Transformation of the Family in Contemporary Society: Some Basic Indicators

The family, as one of the fundamental and most important social subsystems, has experienced a radical transformation since the second half of the 20th century until today.It belongs in those social phenomenon, whose changes happen slowly and invisible, it doesn’t metter if it is about changes in intime sphere or about thei shape, structure and functions. Those trends of change request from the resercher to find out their cause, direction, deep and consiquences. The transformation of the family is primarily reflected in the trend of reconstruction of traditional marriage, the increased number of divorces, as well as the increase in alternative forms of married and family life. Marriage has lost their characteristic of universality, nuclear family stops to be only form of family life The subject of this paper is to determine what are the key changes, what are their characteristics and what are their social, economic and cultural causes through monitoring statistical data for certain indicators: marriage rate, divorce rate and number of single-parent families, from the theoretically concept of Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim.