World War II was a large-scale war fought across multiple countries with numerous military men from around the world. United States, part of the Allied Forces, deployed an especially large number of troops during World War II. Statistics show that as many as 11.65 million men were active in the military during World War II, amounting to roughly 11% of all men in the United States. With such extensive participation of men in the war there came numerous changes to the American family during the war period.
World War II and men’s participation in the military during the war brought about numerous changes in American families. One such change was the separation of family members from fathers, sons and husbands. This separation led to numerous children feeling like they lost their childhood with fathers not being present during their child years. This separation also led to the change in roles in a family and this combined with the absence of a family member left many shocked and dealing with mixed emotions and the added stress of increased responsibility without male family members in the house to shoulder some of the burdens. In addition to families with men away at war, there were an increasing number of war widows with a sudden responsibility of having to take care of their children alone, expanding the burden on the American family.
The absence of men also led to an increase in job opportunities and these opportunities were strong incentives for children to drop out of school and work in these jobs hence during World War II the number of high school dropouts and the teenage workforce increased dramatically. In addition to teenagers, the employment of women outside the home also dramatically rose, however, this left tens of thousands of children unsupervised during the day. Consequently, juvenile delinquency, spread of sexually transmitted diseases among the youth and absenteeism from school drastically increased.
Despite the increased availability of job opportunities some 20 million people were on the border of starvation due to an acute shortage of housing, schools, hospitals and child-care facilities. These factors resulted in increased divorces and problems among the youth.
Although unpublicized, extensive changes to the American family, especially with children and independence of women, due to the participation of men in the military and the death of military personnel at war can be observed throughout World War II