Family structure

''Family structure. How many children do a pair of parents have on the average? How common are single mothers or single fathers? What is the divorce rate? Is getting married still the norm for couples seeking a family? Has marriage completely ceased to exist? How common are adoption and surrogate parenting? Is polygamy legal? How common is polyamory? How widespread (both across the U.S. and across the world) is gay marriage? Gay adoption? Is being neolocal (moving out of Mom and Dad’s house) still the norm for married couples? If not, are newlyweds virilocal, uxorilocal, ambilocal? Do most dating couples who no longer live with their parents live together awhile before (or in place of) marriage? Are there orphanages in the country in which the story is set for people whose parents both died when they were minors? Does parenting still exist as we know it or is every kid a ward of the state? Can kids be taken away from their parents? If so, how common is this? Do two-parent families have a “Father knows best” structure the way they did in the fifties, or do mothers and fathers hold equal power and authority? Are families, kids included, democratic, or is there a more hierarchical structure? At what age do kids typically fly the nest?''

The 30-year-olds of 2028 are swamped down by homeownership and parenthood. Parents only have to raise their kids for 16 years, although kids tend to live with their parents for many years afterwards.