The bestselling book, Are Men Necessary?, by Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, took playful jabs (for the most part) at men seeking to find their way in a society where women are increasingly independent. The answer to Ms. Dowd's book title, despite attempts in some circles to characterize it as an attack on traditional values and the family, is men are indeed necessary.
While men everywhere can take comfort in knowing they're worth keeping around, Census Bureau numbers show that, for the first time, more women in the U.S. are without a husband than those that are married.
In 2005, 51 percent of adult females lived in households without a spouse. That was up from 49 percent in 2000.
Prof. Stephanie Coontz, director of public education for the Council on Contemporary Families, told The New York Times, "This is yet another of the inexorable signs that there is no going back to a world where we can assume that marriage is the main institution that organizes people's lives. Most of these women will marry, or have married. But on average, Americans now spend half their adult lives outside marriage."
William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, said, "For better or worse, women are less dependent on men or the institution of marriage. Younger women understand this better, and are preparing to live longer parts of their lives alone or with non-married partners. For many older boomer and senior women, the institution of marriage did not hold the promise they might have hoped for, growing up in an 'Ozzie and Harriet' era."
Age, said Dr. Frey, also plays a factor in the Census Bureau numbers. "Since women continue to outlive men, they have reached the non-marital tipping point - more non-married than married," he said. "This suggests that most girls growing up today can look forward to spending more of their lives outside of a traditional marriage."
While more women are living without a spouse, the same is not true of men, where 53 percent are married.
The reason the numbers seem to be at odds is partly because men "remarry more quickly than women after a divorce," according to Pamela J. Smock, a researcher at the University of Michigan Population Studies Center.
Discussion Question: How are non-traditional families affecting society and the retailing business?