Finally the Family

The family makes a belated but welcome appearance in Social Indicators, 1976 after being all but ignored in Social Indicators, 1973. In recent years, statistics on the family have recorded a steady increase in the divorce rate, a decline in both the marriage and birth rates, and a rising proportion of premarital births to total births. These trends translate into family structures in which an increasing proportion of children are members of single-parent families. Although not inevitable, on balance some harmful spillover effects are probably generated such as less attractive human personal qualities, declining domestic tranquility in the community, and decreasing individual capability for educational achievement, work accomplishment, and earning power. After this second run through of social indicators, there seems to be sufficient evidence that, while the work was conducted by very competent people, the operational structure is far from optimal for achieving sustained progress in this field. Producing social indicators requires more than a process of searching and soliciting statistical tables from the statistical networks, assembling them in packages of charts, tables, and texts and marketing them in attractive publications. In the end it may come down to the fact that insufficient resources have been committed to these social indicator projects, precluding the formation of proper operational goals, rather than concluding that social indicator efforts are bereft of potential.