Kathleen Kiernan - Böcker

This is the first book to systematically track postwar changes in family formation in Western Europe and the United States. Cohabitation and motherhood outside of marriage have become more widespread at the same time that women’s social roles are evolving. Women are attaining higher levels of education, marrying at an older age, more frequently working outside the home, and have more reproductive freedom due to new advances in contraception. In this original collection of essays, sociologists and demographers from eight Western European countries and the United States use longitudinal data to compare national variations and explain the connection between the new role of women and family formation in postwar society. The contributors provide a thorough review of the social demographic literature to advance a variety of hypotheses about the relationships between changing women’s education and family formation outcomes, which are empirically examined and compared across countries.

This is the first book to systematically track postwar changes in family formation in Western Europe and the United States. Cohabitation and motherhood outside of marriage have become more widespread at the same time that women’s social roles are evolving. Women are attaining higher levels of education, marrying at an older age, more frequently working outside the home, and have more reproductive freedom due to new advances in contraception. In this original collection of essays, sociologists and demographers from eight Western European countries and the United States use longitudinal data to compare national variations and explain the connection between the new role of women and family formation in postwar society. The contributors provide a thorough review of the social demographic literature to advance a variety of hypotheses about the relationships between changing women’s education and family formation outcomes, which are empirically examined and compared across countries.

Our volume examines the potential for change during the life course and across generations. We address the possibilities for promoting healthy development from infancy to adulthood in three key domains: human capital, partnership behavior, and child and adolescent development. Drawing from the disciplines of economics, demography, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry, our volume takes a multidisciplinary approach to review relevant empirical work regarding aspects of change and continuity, and the ways in which policies and programs might bring about change. We feature chapters from leading researchers in five countries to address these important issues. The main purpose of our volume is to link and integrate the lessons learned from multiple disciplines about change and continuity in order to examine how our nations can improve life chances.