Family policies and family life course complexity across 20th-century Europe

2019 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 320-338 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zachary Van Winkle
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Family Formation ◽  
Empirical Studies ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
The Family ◽  
Life Courses ◽  
The Life Course

The family policy landscape changed dramatically across and within European societies during the 20th century. At the same time, family life courses have become more complex, unstable and unpredictable. However, there are no empirical studies that attempt to link changes in family policies with increasing family life course complexity. In this study, I address two research questions: (1) What is the association between family policies and family life course complexity? and (2) Do these associations vary by the life course stage at which individuals experience family policies? Retrospective data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe are used to construct the family life courses of individuals from the age of 15 to 50, born between 1924 and 1956, from 15 European countries. I use metrics developed in sequence analysis that incorporate life course transitions and unpredictability to measure the complexity of family formation. Annual policy information from 1924 to 2008 for each country are combined to generate cohort indices for three policy dimensions: familization, individualization and liberalization. These cohort metrics express the policy experiences of individuals over the course of their lives, rather than at a specific historical time point. I find that while familization is associated with less complex life courses, individualization is related to higher levels of complexity. Furthermore, my results indicate that the levels individualization experienced early and later in the life course are linked most strongly with complexity. I conclude that family policy reforms may partially account for increasing life course instability and unpredictability across Europe.

scholarly journals Family policies’ long-term effects on poverty: a comparative analysis of single and partnered mothers

2022 ◽  
pp. 095892872110356
Author(s):  
Hannah Zagel ◽  
Wim Van Lancker
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Single Mothers ◽  
Transition To Parenthood ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
The Other ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Child Benefits ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Over Time

This study investigates whether generous family policies at the transition to parenthood reduce single and partnered mothers’ economic disadvantages later in the life course. Previous research usually focused on the immediate effects of family policies and disregards potential longer-term effects. In this study, we suggest taking a life-course perspective to study the relationships between family policy and mothers’ poverty risks. We empirically investigate how investment in child benefits, childcare services and parental leave measures at the transition to parenthood are associated with poverty outcomes at later life stages and whether these associations hold over time. We draw on pooled EU-SILC data, and an original policy dataset based on OECD expenditure data for child benefits, childcare and parental leave from 1994 to 2015. We find that mothers’ observed increase in poverty over time is slower in countries with high levels of spending for childcare at the transition to parenthood than in lower spending countries. The gap between partnered and single mothers was also diminishing in contexts of high childcare expenditure. For the other two policies, we did not find these links. These results do lend support to the claim that childcare is a prime example of a social investment policy with returns later in the life course and represents a life-course policy that seems to be able to disrupt economic path dependencies. The results for the other two policies suggest, however, a limited potential of family policy spending at transition to parenthood to reduce the poverty gap between partnered and single mothers over the course of life.

Multidimensional Developmental Pathways: A Proposal to Facilitate the Conceptualisation of ‘Family Diversity’

1986 ◽  
Vol 34 (3) ◽  
pp. 590-610 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Bernardes
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Developmental Pathways ◽  
Developmental Pathway ◽  
Central Type ◽  
Family Diversity ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Rich ◽  
The Life Course

This analysis takes Elder's work on the life-course as a starting point. Two proposals are made: (1) That the sociological use of the concept of ‘the family’ should be restricted to indicate only the occurrence of everyday usage; (2) That the notion of the ‘family life-course’ be replaced by the notion of individual life-courses coinciding upon developmental pathways. In this way the idea of a central type of ‘the family’ is made redundant and we are required, instead, to discover when and why participants refer to a particular developmental pathway as being ‘a family’. This approach not only facilitates the conceptualisation ‘family diversity’ but also compels researchers to engage the rich complexity of everyday life.

scholarly journals Family Life Courses, Gender, and Mid-Life Earnings

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 159-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marika Jalovaara ◽  
Anette Eva Fasang
Keyword(s):  
Family Life ◽  
Stable Marriage ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Regression Methods ◽  
Married Mothers ◽  
Life Courses ◽  
And Gender ◽  
And Cluster Analysis ◽  
The Life Course

Abstract There is a long-standing debate on whether extensive Nordic family policies have the intended equalizing effect on family and gender differences in economic outcomes. This article compares how the combination of family events across the life course is associated with annual and accumulated earnings at mid-life for men and women in an egalitarian Nordic welfare state. Based on Finnish register data (N = 12,951), we identify seven typical family life courses from ages 18 to 39 and link them to mid-life earnings using sequence and cluster analysis and regression methods. Earnings are highest for the most normative family life courses that combine stable marriage with two or more children for men and women. Mid-life earnings are lowest for unpartnered mothers and never-partnered childless men. Earnings gaps by family lives are small among women but sizeable among men. Gender disparities in earnings are remarkably high, particularly between men and women with normative family lives. These gaps between married mothers and married fathers remain invisible when looking only at motherhood penalties. Results further highlight a large group of (almost) never-partnered childless men with low earnings who went largely unnoticed in previous research.

scholarly journals THE EVOLUTION OF THE STATE FAMILY POLICY IN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES: CHANGING PROBLEMS, PRIORITIES AND PRACTICES

2013 ◽  
pp. 291-302
Author(s):  
A. V. Noskova
Keyword(s):  
Family Life ◽  
Family Policy ◽  
Family Studies ◽  
The State ◽  
European Countries ◽  
Social Dimension ◽  
Family Policies ◽  
The Family ◽  
Xix Century ◽  
European Family

The paper describes some common peculiarities in evolution of the State family politics and policies in Europe since the middle of the XIX century to our days. Неге we define the family policy widely enough as the state activity (ideological, legislative, economic, social) concerning a family. The State family policy has four main dimensions such as demographical, social, gender and existential ones. The analysis of the long-term trends in European family policies made it possible to draw four main periods in its evolution. A set of the main problems, priorities and practices is defined for each period. The article also presents the links between the origin of every new period and the changing families, demographical and social realities. The first period (from the second half of the XIX century till the end of the 1940th) is described as the institutionalization of the European family policy. The main problem of this period is the demographic one. The links between the institutionalization of the European family policy and the changes in family life, demographic and social changes in the boundary of the XIX-XX centuries are shown. The second period (the 1950th) is characterized by the development of the social dimension as a part of the becoming European welfare state. In 1950-s, the main focus in family policies was made on the overcoming of the family poverty. The third period (the 1960th – the end of the 1980th) is characterized by a pluralization of the problems, strategies, measures of family policy under the influence of the differentiation of family structures and styles of family life. The fourth period (from the beginning of the 1990th to the present time) deals with reformatting of the conventional relations of the state and a family in the conditions of a new family, demographic, social and economic European context. The article presents the diversity of the family policy models in the European countries in their connection with the political and ideological factors. Special attention is paid to interdisciplinary scientific family studies which are directed to the practical solution of the modern family problems. It is noted that the European scientific centers for family studies and researches play a significant role in the scientific maintenance of European family policy.

Intergenerational Similarity of Religiosity Over the Family Life Course

2017 ◽  
Vol 40 (6) ◽  
pp. 580-596 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joohong Min ◽  
Merril Silverstein ◽  
Tara L. Gruenewald
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Growth Mixture ◽  
Individuation Process ◽  
The Family ◽  
Group Variation ◽  
Life Course Framework ◽  
Similar Class ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Parent Child

Objectives: Research consistently shows that parents influence children’s religiosity. However, few studies acknowledge that there is within-group variation in the intergenerational transmission of religiosity. In this article, we examine whether and how congruence in religiosity between generations changes over the family life course and identifies unique parent–child trajectory classes. Method: We used eight waves of data from the Longitudinal Study of Generations, including 1,084 parent–child dyads beginning in 1971 when the children were adolescents and young adults, followed up to 2005. Growth mixture models (GMM) were tested. Results: GMM revealed four temporal patterns: stable similar, child weakens, child strengthens, and child returns. Results showed that children who were married were more likely to be members of the child-returns class than members of the stable-similar class. Discussion: Results are discussed in terms of the utility of the separation-individuation process and the life-course framework for understanding intergenerational differences and their stability over time.

scholarly journals Family Life Course Trajectories: Results of the Sequence Analysis

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Irma Dirsytė ◽  
Aušra Maslauskaitė
Keyword(s):  
Sequence Analysis ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Family Life ◽  
Formation Process ◽  
Family Formation ◽  
Birth Cohorts ◽  
Family Demography ◽  
Life Trajectories ◽  
Analysis Methods ◽  
The Family

This paper aims to analyse the family life course trajectories of 1970–1984 birth cohorts in Lihuania. It applies the sequence analysis methods and is based on the Families and Inequalities Survey Dataset collected in 2019. The method provides the opportunities to examine the family life course in a holistic way and has not been used in family demography research in Lithuania so far. The results prove that cohabitation became a normative event in the family formation process, the duration of cohabitation increases, however marriage remains the dominant family arrangement for childrearing. Clasterization of sequences revealed four models of family life trajectories, that reflect the diversity and de-standartization of the family life course.

Rural land and credit markets, the permanent income hypothesis and proto-industry: evidence from early modern Zurich

2007 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 489-518 ◽  
Author(s):  
ULRICH PFISTER
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Labour Force ◽  
Permanent Income ◽  
Land Markets ◽  
Permanent Income Hypothesis ◽  
Major Objective ◽  
Debt Contracting ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Life Course ◽  
Empirical Material

ABSTRACTThe study documents fluctuations of proto-industrial income, of occupation, debt and presence on land markets across the life course for rural households in a major proto-industrial region during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. These fluctuations are interpreted on the basis that a major objective of households is to equalize their income across different stages of their development. The permanent income hypothesis is then extended to take into account land purchases and debt-contracting that result from the need to adjust land and capital to fluctuations in the size of the family labour force across the family cycle and from endeavours to improve the family's welfare by increasing the labour to land ratio. The empirical material presented shows marked fluctuations of income from proto-industrial work across the life course and suggests the existence of permanent income-cum-accumulation strategies to cope with these fluctuations.

Transitions, The Family and the Life Course in Historical Perspective

1980 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 211
Author(s):  
Herman R. Lantz ◽  
Tamara K. Harevan
Keyword(s):  
Life Course ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
The Family ◽  
The Life Course
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