Mobility and Family Disorganization

M o j rOBILITY is significantly, although indirectly, related to the disorganization of the individual family and to the disorganization of family folkways and mores. While mobility also has organizing effects, this paper is concentrated on the disorganization of the family. The tentative propositions which are stated have emerged in part from general reading and thought on the subject and in part from a study which the author is making of the factors in the marital adjustment of divorced couples in comparison with married couples. The Disruption of the Individual Family. Mowrer, in a comparison of Iooo divorced cases which came before the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, in i919, with a control group of iooo nondivorced cases, demonstrated a statistical relationship between mobility and divorce.He found (i) that the mean number of years per address of the control group was 56 percent greater than the divorced group;2 (2) that the mean years per community address of the control group was 62 percent greater than for the divorced group;3 (3) that prior to their separation, divorced families moved more often into areas of greater family disintegration (number of divorces and desertions per io,ooo population) than did the control group.4 We agree with Mowrer that the disorganization of the individual family and the mobility of city life are closely associated. However, we raise the additional question as to the specific ways in which mobility is associated with the disorganization of the individual family. Four possible relationships are presented in the following paragraphs. First, if differences in the mobility of the several members of a family put the members in contact with different patterns of behavior, divergent behavior may be developed in those members and incompatibility within the family may result. The several members of a family may differ from each other in the intimacy, frequency, and length of their contacts or in the types of behavior contacted. These differences in contacts may result in the disruption of either the inner unity or the structural form of the family, or both. It is pretty well established that if individuals are in intimate contact with divergent patterns of behavior over a sufficiently long period, former alien standards tend to become their standards. Consequently, if members of a family, because of necessity or desire, move in different social worlds, go to different types of movies, or in any way regularly and intimately contact different patterns of behavior, they will tend to become individualized. This

Developmental psychology · Psychology · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies

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