Joint and Nuclear Families
The move from joint family systems to nuclear family systems is a downgrade ecologically, sociologically and psychologically.
Ecologically speaking, since nuclear families live in separate houses they become an additional burden to the nature in providing more building materials, more energy and more products. Not that a nuclear family reduces it by any particular factor, but lot of things can be shared which reduces the number of products and other resources used.
Sociologically and psychologically speaking, joint families inculcate certain values and skills in an individual such as the attitude of sharing, co-operation, co-working, adjustments, sacrifices, acceptance of diverse characters, emotional well-being, etc. In other words, family as a value is inculcated, which is lost when the group becomes smaller and smaller as in a nuclear family.
While there are shortcomings in a joint family system such as a small compromise on personal liberty and space, all of them can be sorted out without having the need to split into nuclear families. Such solutions will be true and progressive solutions because it does not sacrifice the core values and benefits of a system just to solve any imperfections of the system.