Western societies have seen sweeping changes in family structure since the 1960s. The share of nuclear families made up of a married couple and their children has declined, while single-parent households, couples without children, unmarried couples living together and single-person households have grown rapidly. Academics split into two camps: a conservative reading that diagnosed the shift as a social crisis of family breakdown, and a progressive analysis that treated it as a diversification of family forms. Feminism entered the debate as well, at times pulling the academic argument into an ideological frame. Feminist activists argued that traditional family structures reproduce patriarchy. Silvia Sara Canetto, a scholar of Italian descent who won the Feminist Research Award from the International Council of Psychologists, criticized traditional family discourse in a 1996 paper titled "What Is a Normal Family?"
But the phrase "normal family," which carries a nuance of discrimination against non-traditional households, is now rarely used in daily life. The practice of calling single-mother, single-father and grandparent-headed households "broken homes" has disappeared altogether. Institutional efforts to protect households of varied composition have continued, with the Single-Parent Family Support Act and the Multicultural Family Support Act as leading examples. Even so, gaps in welfare coverage remain for these households. Couples in common-law marriages, households of cohabitants in share-home arrangements and single-person households still sit on the social and legal margins. The Framework Act on Healthy Families and the Civil Act continue to treat blood ties, marriage and adoption as the conditions for recognition as a family.
President Lee Jae-myung said publicly on the 14th that when a man and a woman hold a wedding, register their marriage and live together, that is called a normal family, which implies that every other family is abnormal, and he called for the term to be changed. He went on to say that Europe has overcome population decline through measures such as expanded support for single-parent families. If the term is to be revised, the legal conditions for recognition as a family should be brought into line with reality as well. Households of cohabitants who care for one another but find it hard to access welfare and tax benefits need to be drawn more actively into the social safety net. The message must not be mistaken, however, for encouragement of remaining unmarried or divorcing. The foundation of any response to the low birth rate still lies in encouraging stable family bonds through marriage, childbirth and child-rearing.