Goode's World Revolution and Family Patterns

A Reconsideration at Fifty Years

Bibliographic Data

ID4848920
AuthorsAndrew J Cherlin (0000-0002-2100-1964, Johns Hopkins University, corresponding author)
Year2012
Volume38
Issue4
Pages577-607
Publication date2012-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePopulation and Development Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0098-7921 • E-ISSN: 1728-4457
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1728-4457.2012.00528.x
OpenAlexW2081142824
LanguageEN
Citations received73
References cited66

Fifty years ago, William J. Goode published World Revolution and Family Patterns, a highly influential study of international family change. Goode's main thesis, that, owing to industrialization, family patterns around the world would come to resemble the mid-twentieth-century Western conjugal family, was incorrect. For one thing, that model collapsed in the West soon afterward. But Goode's secondary hypotheses have proven to be correct in at least some regions of the world: that parents' control over their children's family lives would decline; and that the spread of the ideology of the conjugal family would occur even in countries where extensive industrialization had not taken place. Moreover, it is worth understanding why Goode was sometimes incorrect and what forces (such as globalization) he did not foresee. It is also worth examining more recent writings on world family change by leading scholars. This article provides a reconsideration of the book's impact a half-century after it appeared

Ancient history · Economic history · Genealogy · Globalization · Ideology · Industrialisation · Political science · Politics · Sociology · World history · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Family Dynamics and Relationships · History · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Law