Families in Context - Extensive Summary

INHOUDSOPGAVE

Families in context - lecture 1 ............................................................................................................................................ 2
does the definition of ‘family’ matter? ....................................................................................................................................2

Families in context - lecture 2 .......................................................................................................................................... 10
life courses in context ............................................................................................................................................................10

Families in context - lecture 3 .......................................................................................................................................... 17
Who partners? And with whom? Does it matter? .................................................................................................................17

Families in context - lecture 4 .......................................................................................................................................... 25
(not) becoming a parent and does the transition matter? ....................................................................................................25

Families in context - lecture 5 .......................................................................................................................................... 38
Parenting and social class......................................................................................................................................................38

Families in context - lecture 6 .......................................................................................................................................... 46
who does what within families ..............................................................................................................................................46

Families in context - lecture 7 .......................................................................................................................................... 56
ending partnerships and what happens after? ......................................................................................................................56

Families in context - lecture 9 .......................................................................................................................................... 66
Intergenerational relationships: The strength of parent-child ties ........................................................................................66




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,FAMILIES IN CONTEXT - LECTURE 1
DOES THE DEFINITION OF ‘FAMILY’ MATTER?




DOES THE DEFINITION OF ‘FAMILY’ MATTER?

Law

• Obligations (e.g., to provide care – filial responsibility)
• Rights (e.g., decision-making, migration)

Credibility / “value” (e.g., “to start a family”)



POSSIBLE DEFINITION

“The family is a social group characterized by common residence, economic cooperation, and reproduction. It
includes adults of both sexes, at least two of whom maintain a socially approved sexual relationship, and one or
more children, own or adopted, of the sexually cohabiting adults.”

SO: THE TRADITIONAL (NUCLEAR) FAMILY?

Based on legally endorsed and biological ties.

IF WE DEPART FROM SUCH A DEFINITION:

“an unprecedented decline of the family as a social institution”

• Researchers in the 90’s were worried about what they were seeing within families and the definition.

What is this fear based on? à this is based on a research from the Netherlands:

PARTNERSHIPS: DIVORCE

% Dutch 15-year-olds who experienced parental death or divorce, by birth generation




There was a very rapid increase in divorce

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,IN MARRIAGE

There was also a drop in non-married people in the Netherlands




You see across time, legally partnerships and marriage really dropped.

FERTILITY: NUMBER OF CHILDREN PER WOMAN

In several countries you see a lot of drops in fertility. There are less children per family.




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, UNPRECEDENTED DECLINE OF ‘THE’ FAMILY?

Is there a problem with endorsing this point of view? That we see a decline of a family as a social institution?

• Endorsing that statement means that anything deviating from ‘the’ pattern is “unusual, or even exotic”
(Nauck, 2021, p.42)
• However, that vision of “the” family captured a specific moment in time (and definitely: the experience of
a specific group/place).



DIVERSITY HAS ALWAYS BEEN THE NAME OF THE GAME

We have always seen massive diversity in family forms. How

Numerous examples of diversity rather than uniformity




Disclaimer: This divide could also be an oversimplification; meaningful diversity found within regions too (see
Szoltysek, 2015).

Abundance of other examples of family variations even within countries

• Coontz, S. (1992/2016). The way we never were: American families and the nostalgia trap. New York, NY:
Basic Books.
• Gillis, J. R. (1996). A world of their own making: Myth, rituals, and the quest for family values. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.



BACK TO STATEMENT: “UNPRECEDENTED DECLINE OF THE FAMILY”

That vision of “the” family (the ‘traditional’ nuclear family) captured a specific moment in time and the experience
of a specific group (white, middle-class, parts of Global North)

• More the families we “live by” rather than the families we “live with” (Gillis, 1996)



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