This volume compares recent family patterns in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and other Asian countries with those found in the United States. Written by distinguished social scientists from Asia and the U.S., the essays in this volume use new surveys and censuses to compare Asian and American patterns of marriage, divorce, women's roles, men's contributions to housework, well-being in marriage, and patterns of contact and exchange between adults and their parents. The volume's results suggest that patterns of family formation and dissolution in Asia are converging with those in the United States in many respects, but that intergenerational relationships remain distinct.
When we compare Eastern and Western societies, we find similar economic and social forces at work. But the impact of these on family life reflects differences in cultural history and social context. This volume examines family change in Korea, Japan, and the United States, allowing us to contrast the collective emphasis of a Confucian social heritage with the individualism of the West. An impressive group of demographers and family sociologists considers such questions as: How do family patterns vary within countries and across societies? How essential are marriage and parenthood? How do levels of contact between middle-aged adults and their parents who live elsewhere differ in East Asian countries and the U.S.? How does female employment vary based on family factors and do these factors affect employment across societies? Policy makers and demographic and family researchers both in the U.S. and Asia will find this book a vital resource for understanding the dynamics of family life in contrasting modern societies. Contributors: Larry L. Bumpass, Yong-Chan Byun, Minja Kim Choe, Karen Oppenheim Mason, Ronald R. Rindfluss, Noriko O. Tsuya.
An international textbook designed as a quick introduction for students from around the world studying sociology of family, this text provides comprehensive coverage of the major topics in the sociology of family life. Written in an easy access style it opens with a chapter on defining family and family structures. It then moves on to discuss over a dozen major topics; from interaction and meaning in families to sexuality. David Cheal provides coverage of these topics by drawing on a variety of international material. Most of the studies focus on contemporary family life but Cheal also presents information on historical changes which have shaped family life as it is known today. This book an incredibly valuable teaching tool as it presents diversity in family patterns through thinking about family life from a global perspective.
Whether considered from an American or a European perspective, the past four decades have seen family life become increasingly complex. Changing Family Dynamics and Demographic Evolution examines the various stages of change through the image of a kaleidoscope, providing new insights into the field of family dynamics and diversity.
This special issue of the Zeitschrift für Familienforschung is based on policy reports for a comparative project that investigated the interaction between changing family forms, changing employment patterns, and family policies in the Nordic Countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, and Norway), The Netherlands, the United Kingdom and G- many. The project was financed by the Nordic Council of Ministers' Welfare Research Programme (2002-2005). Jonathan Bradshaw, Professor of Social Policy, University of York, UK, and Aksel Hatland, Research Director, NOVA, Oslo, Norway, chaired the p- ject. The project team included senior national experts and younger researchers from each country in the study. These were: National experts Peter Abrahamson: Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Ulla Björnberg: Professor of Sociology, Goteborg University, Sweden Dr. Gudny Björk Eydal: Lecturer in Social Work and Sociology, University of Reykjavik, Iceland Katja Forssén: Professor of Social Work, University of Turku, Finland Trudie Knijn: Professor of Social Science, Utrecht University, The Netherlands Stefan Olafsson: Professor of Sociology, University of Reykjavik, Iceland Ilona Ostner: Professor of Social Policy, University of Göttingen, Germany Dr. Anne Skevik: Senior Researcher, NOVA, Oslo, Norway Veli-Matti Ritakallio: Professor of Social Policy, University of Turku, Finland Young researchers Lillemor Dahlgren: Research Assistant, Dept. of Sociology, Goteborg University, Sweden Dr. Naomi Finch: Research Fellow, Social Policy Research Unit, University of York, UK Anne-Mari Jaakola: Doctoral Student, Dept.
Children and parents have become a focus of debates on ‘new social risks’ in European welfare states. Policymaking elites have converged in defining such risks, and they have outlined new forms of parenting support to better safeguard children and activate their potential. Increasingly, parents are suspected of falling short of public expectations. Contributors to this special issue scrutinize this shift towards parenting as performance and analyse recent forms of parenting support.
This book portrays men’s experiences of home alone leave and how it affects their lives and family gender roles in different policy contexts and explores how this unique parental leave design is implemented in these contrasting policy regimes. The book brings together three major theoretical strands: social policy, in particular the literature on comparative leave policy developments; family and gender studies, in particular the analysis of gendered divisions of work and care and recent shifts in parenting and work-family balance; critical studies of men and masculinities, with a specific focus on fathers and fathering in contemporary western societies and life-courses. Drawing on empirical data from in-depth interviews with fathers across eleven countries, the book shows that the experiences and social processes associated with fathers’ home alone leave involve a diversity of trends, revealing both innovations and absence of change, including pluralization as well as the constraining influence of policy, gender, and social context. As a theoretical and empirical book it raises important issues on modernization of the life course and the family in contemporary societies. The book will be of particular interest to scholars in comparing western societies and welfare states as well as to scholars seeking to understand changing work-life policies and family life in societies with different social and historical pathways.
