Family

There are many things to consider when thinking about different types of household families around the world. As time goes by and cultures change, the basis of a household and families change as well. For example, the amount of marriages has decreased and the number of women as the head of the household has increased across the globe. As a whole, women are married at a younger age than men are, and in some cases are treated as property that requires permission to partake in daily activities as well as private matters. The idea of marriage has changes in the recent years, most industrialized countries have women who marry at a later age or not at all and in some countries same sex marriage is becoming more accepted allowing the boundaries of family to expand. However, this is not the case in other countries around the world. Same sex marriage is not always accepted and is at times brutally punished by out-casting the individuals or physically abusing them, including raping lesbian women as a form of "treatment." As more households become individualized with more families become single parent run, more women rise as the heads of households (about 85%). However, these households that are female led are more likely to have economic problems than those that are headed by men. The geographic areas which hold the richest countries also tend to have smaller families in a household. Most times when we think of family and home, people have a sense of safety. However, for many women around the world, the home is the most dangerous place for them. Those household which suffer from domestic violence are oftentimes shockingly dismissed as being a "private matter" or never reported at all.                                     


Source: The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World
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