The Atomized Family & The Domestic Workplace

If we believe that the friction between work and family in the US is not inevitable, then it’s useful to think about that friction in a way that motivates us to take action. In building Groundwork, I’ve come across a specific sociological theory that I’ve found clarifying. It helps diagnose where the friction comes from, which in turn makes a way forward easier to see. That’s the purpose of today’s article.

Sociologist Carle Zimmerman, in his 1947 book Family and Civilization, argued that the structure of the family is the central driver of how civilizations rise and fall. There are dimensions of his argument that get pretty wonky, and that I definitely disagree with, but one of his key arguments has merit: social strain shows up when family structures change faster than institutions can adapt.  

He described three broad family types.

The Trustee Family is the most collective. It’s a multigenerational unit, and living members see themselves as temporary stewards of a longer story. Property, reputation, and obligation extend across generations in both directions. Individual autonomy is minimal, and continuity takes precedence over personal preference. This type shows up in early agrarian and tribal societies.

The Domestic Family is organized around a clear division of labor. One partner, traditionally the father, engages with the market economy. The other runs the household and raises the children. The family is treated as the foundational unit of society, and institutions are built to reflect that.

The Atomized Family is one where individual autonomy expands. Community and religious ties are weaker. Individual autonomy is prioritized, further actualized by geographic mobility, pulling people away from extended family networks that once absorbed caregiving labor.  

These phases are part of a repeated, cyclical evolution. While Zimmerman would argue that the Atomized Family is a failure mode and a signal to return to the Domestic Family, I disagree. There are a lot of central dimensions to today’s Atomized Family that are core to the human experience we so value. 

But Zimmerman’s narrower point holds: when families reorganize faster than institutions, there is a hangover of strain that results.  

And a lot of our institutions and norms in the US emerged when things were more “Domestic,” contributing meaningfully to the pain in our now “Atomized” state.

Much of our professional infrastructure and workplace norms were designed in the early-to-mid 20th century, when the dominant family setup (WWII aside) looked closer to the Domestic configuration: one full-time breadwinner, one primary caregiver, relative geographic stability. Integral institutions were built to reflect this family, which has since evolved, but the institutions and policies have not. 

Let me expand on this point in a bit more detail.

The forty-hour work week. In 1938, the Fair Labor Standards Act made the 44 hour work week law (phased to 40 hours by 1940).¹ This became the preeminent, default unit of work, equating to all day availability, Monday through Friday. In doing so, for any family with children, we solidified the necessity for either a breadwinner / caretaker split or a dual-breadwinner / outsourced care configuration. How else could it work?

Employer-tied benefits. During WWII, wage freezes meant employers couldn’t compete on salary, so they started to compete on benefits. By 1943, they could offer their employees tax-free healthcare coverage,² and in 1954, Congress made that tax break permanent. In turn, accessing affordable health care for your family and your dependents became tied to that same full-time, forty-hour work week. The costly implications of straying from that default started to compound.  

Joint tax filing. This is the next turn of the same screw. In 1948, Congress let married couples file jointly,³ and for a household with one main earner it's usually a discount: spread one income across two people and you’re in a lower tax bracket. But the structure treats two incomes as one stacked pile, changing the math when she takes a pause and returns to work. Immediately, the second earner’s first dollar is taxed at the rate his income has already reached,⁴ not the low rate she’d otherwise pay as a single filer starting from zero. Filing separately doesn't rescue her either, since that means forfeiting the childcare credit.⁵ So how it ends up feeling: what’s getting taxed aggressively is the decision to work, in the same years childcare is the most expensive.

None of these single shifts were catastrophic, and they are certainly not exhaustive of our complex system. But they’re usefully illustrative in understanding what systems are in place that make it really hard for two parents to work and thrive. 

The horrible and strange pandemic / social experiment that was COVID inadvertently led to fascinating evidence on the nuances that drive workforce participation. 

By the end of 2023, the share of American women working for pay was at a record high, and the surge was led by mothers of children under 5. For this group, their employment gains during the pandemic were the biggest, attributed to their newfound ability to work remotely.⁶

Following our thread of institution and family alignment, in the pandemic, work became, in specific, crucial ways, more aligned with how people actually live. The commute disappeared. The rigid 9-to-5 loosened. People could handle a school pickup or a pediatrician’s appointment without it being a career event. 77.7% of women 25-54 were employed in the paid workforce.⁷

Since then, we’ve started to see reversals, with return-to-office mandates and flexibility contracting. 455k women left the workforce between January and August of 2025.⁸ 

The pandemic gains were situational, not structural, and the outcomes changed when the situation changed. The women did not become less ambitious. The caregiving did not become more demanding. The work simply once again, became less compatible with life, and participation is responding accordingly.

So how do we actually build work and family structures that are durably compatible?

Naming the lag is part of how we get there, and it's part of why I write these. So is backing the people already doing the work, the advocates pushing on policy and the companies testing what actually holds.

What I’m motivated by is one version of structural change that is already here and isn’t a concession to anyone. Companies no longer need full-time scale for every person in every function. This is an opening; a teensy break from the 1940 norms we inherited. And it lines up with how so many caregivers actually want to work. That kind of arrangement is getting more common and more competitive, and I think it can be one of the core structures that holds, closing the lag between our domestic policies and our atomized lives.