Comparison of Family Life Today in Different Regions of the World

A family unit is undoubtedly the most important unit in human social life. Our family members are the people to whom we are related due to our blood ties. The people who belong to one family share the place in which they live, as well as surnames and the experience of their lives. Family units are important as they play a very prominent role in building the personality of a person. Everyone experiences family life. For some this experience is very good and it brings positivism to their lives, while others suffer just because the family unit to which they belong is not the one which can give them much-needed love and affection. What you become in your life and how you behave is very much dependent upon your family life. Thus we can easily say that family life is very important to everyone. Children from broken families suffer a lot. They are not that confident when they move on and face the world. They often expect that the world will not treat them in a fair manner. This psychological complexity develops due to the lack of the care and protection that only a healthy family unit can provide.

 

In the world of today we can say that the family life is even more important. As the number of broken families is on a rise, so is the rate of crime in our societies. The kids who suffer in their childhood because their families lack in some aspect may not be able to become very good human beings. Thus we have to fight against the trend due to which the family ties are dissolving fast and blood relations are losing their meaning to people.

 

Although all the different cultures and countries promote family life, there are very peculiar differences in the way people behave in their families in different parts of the world. Broadly speaking, we can divide the world in two parts. One part is the highly developed part of the world where some say the family unit is losing its grip over the society. The other part of the world is the part in which people are still trying to retain the roots. They are still related to their family and the family bondage is as sacred to them today as it was many years back. These two extremes exist very clearly in the world.

 

The first part of the world, where family ties seem to be no longer that important, are the more developed parts of Europe and America. The countries in these parts of the world experience disintegration of a family as soon as the kids complete their education and start earning. A few decades back even in Europe it was not very common to leave your parents until you needed to. Now it is sort of a fashion to start living separately, and many times in a city other than the hometown. This creates a gap between the parents and the kids. A few countries exist which fall in the same developed part of the world, but these are able to retain the family unit culture to some extent. For example, in Spain a joint family system still exists.

 

In other parts of the world, the situation is not same. In some parts of the world the family units are as important to people living in those areas as they were a few decades back. These countries include many Asian and African countries. Strangely, most of these countries are underdeveloped or developing countries. 

 

If you observe the continent of North America in detail, you will observe that the trend pertaining to family structure and family life is very different between the industrialized urban areas and the countryside. Similarly, if you consider other parts of the world you will observe that there is a mixture of trends. In some countries the family unit is being promoted so that the social life remains peaceful, while in other countries independence is being promoted which in turn loosens the blood ties.