Family and couple projects among the young of Santiago de Chile

Abstract

Family life is highly valued among Chilean young people. They visualize their future living in family with children and generally married. This article explores young people’s ideas and projects regarding the family. It highlights the prioriy of children in the making of a family as a perception as well as a project. Marriage is in a secondary place, however, it is not less important; most of the young persons visualize themselves married in a future, but each time more often, through a previous period of living together. The information comes mainly from a representative enquiry of youngsters between 15 and 30 years old, carried out in Santiago during year 2004 with the purpose of studying the experiences, opinion and family projects of the young people. The information is also enlighted with textual quotes from youngsters interviewed thoroughly or that joined focal groups. In addition, in each point, the results of such enquiry are complemented with data which allows to put in perspective the foundings of the investigation using other statistical information mainly the Chilean Population Census of year 1992 and year 2002, as well as United Nations international statistics too.