Importance of having children drops in US


AP, NEW YORK
Monday, Jul 02, 2007, Page 7
The percentage of Americans who consider children "very important" to a successful marriage has dropped sharply since 1990, and more now cite the sharing of household chores as pivotal, according to a sweeping new survey.

The Pew Research Center survey on marriage and parenting found that children had fallen to eighth place out of nine on a list of factors that people associate with successful marriages -- well behind "sharing household chores," "good housing," "adequate income," a "happy sexual relationship" and "faithfulness."

In a 1990 World Values Survey, children ranked third in importance among the same items, with 65 percent saying children were very important to a good marriage. Just 41 percent said so in the new Pew survey.

Chore-sharing was cited as very important by 62 percent of respondents, up from 47 percent in 1990.

The survey also found that, by a margin of nearly 3-to-1, Americans say the main purpose of marriage is the "mutual happiness and fulfillment" of adults rather than the "bearing and raising of children."

The survey's findings buttress concerns expressed by numerous academics and family-policy experts, among them Barbara Dafoe Whitehead of Rutgers University's National Marriage Project.

"The popular culture is increasingly oriented to fulfilling the X-rated fantasies and desires of adults," she wrote in a recent report. "Child-rearing values -- sacrifice, stability, dependability, maturity -- seem stale and musty by comparison."

Virginia Rutter, a sociology professor at Framingham (Massachusetts) State College and board member of the Council on Contemporary Families, said the shifting views may be linked in part to the US' relative lack of family-friendly workplace policies such as paid leave and subsidized child care.

The Pew survey was conducted by telephone from mid-February through mid-March.
This story has been viewed 512 times.

在美国,孩子的重要性下降了

纽约 美联社
2007年7月2日,星期一.第七版(页)

一项最新的,范围很大的调查结果显示,自1990年以来,在美国人中,那些认为孩子对于家庭幸福很重要的人的百分比锐减了,更多的美国人现在更加强调分享家务劳动对于维系幸福家庭的重要性.

这项由Pew研究中心所做的关于婚姻和孩子抚养问题的专项调查发现,在总共九个影响婚姻成功的因素中,孩子的重要性已降到了第八位,远远地排在"分担家务","良好的居住条件","充足的收入","幸福的性关系",以及"忠诚"的后面.


在1990年的世界价值观调查中,在与上面的调查类别相同的情况下,孩子的重要性被排在了第三位,有65%的人认为对于一个幸福家庭而言,孩子是非常重要的.而在此次的新的调查中,只有41%的人认同这种说法.

"分担家务"对于家庭幸福的重要性由1990年的41%上升至现在的62%.


这项调查结果还发现,在选择婚姻的主要目的是"共同的幸福与充实",还是"生育和抚养孩子"时,赞成前者的人数与赞成后者的人数之比超过了3:1.

这项调查的结果证实了无数的家庭策略专家和学者阐述过的观点,Rutgers大学国家婚姻项目课题组的芭芭拉.达佛.怀特海德,就是这些专家中的一位.

"大众文化娱乐越来越倾向于为满足成年人的限制级幻想和欲望而打造,"她在最近的一篇研究报告中写道."那些过去人们认定的抚养孩子的价值观--父母为养育孩子所做的牺牲,由于孩子的存在而导致的家庭稳定,因为身为父母而提高了的可信度和成熟度--相形之下就显得陈腐不堪了.

来自佛拉明哥海姆市的现代家庭委员会委员,马萨诸塞州立大学社会学教授佛吉妮亚.鲁特说,这种观念的转变可能与美国社会中家庭相对减少,并且与友善的工厂政策,诸如带薪假期和育儿补贴等的执行有关.

这次的调查自2月中旬起至3月中旬止,是通过电话采访进行的.

已有512人次看了本报道.