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Jessica Lee
Professor Kaye
Rhetoric and Civic Life
10 November 2014
The More the Merrier? Not Anymore
This past summer, I went to a family reunion for my grandmothers 90th birthday. I was
catching up with my relatives when I noticed some people that I had never seen before. Turns out
they were my grandmothers eighth sisters family. I thought to myself in shock, Another sister?
How many does she have? My grandparents each had about ten siblings, the least being eight
and the most being twelve. My mom had four, and my dad had three. I have two siblings.
Compared to the families in previous generations, my family is considered as small. However,
my aunts and uncles each have only one or two children, and some do not even have any. In my
generation, a family of five is actually considered as large. This trend is present outside the scope
of my family. Frances E. Kobrin, professor of Sociology at Brown University, claims that family
size has been declining in the United States since 1790 (Kobrin). Since 1950, this decrease in
family size has brought a shift in what Americans regard as an ideal family; Americans today
believe that smaller families are more beneficial than larger ones.
There has been a steady but apparent decline in family size in the United States over
time. According to research done by Stanford University, todays average household is half as
large as it was in 1850 (Salcedo). Todays average family size is 3.12 people per household, the
lowest in recorded history. 1950 marks the start of a faster decline. In 1950, the percentage of
households with 3-4 people decreased as those with just one person increased for the first time.
1950 was also the first time that the percentage of households with one person was greater than

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the percentage of those with 5 people or more. Between 1950 and 1973, the proportion of single
person households doubled to include 18.5% of all U.S. households (Popenoe). With more
people living alone and less people living in large families, the average family size has decreased
significantly since 1950. This trend can be derived from various sources.
The decrease in infant mortality rates is a logical reason for Americans to have fewer
children. During the colonial era, only 30% of children survived until adulthood. Suppose a
couple wants at least three children; they would have to have at least ten children to ensure that
three would survive, theoretically. Thankfully, infant mortality rates declined over time, and
more children survived. In 1950, infant mortality rate was 29.2. In 2010, it decreased to just 6.1,
the lowest in recorded history (Gibson). With this decrease in infant mortality rates, people did
not feel the need to have excess number of children. Today, if a couple had ten children, the
chances are all ten would survive. If the couple originally expected to raise three children, ten
could be overwhelming for them. With people not having excess number of children, overall
family size has declined over time.
Women and their role in the household can greatly affect family size. Women have been
working since the early stages of the colonial era, such as farming, sewing, cooking, weeding
baskets, and other small household tasks. Some even worked in factories, such as the Lowell Mil
Girls during the Industrial Revolution (Glick). However, womens priority role in the household
and in society was to bear and raise children. It was not until the 1950s that women began
working outside of their homes and having their own careers. During WWII, many men left to
fight in the war, leaving the women to fill in for them in the workforce. When men came back
after the war, women had already realized that they were just as capable of working as men.
Since then, progressively more women have been participating in the workforce. In 1957, 70%

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of working women held clerical positions, assembly lines, or service jobs. 12% held a profession,
and 6% held management positions. Professional jobs included nurses and teachers (Glick). At
first, women had troubles balancing their household duties with their careers, forcing them to
quit their jobs. However, more women have become able to either balance the two or put their
careers as priority. Today, 57.2% of working age women (16 years of age and older, civilian noninstitutional population) participate in the labor force. Women make up 47.21% of the total
workforce in the U.S. (Glick). With more women in the workforce, the role of women in the
household and in society has shifted. Women are no longer simply childbearing machines,
existing solely for children. Familial values are less important. Women today put their careers as
priority and take time before they settle down and have children. Because they have children
later in their lives, if they choose to have any in the first place, they have fewer children. It is
also difficult for working women to take care of many children, which contributes to the
decrease in the number of children in households. Since 1950, birth rate has decreased from 2.0
births to 1.88 births per woman. In addition, more women are choosing not to get married in the
first place and to focus on their careers instead. In fact, 8% of women were never married in
1960 compared to 17% today (Glick). These women contribute to the increase in single person
families and the decrease in overall household sizes. The shift in the role of women from mothers
to workers has lead fewer women to have children and families of their own, causing families in
the U.S. to become smaller.
The decline in family size can also be attributed to the importance of education in
households. Education has become an essential part of an average American. Many sociologists
suggest that family size has an important impact on childrens education. Douglas B. Downey,
sociologist and professor at Ohio State University, asserts that parents have finite levels of

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resources for their children such as time, energy, and money, and that these resources are diluted
among children as the number of siblings increases. The more siblings a child has, the fewer
shares of the parents resources he or she gets (Downey). The National Education Longitudinal
Studys experiment with a sample of 24,599 eighth graders shows that this inverse relationship
between the number of siblings and childrens educational performance is true (Downey).
Parents want the best for their children; they want to devote all their love and attention to them.
Because education is such an important aspect for a childs life, parents have been having fewer
children. Thus families with just one child are very common. Increasingly more American
parents believe that having fewer siblings is better for their children. Therefore, family size
naturally decreases with fewer children in households.
According to study by United States Census Bureau in 2010, 55% of all American
families do not have children, 19% have one child, 16% have two children, and only 9% have
three or more children (Vespa). My family belongs in this small 9% of American families. I like
to think that my parents love my two siblings and me equally. While their love may be infinite,
their other resources definitely are not. Growing up, I really wanted to dance and play violin. My
parents would have loved to let me pursue my ambitions, but because I had two other siblings,
they could not invest all their money and time on just me. In the process of allocating their
resources, I had to give up on dance and violin. Such sacrifices occurred to me multiple times in
my life, but the one I made coming to college was my biggest one. About a year ago, I received a
letter of acceptance from the college of my dreams. It was not Penn State, although Penn State is
a wonderful school. I was so happy, and my parents were really proud of me. However, when
financial aid came out, we realized that my dream school would cost me about $70,000 per year.
As much as my parents wanted me to go to that school, the reality was that they could not afford

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it. If I were an only child, they would let me go without hesitation. However, I was not an only
child; I had two younger siblings to think about. If I went to that school, I would have left my
family in so much debt that it would have been nearly impossible for my younger siblings to go
to college. I did not want to make my siblings give up their dream schools like I did. Although I
love Penn State, I was sad at the time to give up my dream school. I am blessed with a wonderful
and loving family, but it would have been more financially beneficial for my family if I were an
only child.
On the other hand, there are people that believe that having more members in the
household is better. Stanford University proposes a theory that people today believe that living
with others is beneficial solely because the costs of household public goods can be shared
(Salcedo). The more people there are in a household, the less the cost of living for each
individual. However, this idea abstracts from intra-family relations and focus on families as
collections of roommates. While being cost efficient is beneficial, a group of roommates do not
actually make a true family. The definition of family is a group of people who are related to each
other (Merriam-Webster). Roommates are not related; they do not have ancestors or children. In
fact, roommates are technically living independently, so they are actually a collection of single
person households. Thus the idea that larger households are more beneficial because they
provide individuals cheaper cost of living does not pertain to families.
Other families, such as those that farm for a living, actually see benefits in large families.
A lot of hands are involved in farming, so the more family members there are to help out on the
field, the better. Even small children can help with minor tasks around the farm, such as feeding
poultry, collecting eggs, and picking vegetables. They can eventually follow the footsteps of their
parents and learn how to farm on their own. While large families may be beneficial for families

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that farm, these families make up only a small proportion of all American families. Out of
115,226,802 families in the United States, less than 2% are those that farm (Jacobs). Thus even
with these large families, the average U.S. family size is still small.
The decrease in U.S. family size reveals how the way Americans create families today
has shifted. People today plan when to have children and how many. Whether they want to have
one child to devote their resources to or many children to help out the family, they seek to gain
the maximum benefits. This indicates that families becoming less natural. In fact, children that
are conceived unexpectedly are often called accident babies. I too, was an accident baby. My
parents got me as soon as they were married, but they did not plan to have a child so early in
their lives. My siblings, on the other hand, were both planned. My sister is three years younger
than me, and my brother is also three years younger than her. Even my brothers gender was
planned. My parents took medicine and tried other methods to have a boy after having two girls.
While they succeeded in having children three years apart and a son, their plans had gone wrong
multiple times. My parents conceived another child almost immediately after I was born. They
thought that having another child so early would not only be difficult for them, but also unfair to
me because they would not be able to give as much attention to me. They decided to abort the
baby. In fact, my mom got abortion between the time I was born and my brother was conceived.
Each time they decided that it would not be beneficial for the family to have a child at that time.
My family is not the only one that goes through this process. If I were to get pregnant right now,
I would also get an abortion because I am not ready to have a child. In fact, from 1973 to 2011,
nearly 53 million legal abortions have occurred in the United States (Vespa). Many people plan
their families instead of letting life happen by fate. Planned families have become a norm, almost
even common sense for Americans today. They believe that a family of a certain size is the most

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beneficial for them and attempt to achieve that size. The decrease in family size suggests that
people believe that a small family is the ideal family size to plan.
As I saw with my own familys decline in the number of children per household over
generations, living arrangements have gone through serious changes in the United States.
Families are getting smaller every year, and the trend does not seem likely to stop in the future.
The generation after me will likely experience greater decline with growing equality for women
in society and education becoming more important for children. Just like many others, I plan on
having one or two children. I too, along with many other Americans today, believe that smaller
families are more beneficial, that sometimes bigger is not always better.

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Works Cited
Downey,DouglasB."WhenBiggerIsNotBetter:FamilySize,ParentalResources,and
Children's Educational Performance." American Sociological Review: 746. Print.
"Family." Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster. Web. 2 Nov. 2014.
Gibson, J. R., and T. Mckeown. "Observations on All Births (23,970) in Birmingham, 1947 :
VII. Effect of Changing Family Size on Infant Mortality." Journal of Epidemiology &
Community Health (1952): 183-87. Print.
Glick, Paul C. "Updating the Life Cycle of the Family." Journal of Marriage and Family 39.1
(1977): 513.Print.
Kobrin, Frances E. "The Fall in Household Size and the Rise of the Primary Individual in the
United States." Demography: 127. Print.
Jacobs, M. "Large Families. Not Alone!" Taxon 18.3 (1969): 253-62. Print.
Popenoe, David. "American Family Decline, 1960-1990: A Review and Appraisal." Journal of
Marriage and Family 55.3 (1993): 527-42. Print.
Salcedo, Alejandrina, Todd Schoellman, and Michle Tertilt. "Families as Roommates: Changes
in U.S. Household Size from 1850 to 2000." Quantitative Economics (2009): 133-75.
Print.
Vespa, Jonathan, Jamie M. Lewis, and Rose M. Kreider. "Population Characteristics."America's
Families and Living Arrangements: 2012 (2013): 20-570. Print.