http://hirr.hartsem.edu/research/edgell-projectindex.html
Congregations Adapting to Changes in Work and Family by Penny Edgell
In the 1950s, churches in the United States experienced a period of rapid growth and institution building in large part due to the expansion of middle-class suburbs and the accompanying rise in the proportion of the population that adopted the male-breadwinner family model (Ammerman and Roof 1995, Ellwood 1997, Marler 1995, Winter 1962). Programming was organized around the male-breadwinner family’s needs and schedule. Sunday Schools, youth groups, and women’s groups proliferated, along with church- and parish-based social activities that allowed the entire family to spend time together on weekends (Christiano 1999, Fishburn 1991, Nash and Berger 1962). Churches supported familism, an ideology that valued family life as central in importance and associated the stable, nuclear, male-breadwinner family with good citizenship and the moral health of the national culture (Bell 1958, Christiano 1999, Fishburn 1991). This time of religious expansion, then, was also a time of institutional isomorphism around a particular model of family ministry.
In the 1990s, family life is very different than it was in the 1950s. The dual-earner family is statistically dominant and, some argue, culturally normative. Larger and more stable portions of the population remain unmarried, or childless, throughout much of their adult lives. There are more single parents; divorce and blended families are much more common (Treas 1999, Treas and Walter 1978). People have different understandings about what makes for a desirable or appropriate family lifestyle, as well. Prior to the 1970s, polls show that most Americans agreed with statements like, "It’s better for everybody if the man earns the money and the woman takes care of the home and family." Since the mid-70s, Americans have displayed more egalitarian ideas about gender roles, and gay and lesbian lifestyles have gained visibility and legitimacy. Skolnick (1991) identifies the emergence of "cultural pluralism" in beliefs about good and appropriate family lifestyles. Lakoff argues that much of the current "culture war" is based upon a cultural cleavage between those with a more traditional/patriarchal model of the family and a growing group who have a more egalitarian/sharing model of the family (cf. Bellah et al 1991, Eichler 1997, Hunter 1991).
Why would we expect local congregations to react to these changes in the family? As Marler notes, one reason has to do with organizational growth and even survival. As the proportion of the population who are most likely to attend church – two-parent families with children in the home – shrinks, the religious "market" shrinks. Changes in attitudes and beliefs also affect attendance; Roof and Gesch find that those with more feminist/egalitarian beliefs are less likely to attend church. More generally, Friedland and Alford argue that changes in one institution are likely to lead to changes in other institutions with which the changing institution is linked, through processes of cultural borrowing and innovation as well as to solve pragmatic problems of coordinating action (cf. Swidler 1986). In this understanding, changes in the family pose the problem of fundamental transformation in the environment in which religious organizations and institutions operate (Haveman), with the most direct impact occurring at the level of the local congregation.
