Ties no longer bind

The family structure as we knew it five decades ago had changed, but it conformed to a pattern: Nuclear families in cities, and joint families in villages. Now even that template has undergone changes, or, to be precise, it has seen a reversal of sorts.

The data released by the Centre shows that rural India is witnessing increasing fragmentation, while urban dwellings seem to be more accommodating of larger families. While this doesn’t mean that joint families have staged a comeback in cities, what this development reflects is an acute shortage of space preventing family members from moving out.

Rapid urbanisation coupled with a dearth of affordable housing has impacted the size of families. Since villages are being transformed now, the splintering, which was earlier restricted only to cities, has entered the rural space.

Overall in India, joint families have suffered a steep decline — from 19.1 per cent, as per the 2001 Census, to 16.1 per cent in the 2011 Census — but the rate of disintegration is more in villages, which analysts feel could also be part of the normalisation process since villages too are undergoing a change in mindset, inspired by the urban phenomenon.

The share of nuclear families in rural India has increased from 50.7 per cent to 52.1 per cent between the two censuses, while in cities it decreased from 54.3 per cent to 52.3 per cent during that time. Housing is going to be a major issue in India where the population will cross the 1.44-billion mark in 2024.