Social development and family changes

This book presents various studies that go beyond the mere opposition between macro and micro determinants of social and family changes. The cross-cultural, transdisciplinary and generational perspectives on selection of the partner, marriage, cohabitation, LAT relationships, divorces, ageing and interchanges, children, types of households, inheritance and construction of the domestic space contribute to deepen the analysis of diversity in families and their multiple interactions with cultural, demographic, economic, and social processes. The authors reveal the complex connections between the internal and external spheres of the family, the historical moments and contexts, the intergenerational experiences, the macro-structural processes and the individuals' multiple possibilities of action, between the everyday decision-making and the changes in the families' practices. Exceptional situations, such as catastrophes or economic crises, contribute to the diversification of the family and promote retrocession in gender equality. Crisis and war intensify female care and domestic work. Diversification implies that families are not adscripted to closed systems, determined automatically within also closed societies that portray family as a miniature reflection of social structures. Deconstructing this myth, most of the authors recognize family diversity and its variations in space and time. The understanding of the economic, social, cultural and demographic family processes and practices permits to relate population and society. The duplication of the life expectancy and the reduction of births by almost one half in entire populations worldwide lie behind marriage markets, reproductive practices, generational availability, coexistence probabilities, intergenerational exchange and new and different familial arrangements.