Couples with children under 18 years old comprise only 33% of households worldwide. Almost as common, in developing countries, are extended families with multiple generations living together. There is also a growing number of what the report calls ‘emerging’ families, including same-sex partners, sibling-based households, and ‘blended families’ with married or cohabiting partners with children from previous unions. [...]
That event was notable not so much because ‘usual suspects’ (the Holy See, Egypt, Qatar, Belarus, Russia, Bangladesh) defended the patriarchal family, but because the US did. Even during the conservative Reagan and Bush administrations, US delegates avoided sharing a platform with states that have such overtly authoritarian and religious agendas. [...]
Speakers described this (and only this) kind of family unit as supportive of patriotism, teamwork, love, acceptance, social cohesion, and better economic outcomes – without noting that it requires women’s acquiescence to subordination and dependency to function. Any non-binary interpretation of gender, deviation from heterosexuality, or assertion of women’s autonomy, is profoundly disruptive to this project. [...]
Meanwhile, women tend to be left on their own without care as they age (twice as many women as men live alone after the age of 80, the report finds), and are more likely to lack adequate income support in old age thanks to maternity-related interruptions in capacities to earn and save.
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