It has been a widespread belief that the American family is dying. But a new study reveals that the American family is stronger than ever. This study affords surprising evidence of the persistence of American commitments to family life. The American family is changing, not dying. It is becoming smaller, men and women are becoming more equal, and the divorce rate is higher. But despite the high divorce rate, marriage has never been more popular. The majority of divorced people remarry, but only 2% marry more than twice. Most marriages last a long time, and a large proportion of divorces are from age marriages. Depending on the specific situation, there’s often good reason for age marriages to break up. There is no evidence that children receive less attention from mothers who work outside the home than from mothers working inside the home. So far the amount of educational or development time hasn’t varied very much, whether or not the mother works outside the home. In fact, working mothers try to make up for it by setting aside time only for their children. The study shows that television is by far the most significant new childcare arrangement of this century. The most important activity for children up to age 14 is watching television. School is the second most time-consuming activity for children. They spend an average of about 19 hours a week in school. A larger proportion of children go to school now than ever before, and they stay in school longer. Another big change is that the proportion of very young children in daycare centers ( 日托站 ) has almost doubled in recent years. Compared with these two dramatic changes in child activity, the changes caused by mothers working outside the home appear very small.