family was not at the top of the list; many women wanted to work and achieve what they wanted to do than settle down to have a family of a smaller size because the need for many children had decreased.
There is evidence that women are delaying having families. Changes in fertility rates suggest that women are having childeren at an older age than they were 40 years ago, in general they have decreased. Moreover, the number of childeren born to women aged 40 and over has doubled in the last 20 year. Reasons for this include realiable birth control, particulary the contraceptive pill which gave women more power over reproduction. Also attitudes towards family life underwent a profound cultural change as a result of econimc change. Women could now see that there were other lifestyle choices in addition to getting married and having childeren.
Over 4 in every 10 childeren are now born outside the marriage. In most of these cases the parents are cohabiting.Reasons for the increase in births outside the marriage include a decline in stigma and increase in cohabitation.For example only one third of 18-24 year olds now think marriage should come before parenthood. It is also pointed out that a large number of marriages break up in the first year of having a child. this suggests that marriage is not always the stable institution that the new right claim it is.
More women are remaining childless which has appeared over recent years. In 2000 one in five women aged 40 had not had childeren compared with one in ten and this is expected to rise later on. This reflects the fact that women now have...