Transitions to parenthood in Europe


Book Description

This collaborative study provides a subtle and multi-layered understanding of the transition to parenthood within a cross-national comparative framework.




Couples' Transitions to Parenthood


Book Description

It is common for European couples living fairly egalitarian lives to adopt a traditional division of labour at the transition to parenthood. Based on in-depth interviews with 334 parents-to-be in eight European countries, this book explores the implications of family policies and gender culture from the perspective of couples who are expecting their first child. Couples’ Transitions to Parenthood: Analysing Gender and Work in Europe is the first comparative, qualitative study that explicitly locates couples’ parenting ideals and plans in the wider context of national institutions.




Lone Parenthood in the Life Course


Book Description

Lone parenthood is an increasing reality in the 21st century, reinforced by the diffusion of divorce and separation. This volume provides a comprehensive portrait of lone parenthood at the beginning of the XXI century from a life course perspective. The contributions included in this volume examine the dynamics of lone parenthood in the life course and explore the trajectories of lone parents in terms of income, poverty, labour, market behaviour, wellbeing, and health. Throughout, comparative analyses of data from countries as France, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Switzerland, Hungary, and Australia help portray how lone parenthood varies between regions, cultures, generations, and institutional settings. The findings show that one-parent households are inhabited by a rather heterogeneous world of mothers and fathers facing different challenges. Readers will not only discover the demographics and diversity of lone parents, but also the variety of social representations and discourses about the changing phenomenon of lone parenthood. The book provides a mixture of qualitative and quantitative studies on lone parenthood. Using large scale and longitudinal panel and register data, the reader will gain insight in complex processes across time. More qualitative case studies on the other hand discuss the definition of lone parenthood, the public debate around it, and the social and subjective representations of lone parents themselves. This book aims at sociologists, demographers, psychologists, political scientists, family therapists, and policy makers who want to gain new insights into one of the most striking changes in family forms over the last 50 years. This book is open access under a CC BY License.




New Parents in Europe


Book Description

This innovative book explores the different ways in which dual-earner couples in contemporary welfare states plan for, realize and justify their divisions of work and care during the transition to parenthood. Providing a unique comparative, longitudinal and qualitative analysis of new parents in eight European countries, this timely book explicitly locates couples’ beliefs and negotiations in the wider context of national institutional structures.




Social Europe


Book Description

Social Europe analyses the diverse dynamics of the lives of people across Europe. It is the first quantitative analysis of its kind to make a systematic comparison of life chances across the fifteen countries of the EU. This wide perspective enables the researchers to illustrate how social policy regimes interact with personal resources and circumstances to affect people's well-being. Assessing changes in individuals' lives over time, the study highlights variations in life-opportunities across the EU in the key domains of family, employment and income. The research is based on a new and powerful survey that has followed a large sample of families in each country over a period of years. This 'longitudinal' approach provides insights into the processes by which people acquire their social positions over time. The analysis identifies systematic differences between countries, and looks for explanations in terms of the welfare regime or other characteristics of the countries concerned. Thus the 'micro' dynamics of personal experience are related to 'macro' trends in institutions and policies, social norms and economic conditions. Identifying the effects of country and of social policy regime on individual outcomes, Social Europe will provide new insights for social scientists, especially those involved in European comparative research, or whose interests lie in the fields of family, employment, income or social exclusion. The book will also appeal to those engaged in the analysis or formulation of social policy, whether at national or international level.




Work, Family Policies and Transitions to Adulthood in Europe


Book Description

This book analyzes how the current generation of young adults enters the labour market and tries to create their own autonomous household, with or without children, exploring questions such as what does it mean to be a young adult in Europe today and what social policies help them to combine work and family life?




Work, families and organisations in transition


Book Description

Across Europe the importance of reconciling paid work and family life is increasingly recognised by a range of diverse government regulations and organisational initiatives. At the same time, employing organisations and the nature of work are undergoing massive and rapid changes, in the context of global competition, efficiency drives, as well as social and economic transformations in emerging economies. Work, families and organisations in transition illustrates how workplace practices and policies impact on employees' experiences of work-life balance in contemporary shifting contexts. Based upon cross-national case studies of public and private sector workplaces carried out in Bulgaria, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden, the Netherlands and the UK, this innovative book demonstrates the challenges that parents face as they seek to negotiate work and family boundaries. The case studies demonstrate that employed parents' needs and experiences depend on many layers of context - global, European, national, workplace and family. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students of organisational psychology, sociology, management and business studies, human resource management, social policy, as well as employers, managers, trade unions and policy makers.




Transitions to Parenthood in Europe


Book Description

This book takes a life course perspective, analysing and comparing the biographies of mothers and fathers in seven European countries in context.




Policy Implications of Changing Family Formation


Book Description

Modern European societies are witnessing a number of key changes in family structures, such as postponed parenthood, low fertility, single parenting and increased divorce rates. As a consequence of the radical changes taking place in our societies, family policies often result in a complex set of targeted and sometimes contradictory measures and forms of public intervention. The three authors of this volume review the major demographic challenges posed by changing patterns in family and family formation and strive to identify possible policy responses by governments. They stress the need for all levels of government and the private sector to adopt an integrated and balanced approach to policy in order to create cohesive and family-friendly societies. This volume is a thematic compilation of the background papers on the policy implications of changing family formations prepared for the European Population Conference (Strasbourg, 7-8 April 2005).




30 Years of Transition in Europe


Book Description

This thought-provoking book investigates the political and economic transformation that has taken place over the past three decades in Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CESEE) since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Through an examination of both the successes and shortcomings of post communist reform and the challenges ahead for the region, it explores the topical issues of economic transition and integration, and highlights lessons to be learned.