A Sociology Of Family Life

Family relations are undergoing dramatic changes globally and locally. At the same time, certain features of family life endure. This popular book, now in a fully updated second edition, presents a comprehensive assessment of recent research on 'family', parenting, childhood and interpersonal ties. A Sociology of Family Life queries assumptions about a disintegration of 'the family' by revealing a remarkable persistence of commitment and reciprocity across cultures, within new as well as traditional family forms. Yet, while new kinds of intimate relationships such as 'friends as family' and LGBTQ+ intimacies become commonplace, such personal relationships can still be difficult to negotiate in the face of wider structural norms. With a focus on factors such as class, gender, race, ethnicity and sexuality, this new edition highlights inequalities that influence and curb families and personal life transnationally. Alongside substantial new material on cultural and digital transformations, the book features extensive updates on issues ranging from demography, migration, ageing and government policies to reproductive technologies, employment and care. With a global focus, and blending theory with real-life examples, this insightful and engaging book will remain indispensable to students across the social sciences.

Winner of the 2016 International Dublin Literary Award "Gorgeously tender at its core…beautiful, heartstopping…Family Life really blazes." —Sonali Deraniyagala, New York Times Book Review Hailed as a "supreme storyteller" (Philadelphia Inquirer) for his "cunning, dismaying and beautifully conceived" fiction (New York Times), Akhil Sharma is possessed of a narrative voice "as hypnotic as those found in the pages of Dostoyevsky" (The Nation). In his highly anticipated second novel, Family Life, he delivers a story of astonishing intensity and emotional precision. We meet the Mishra family in Delhi in 1978, where eight-year-old Ajay and his older brother Birju play cricket in the streets, waiting for the day when their plane tickets will arrive and they and their mother can fly across the world and join their father in America. America to the Mishras is, indeed, everything they could have imagined and more: when automatic glass doors open before them, they feel that surely they must have been mistaken for somebody important. Pressing an elevator button and the elevator closing its doors and rising, they have a feeling of power at the fact that the elevator is obeying them. Life is extraordinary until tragedy strikes, leaving one brother severely brain-damaged and the other lost and virtually orphaned in a strange land. Ajay, the family’s younger son, prays to a God he envisions as Superman, longing to find his place amid the ruins of his family’s new life. Heart-wrenching and darkly funny, Family Life is a universal story of a boy torn between duty and his own survival.

This edited collection uses the concept of 'displaying families' as a new way to understand contemporary family and personal life, addressing how, in a world of fluid relationships, family life must not only be 'done' but also be 'seen to be done'.

This accessible introductory text provides students who are encountering the sociology of the family for the first time with a systematic way of thinking about the subject based on a core set of analytical questions.

Does putting your smartphone on the dinner table impact your relationships? How does where you place your TV in your home affect your family? The Stuff of Family Life takes readers inside the changing world of families through a unique examination of their stuff. From digital family photo albums to the growing popularity of “man caves,” author Michelle Janning looks at not only what large demographic studies say about family dynamics but also what our lives—and the stuff in them—say about how we relate to each other. The book takes readers through various phases of family life, including dating, marriage, parenting, divorce, and aging, while paying attention to how our choices about our spaces and objects impact our lives. Janning has joked, “I'm not a social scientist who uses large national datasets to illustrate family life; I’m the social scientist who asks people to examine what’s in their underwear drawers to tell stories about their family life.” From underwear drawers to calendars, The Stuff of Family Life offers an illuminating and entertaining look at the complexities of American families today.

Over the last forty years, the number of American households with a stay-at-home parent has dwindled as women have increasingly joined the paid workforce and more women raise children alone. Many policy makers feared these changes would come at the expense of time mothers spend with their children. In Changing Rhythms of American Family Life, sociologists Suzanne M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, and Melissa Milkie analyze the way families spend their time and uncover surprising new findings about how Americans are balancing the demands of work and family. Using time diary data from surveys of American parents over the last four decades, Changing Rhythms of American Family Life finds that—despite increased workloads outside of the home—mothers today spend at least as much time interacting with their children as mothers did decades ago—and perhaps even more. Unexpectedly, the authors find mothers' time at work has not resulted in an overall decline in sleep or leisure time. Rather, mothers have made time for both work and family by sacrificing time spent doing housework and by increased "multitasking." Changing Rhythms of American Family Life finds that the total workload (in and out of the home) for employed parents is high for both sexes, with employed mothers averaging five hours more per week than employed fathers and almost nineteen hours more per week than homemaker mothers. Comparing average workloads of fathers with all mothers—both those in the paid workforce and homemakers—the authors find that there is gender equality in total workloads, as there has been since 1965. Overall, it appears that Americans have adapted to changing circumstances to ensure that they preserve their family time and provide adequately for their children. Changing Rhythms of American Family Life explodes many of the popular misconceptions about how Americans balance work and family. Though the iconic image of the American mother has changed from a docile homemaker to a frenzied, sleepless working mom, this important new volume demonstrates that the time mothers spend with their families has remained steady throughout the decades.

This lucid and accessible introductory text from a highly regarded author provides students who are encountering the sociology of the family for the first time with a systematic and stimulating way of thinking about the subject based on a core set of analytical questions. Coherent and persuasive, it blends theory with empirical examples drawn from all over the world, thus offering valuable insights into the differences and commonalities between families in quite diverse social and cultural contexts.

Covering a series of issues, this book seeks to reestablish sociology of the family as a key area in undergraduate studies. It provides a theoretical and scholarly overview of the area and includes various essays.

Written by an international team of experts, this comprehensive volume investigates modern-day family relationships, partnering, and parenting set against a backdrop of rapid social, economic, cultural, and technological change. Covers a broad range of topics, including social inequality, parenting practices, children’s work, changing patterns of citizenship, multi-cultural families, and changes in welfare state protection for families Includes many European, North American and Asian examples written by a team of experts from across five continents Features coverage of previously neglected groups, including immigrant and transnational families as well as families of gays and lesbians Demonstrates how studying social change in families is fundamental for understanding the transformations in individual and social life across the globe Extensively reworked from the original Companion published over a decade ago: three-quarters of the material is completely new, and the remainder has been comprehensively updated

Exploring how family life has radically changed in recent decades, this comprehensive Research Handbook tracks the latest developments and trends in scholarly work on the family. With a particular focus on the European context, it addresses current debates and offers insights into key topics including: the division of housework, family forms and living arrangements, intergenerational relationships, partner choice, divorce and fertility behaviour.