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BACKGROUND: Urbanization is a movement with cultural shifts and is posing new major demands that we must face (Tellnes, 2005). The effect of urbanization has not left families untouched. Visible poverty, increased divorce rate, drug use and prostitution are such evils affecting the smooth functioning of the urban families. The changes appear to be dreadful to the social scientists. It has been analyzed that the roles and functions of families are changing. The major work in industrialization, modernization with family perspective by Goode (1963) has a profound impact on familys cross-cultural researches. He confirmed the view that industrialization led inevitably to the decline in family functions. Family is losing its status and disorganization of family pattern has begun. Moreover, Ogburn and Nimkoff (1955), Mead (1962) and others have shown concern with the changes taking place in the family institution. Various theories and concepts were offered by them to understand the phenomena of urbanism and its impact on the family life. The prevailing image of the urban life is center of learning technology and advanced means of communications. There is large number of alienated souls in the city. Occupationally urban population has become more heterogeneous and stratified, face-to-face familiarity breakdown. People keep more to them, and have reciprocal transactions. In urban life, there is increase rate of indifference insecurity, instability, calculate rationality, and mistrust of others. Though several functions of family have started getting weekend like education, economic, recreation, care of handicapped, sick and aged yet it continues to discharge some of the basic functions like reproduction, procreation, care and nurture of young ones. The most important function to provide affection security to its members is still with family. Ogburn and Nimkoff (1955) concluded that the future strength of the family will depend on the affection bond. Rapid changes are being observed in our social structure. Inflation, influx of refugees, industrialization, urbanization and other similar factors contribute to changes. The age-old customs, values, traditions are breaking down. Sociologically we may conclude that our culture is changing under the impact of modern age. New values are coming up and the modern world is

the world of industrialization and rapid social changes. At present, urbanization is highly correlated with industrialization. Pakistan is expected to be urbanized and thus industrialized with the development of factories and industries. An edifice of industrial society has already been created. Its impact could be felt throughout the country. The acceleration in the growth of cities, the correlation between sizes of the city, rapid growth, and inclination towards industrial and commercial expansion indicates that urbanization in Pakistan is likely to gain a momentum (Iqbal, 1998). If industrialization and urbanization are coming on a large scale, a fundamental revolution will inevitably occur in our society. It is now widely accepted that urbanization is as much a social process as it is an economic and territorial process. It transforms societal organizations, the role of the family, demographic structures, the nature of work, and the way we choose to live and with whom. It also modifies domestic roles and relations within the family, and redefines concepts of individual and social responsibility. Such labor market changes are also interrelated, as cause and effect, with shifts in domestic relations inside the household and family. The impact of these changes has been most obvious for married women. Not only has their involvement in the formal (paid) labor market increased, but so too has their economic position within the family. This gives women more autonomy in decision making, but it has not been without drawbacks. For many women the challenge of balancing works, domestic responsibilities, and the imperatives of everyday urban life, have increased, not decreased. Smaller families, and the dispersion of extended families in contemporary urbanized societies, have in combination also reduced the level of kinship support systems available to these women. The structure of family has undergone considerable changes. This study is an attempt to know the extent of changes which have taken place in the family structure. ACADEMIC REVIEW: Urbanization is the process whereby large numbers of people congregate and settle in an area, eventually developing social institutions, such as businesses and government, to support themselves (Orum, 2004). Urban areas, or those pockets of people and institutions thereby

created, are generally characterized as relatively dense settlements of people. Furthermore, it is claimed, they sometimes originate from the effort by authorities to consciously concentrate power, capital, or both at a particular site. Urbanization is the physical growth of town areas by in-migration and increase in the number of population of the residents of the towns to wider and metropolitan ones. Carter (1995) says that it is the predominant process in the spatial organization of the worlds population. In the view of Iqbal (1998), urbanization process is the whole exercise of simultaneous, gradual growth of urban areas. This process works hand in hand with social change and modernization in order for the populations to get new cultures and cultural identities. The urban processes are driven by market forces and government policies that lead to simultaneous processes of change in livelihoods, land use, health and natural resources management including water, soil and even forests and even reactive rejuvenation of in local governance (Kelvin & Pogal, 2012). Urbanization process has a great impact on the lives of the populations both positively and negatively hence making the life of the urban residents to be socially changed as one develops a new lifestyle (Kelvin & Pogal, 2012). People have to cope to the lives of the urban areas that are economically friendly and unfriendly to others, time conscious and socially changed. Urbanization process has the impact on the food security, health, education, administration and security, environment and natural resources, transport and communication, housing, politics and social classes among others. Gupta (1976) emphasized the two processes under family structure. They are: process of nucleation and process of extension. The process of nucleation has to be understood in the light of ongoing pressures of industrialization and urbanization and development to a new structural ideal. This can make process of extensions also possible where a branch of the family migrates to urban area and members get benefits from it in terms of education, health, job and recreation. He argued that this is difficult to say whether family is a functional unity. It may be expanding its horizon, occasionally diversifying its interests, meeting its changing needs and individual aspirations. He raised certain areas requiring probing like:

What kinds of family forms are conducive to what kind of changes? Why people have preference for low age at marriage and how it could be tackled and studied in proper direction etc. Naik (1979) studied the structural aspects of family focusing on whether industrialization and urbanization lead to the disintegration of joint family in India. He also analyzed certain other structural aspects of family like size of household, composition of household, dependence pattern, occupational pattern and household income. He observed that decreased level of industrialization and urbanization have not brought decline in the proportion of nuclear family which was the characteristic feature of the Indian society. Similarly education, caste and religion have not affected the type of family. However certain collective trades and enterprises have played a role and there were more joint families. Olson, McCubblin, Larsen, Muxen, and Wilson (1983) studied normal families across the family life cycle and their coping with stress. The study had five major theoretical dimensions: family type, family resources, family stress and changes, family coping and family marital satisfaction. The findings indicated different perception among family members and differences between stages. Family strengths and family strains also varied considerably at different stages of family life cycle. Individuals primarily relied on internal resources rather than external resources for coping with stress. They found strong relationship between marital satisfaction, family satisfaction and overall quality of life. Satisfaction increased family satisfaction and overall quality of life. Satisfaction increased with higher levels of cohesion and adaptability. When family satisfaction was high, stress had minimal impact on the family. Balanced family type seem to function more adequately across the family life cycle but the different family types seem to function better at different stages. Marital and family strengths appeared to be very significant, positive characteristics of families. Although parents provide or at least wish to provide all possible social functions to their children, either themselves or through institutes yet other family members also need to take advantage of available facilities for fulfilling their social desires. In different parts of the world, well established institutes, which provide social outlets, do exist and people take all possible

benefits from them. In our society lack of education and poverty are main reasons for an undeveloped infra structure of social institutes. However efforts have been made and more institutions, proving social functions; do now exist in urban areas but their performances are not satisfactory. Important questions are that if institutions exist, are they capable enough to provide social functions? And that, do they have expected impact on society or not? Since formal social institutions are available in our urban areas, we asked our respondents how they feel about the impact of different social institutions on our society, on our families and on common people. The most important question regarding the performance of various institutions is to determine whether these institutions have received confidence of the people or not. We have asked our respondents to tell us what impact they feel, these institutions have continued and what the level of impact is. Weak family structure in our society is not a good sign as our entire society depends upon close family relationships (Iqbal, 1998). We may also observe that the family bindings of our society are getting weaker. Urbanization process has quite a number of impacts on both society and its populations as it influences their lives either positively or negatively. The urban residents have to adapt to the new changes in order for them to fit in the environment and also for them to live a comfortable life (Kelvin & Pogal, 2012). As much as there seem to be a slow change of the populations way of livelihoods, they gain new experiences, languages and they also diversify their cultures through interaction hence change in their social lives. Urbanization process is dynamic and seems to change towards its improvement by modernization through technology and industries making the populations increase the more. The evolution to an urban society is also frequently equated with a decline in the status of the family, and with a proliferation of nontraditional family forms and new types of households. By nontraditional we mean those families without two parents and/or without children. This trend is in part a reflection of an increasing diversity in choices of living arrangements. This concept is used in the scholarly literature to refer to the myriad of ways in which individuals in an urban society combine to form collective units (i.e., households). Those combinations may follow from marriage, the traditional arrangement, or from any other association of individuals

within the housing system whether those individuals are related by marriage or blood, or are unrelated. Historically, of course, living arrangements in the past or in rural areas were never as homogeneous or traditional as the literature would have us believe. Nevertheless, the last halfcentury, notably in the Western countries, has witnessed an explosion in rates of household formation and a sharp increase in the diversity of household and family types. For most of the period since World War II, rates of household formationthat is, the propensity to establish a separate householdhas been much higher (indeed 50% higher) than the rate of population growth, and the rate of nonfamily household formation (whose members are not related by blood or marriage) has been higher still (Urbanization, n.d.). This proliferation has many causes, including rising incomes, higher divorce rates, lower marriage rates, and alternative life styles. URBANIZATION & FAMILY PROBLEMS: When an individual, a group or a community moves from one place to another, it faces a large number of problems even if the difference between the two places is not too much. On contrary if a migration by an individual, a group or a community takes place from a rural place to an urban one, they are encountered with immense problems. Although rural dwellers enjoy many facilities in urban area yet they have to face many sacrifices. We may list a large number of problems thus faced, among which the most important is traditional values. In a conservative society, like in our rural areas, traditions are the most important part of ones life. Rural areas have their own ways of life based upon old and well adopted traditions whereas in urban areas people come from different parts of the country with diverse cultural backgrounds and thus has many affection for the newly migrated people who left behind a closed and very traditional environment (Iqbal, 1998). Females and children especially find many good traditions in an urban society. However old members of the family find it very difficult to adjust with the changes. Naturally, some of the family traditions are to be kept alive, such as caring of elders, neighbors etc. on contrary, in urban structure, the traditions get outdated. In addition, the migrated families also face other problems due to urbanization. URBANIZATION & ITS EFFECTS: A GLOBAL VIEW

At this moment we are facing, for the first time in the history of mankind, a change in the numerical proportion of population (Dociu & Dunarintu, 2012). The share of global urban population overcomes the rural population as result of recent statistics realized by specialists: 60% of the global population will live in urban areas until 2030, considering that the urban population in 1930 was 30% of the total global population 3.3 billion people live today in urban space Approximately 180,000 people move in urban areas daily 60 million people from undeveloped countries move annually into urban spaces (urbanization has a magnitude much more pronounced than in developed countries).

GLOBAL POPULATION EVOLUTION URBANIZATION, SOCIAL CHANGE & MODERNIZATION: Urbanization has impacts on social change and modernization which are parts of a continuum rather than empirically separate issues. The contention here is that urban areas: (a) generate and transmit innovations to less urbanized as well as rural areas; (b) expand communications mechanisms; and (c) provide ready access to scientific and technological knowledge. Some of the typical infrastructural facilities in cities include the basic and most desired social services (schools, health facilities, and piped water), better and more flexible means of transport and communication and entertainment opportunities, all of which

distinguish urban areas from rural areas (United Nations Commission on Human Settlements [UNCHS], 1994). Conversely, cities constitute the hubs of vice, including numerous social, economic, political and environmental problems which often increase faster in these localities than they would in rural areas. A balanced treatment of the impact of urbanization is therefore useful, though empirical evidence suggests that positive aspects generally outweigh negative ones. Broad perspectives in population growth and policies in some mega-cities - Bangkok (Thailand), Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi and Madras (India), Cairo (Egypt), Dhaka (Bangladesh), Jakarta (Indonesia), Karachi (Pakistan), Metro Manila (Philippines) and Seoul (Republic of Korea) - have been published in a series by the United Nations, revealing much about the role of cities in spatial, economic and social change (UNCHS, 1994).