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Theories of Household Formation: Progress and Challenges

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Household Demography and Household Modeling

Abstract

The demography of family, kinship, and household has made great strides in recent years, but as with demography generally, the theory of the sub-field has lagged behind. This may reflect the difficulty of the subject matter, but it also may reflect a general neglect of systematic theory by mainstream demography. Four frameworks for the study of household status decision-making are reviewed, and four challenges to future theoretical work identified: 1) giving adequate attention to supply factors; 2) exploring the subjective realm (perceptions, time horizons, preferences); 3) studying households and families in the broader context of networks and community; 4) taking seriously the temporal dimension of family and household formation.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Population Studies Centre, University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, N6A 5C2, Canada

    Thomas K. Burch

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  1. Thomas K. Burch
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI), The Hague, The Netherlands

    Evert van Imhoff  & Leo van Wissen  & 

  2. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Anton Kuijsten

  3. Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Pieter Hooimeijer

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Burch, T.K. (1995). Theories of Household Formation: Progress and Challenges. In: van Imhoff, E., Kuijsten, A., Hooimeijer, P., van Wissen, L. (eds) Household Demography and Household Modeling. The Plenum Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5424-7_4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-5424-7_4

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-3251-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4757-5424-7

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