European countries show substantial variation in family policy and in the extent to which policies support more traditional male-breadwinner or more gender egalitarian earner–carer family ...arrangements. Using data from the European Social Survey, the authors implemented multilevel models to analyze variation in fertility intentions of 16,000 men and women according to individual-level characteristics and family policy across 21 European countries. Both traditional and earner–carer family support generosity were positively related to first-birth intentions for men and women. In contrast, only earner–carer support maintains its positive relationship with second birth intentions. Family policy is not in general related to third and higher order parity intentions.
Since the last decade review of the fathering literature in 2000, scholars across numerous disciplines such as demography, family studies, medicine, nursing, law, psychology, social work, and ...sociology have continued to produce a steady stream of work on fathering and father–child relationships. This literature is reviewed selectively with a focus on key developments, persistent challenges, and critical directions for future research. Significant developments include greater availability of large and nationally representative datasets to study fathers; expansion and evaluation of U.S. federal policy regarding fathers; thoughtful consideration of conceptualization and measurement of fathers' parenting; growth in research on coparenting, maternal gatekeeping, and fathering; increased attention to issues of diversity in fathering; and awareness of the effects of fathering on men's development. Persistent challenges and critical new directions in fathering research include full and routine inclusion of fathers in research on parenting, improved assessment and appropriate data analysis, adherence to evidence‐based portrayals of fathers' roles in children's development, generation and use of scientific evidence to guide policy‐making, and sustained attention to diversity and fatherhood. These should be priority areas of focus as fathering research proceeds into the next decades of the 21st century.
Scholarship on work and family topics expanded in scope and coverage during the 2000-2010 decade, spurred by an increased diversity of workplaces and of families, by methodological innovations, and ...by the growth of communities of scholars focused on the work-family nexus. We discuss these developments as the backdrop for emergent work-family research on six central topics: (a) gender, time, and the division of labor in the home; (b) paid work: too much or too little; (c) maternal employment and child outcomes; (d) work-family conflict; (e) work, family, stress, and health; and (f) work-family policy. We conclude with a discussion of trends important for research and suggestions about future directions in the work-family arena.
Modern Families brings together research on parenting and child development in new family forms including lesbian mother families, gay father families, families headed by single mothers by choice and ...families created by assisted reproductive technologies such as in vitro fertilisation (IVF), egg donation, sperm donation, embryo donation and surrogacy. This research is examined in the context of the issues and concerns that have been raised regarding these families. The findings not only contest popular myths and assumptions about the social and psychological consequences for children of being raised in new family forms but also challenge well-established theories of child development that are founded upon the supremacy of the traditional family. It is argued that the quality of family relationships and the wider social environment are more influential in children's psychological development than are the number, gender, sexual orientation, or biological relatedness of their parents or the method of their conception.
Research during the past decade shows that social class or socioeconomic status (SES) is related to satisfaction and stability in romantic unions, the quality of parent-child relationships, and a ...range of developmental outcomes for adults and children. This review focuses on evidence regarding potential mechanisms proposed to account for these associations. Research findings reported during the past decade demonstrate support for an interactionist model of the relationship between SES and family life, which incorporates assumptions from both the social causation and social selection perspectives. This review concludes with recommendations for future research on SES, family processes, and individual development in terms of important theoretical and methodological issues yet to be addressed.
Using person-environment fit theory, this article formulates a conceptual model that links work, family, and boundary-spanning demands and resources to work and family role performance and quality. ...Linking mechanisms include 2 dimensions of perceived work-family fit (work demands-family resources fit and family demands-work resources fit) and a global assessment of perceived work-family balance. Work, family, and boundary-spanning demands and resources are associated with the 2 dimensions of fit, which combine with boundary-spanning strategies to influence work-family balance, which in turn affects role performance and quality. The model provides a framework for clarifying and integrating previous conceptualizations, measures, and empirical research regarding perceived work-family fit and balance as linkages between the work-family interface and outcomes. The article closes with suggestions for further work.
Russia's Great Reforms of 1861 were sweeping social and legal changes that aimed to modernize the country. In the following decades, rapid industrialization and urbanization profoundly transformed ...Russia's social, economic, and cultural landscape. Barbara Alpern Engel explores the personal, cultural, and political consequences of these dramatic changes, focusing on their impact on intimate life and expectations and the resulting challenges to the traditional, patriarchal family order, the cornerstone of Russia's authoritarian political and religious regime. The widely perceived "marriage crisis" had far-reaching legal, institutional, and political ramifications. InBreaking the Ties That Bound, Engel draws on exceptionally rich archival documentation-in particular, on petitions for marital separation and the materials generated by the ensuing investigations-to explore changing notions of marital relations, domesticity, childrearing, and intimate life among ordinary men and women in imperial Russia.
Engel illustrates with unparalleled vividness the human consequences of the marriage crisis. Her research reveals in myriad ways that the new and more individualistic values of the capitalist marketplace and commercial culture challenged traditional definitions of gender roles and encouraged the self-creation of new social identities. Engel captures the intimate experiences of women and men of the lower and middling classes in their own words, documenting instances not only of physical, mental, and emotional abuse but also of resistance and independence. These changes challenged Russia's rigid political order, forcing a range of state agents, up to and including those who spoke directly in the name of the tsar, to rethink traditional understandings of gender norms and family law. This remarkable social history is thus also a contribution to our understanding of the deepening political crisis of autocracy.
Recent studies have confirmed that repeated wartime deployment of a parent exacts a toll on military children and families and that the quality and functionality of familial relations is linked to ...force preservation and readiness. As a result, family-centered care has increasingly become a priority across the military health system. FOCUS (Families OverComing Under Stress), a family-centered, resilience-enhancing program developed by a team at UCLA and Harvard Schools of Medicine, is a primary initiative in this movement. In a large-scale implementation project initiated by the Bureau of Navy Medicine, FOCUS has been delivered to thousands of Navy, Marine, Navy Special Warfare, Army, and Air Force families since 2008. This article describes the theoretical and empirical foundation and rationale for FOCUS, which is rooted in a broad conception of family resilience. We review the literature on family resilience, noting that an important next step in building a clinically useful theory of family resilience is to move beyond developing broad “shopping lists” of risk indicators by proposing specific mechanisms of risk and resilience. Based on the literature, we propose five primary risk mechanisms for military families and common negative “chain reaction” pathways through which they undermine the resilience of families contending with wartime deployments and parental injury. In addition, we propose specific mechanisms that mobilize and enhance resilience in military families and that comprise central features of the FOCUS Program. We describe these resilience-enhancing mechanisms in detail, followed by a discussion of the ways in which evaluation data from the program’s first 2 years of operation supports the proposed model and the specified mechanisms of action.
Patriarchy in East Asia provides a coherent comparative analysis of gender in five East Asian societies. This is the first work of its kind done by a sociologist who is also fluent in all of the ...local languages.
Mazzucato and Schans broaden analyses in the fields of both family and migration studies by examining the effects that migration has on the well-being (defined as psychological, educational, and ...health outcomes) of children who are left in the country of origin. Transnational family arrangements are prevalent worldwide because of stringent migration policies in migrant receiving countries that make it difficult for families to migrate together, families' attempts to escape violent conflict or persecution, or family members' preferences, especially in societies where child fostering is a common practice, such as in many places in Africa.
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