<Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs expansion . You can help by adding to it . (June 2013) </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> </Td> <Td> This section needs expansion . You can help by adding to it . (June 2013) </Td> </Tr> <P> For social conservatism in the United States and Canada, the idea that the nuclear family is traditional is an important aspect, where family is seen as the primary unit of society . These movements oppose alternative family forms and social institutions that are seen by them to undermine parental authority . The numbers of nuclear families is slowly dwindling in the US as more women pursue higher education, develop professional lives, and delay having children until later in their life . Children and marriage have become less appealing as many women continue to face societal, familial, and / or peer pressure to give up their education and successful career to focus on stabilizing the home . As diversity in the United States continues to increase, it is becoming difficult for the classically traditional family unit--a heterosexual couple of the same race and ethnicity with two children--to stay the norm, calling the relevancy of North American Conservatism into question . Data from 2014 also suggests that single parents and the likelihood of children living with one is also determined by race . Pew Research Center has found that 54% of African - American individuals will be single parents compared to 19% of Caucasian individuals . In addition to race, differences in education level also change the amount of single parents . In 2014, those with less than a high school education are 46% more likely to be a single parent compared to 12% who have graduated college . </P> <P> Critics of the term "traditional family" point out that in most cultures and at most times, the extended family model has been most common, not the nuclear family, though it has had a longer tradition in England than in other parts of Europe and Asia which contributed large numbers of immigrants to the Americas . The nuclear family became the most common form in the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s . </P>

Advantages and disadvantages of joint family and nuclear family wikipedia