Abstract
Family change across societies is a complex issue that raised considerable debates throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Particular attention was given at the time to the unequal pace of family change according to countries or regions in the world, with a hypothesized similar turn to the dominance of the nuclear family in all national contexts, Western or non-Western (e.g., Goode 1963). Since then, family sociology has rebuffed the nuclearization thesis and has, to the contrary, stressed historical trends of family pluralization away from the nuclear family that are present in all Western nations (Lesthaeghe 1995). Decreasing rates of marriage and fertility, and increasing rates of divorce, childlessness, and cohabitation outside marriage have enhanced the diversity of family structures present in any national contexts compared with the 1960s. It also has increased the likelihood of individuals experiencing life outside a nuclear family at least once in their lives. This pluralization was perceived by some as dooming the family as an institution (Beck 1992; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim 1995; Popenoe 1988), firing strong opposite understandings in family sociology (Stacey 1990).
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Notes
- 1.
The value of the structural dimension of this condition is encoded ‘free’ if inheritance patterns are free and not limited by reserves, and it is encoded ‘limited’ if the inheritance patterns are limited by reserves. The value of the institutional dimension of this condition related to fiscal tax is encoded ‘kin independent’ if the fiscal tax is lower than 30 % and the amount of deduction is higher than €100,000, and it is encoded ‘kin-dependent’ if the fiscal tax is higher than 30 % and the amount of deduction is lower than €100,000. Information on these issues was collected from the following links: http://www.successions-europe.eu; http://www.notaires.fr for Spain, Italy, Cyprus, Germany, France, Austria, Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, and Finland; http://www.ge.ch/succession/ for Switzerland; http://www.justice.gouv.ca for Canada; http://www.cleiss.fr for the USA.
- 2.
The value of the structural dimension of this condition is encoded ‘high’ if the rate of employment among women is higher than the mean European rate, and it is encoded ‘low’ if the rate of employment is lower than the mean European rate (EU-27, Eurostat 2011). The value of the institutional dimension of this condition related to pensions and unemployment benefits is encoded ‘universal’ if pension and unemployment benefits are universal, and it is encoded ‘contributive’ if pension and unemployment benefits are limited for their amount and duration of the contributions.
- 3.
The value of the structural dimension of this condition is encoded ‘high’ if the rate of heterogamous marriages is higher than 50 %, and it is encoded ‘low’ if the rate of heterogamous marriages is lower than 50 %. The value of its institutional dimension is encoded ‘increasing’ if the rate of heterogamous marriages increased among the young birth cohort, and it is encoded ‘decreasing’ if the rate of heterogamous marriages decreased among the young birth cohort. Information on these issues was collected from the results of respective analysis of Panel data in various countries (Blossfeld and Timm 2003).
- 4.
The value of the structural dimension of this condition is encoded ‘high’ if the rate of fertility is higher than the mean European rate, and it is encoded ‘low’ if the rate of fertility is lower than the mean European rate (EU-27, Eurostat 2011). The value of the institutional dimension of this condition is linked to conciliation between the family and work is encoded ‘developed’ if the measures of conciliation between the family and work are developed, and it is encoded ‘undeveloped’ if the measures of conciliation between the family and work for women are undeveloped. The value of the institutional condition related to the attribution of child benefits is encoded as ‘universal’ if the child benefits are universal, and it is encoded as ‘limited’ if the attribution of child benefits is limited by income and other family characteristics.
- 5.
The value of the structural dimension of this condition is encoded ‘high’ if the rate of divorce is higher than the mean European rate, and it is encoded ‘low’ if the rate of divorce is lower than the mean European rate (EU-27, Eurostat 2011). The value of the institutional dimension of this condition is encoded ‘universal’ if the attribution of single-parent benefits is universal, and it is encoded ‘limited’ if the attribution of single-parent benefits is nonuniversal and limited by family characteristics.
- 6.
The value of the structural dimension of this condition is encoded ‘high’ if the rate of participation of children in the educational system is higher than the mean European rate, and it is encoded ‘low’ if the rate of participation in the educational system is lower than the mean European rate (EU-27, Eurostat 2011). The value of the institutional dimension of this condition is encoded ‘developed’ if the social measures for participation of children in the educational system are developed, and it is encoded ‘undeveloped’ if the social measures for participation of children in the educational system are undeveloped.
- 7.
The value of the structural dimension of this condition is encoded ‘high’ if the rate of industrial production in GDP was higher than the mean rate of the selected countries in 1969, and it is encoded ‘low’ if the rate of industrial production in GDP was lower than the mean rate of the selected countries. The value of the institutional dimension of this condition is encoded ‘universal’ if the character of social policies is universal, and it is encoded ‘limited’ if the character of social policies is limited by contributions (Cipolla 1976).
- 8.
High family salience in sociability corresponds to a high probability for the clusters ‘Parents’ or ‘Children’ in the country, which involves frequent interactions with either of them. Low family salience in sociability corresponds to a high probability for the clusters ‘Kinship’, ‘Associations’, or ‘Sparse contacts’ in the country. Those clusters involve only few and nonregular interactions with family members (Ganjour and Widmer 2016).
- 9.
High family salience in solidarity norms corresponds to a high probability of the cluster ‘Family support’ for the country, which involves strong beliefs that adult children should take care of their elderly parents. Low family salience in solidarity norms corresponds to a high probability of the other clusters, which grant a higher priority to state support or self-reliance (Ganjour and Widmer 2016).
- 10.
Morphological conditions shown in uppercase letter promote social development (SD) and are recoded as 1. Morphological conditions shown in lowercase letters do not promote SD and are recoded as 0.
- 11.
The parsimonious solution presents the case when all possible configurations of conditions are included in the analysis. The conditions are included in the parsimonious combination depending on their scores of inclusion. Conditions with a high score of inclusion are defined as ‘main conditions’, while conditions with a low score of inclusion are defined as ‘supplementary conditions’ (Rihoux and Ragin 2009).
- 12.
Note that the inclusion of other sets of conditions may produce distinct results. It is also likely that sociability practices and solidarity norms will have an effect of their own on the likelihood that divorce develops a high centrality in such or such society. Therefore, a reciprocal causation is also possible. It was not the purpose of this chapter to provide a deterministic analysis of the societal factors of family salience, but rather to increase awareness about the configurational dimension of such salience with regard to macrosociological dimensions.
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Acknowledgments
This paper is supported by the Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research LIVES – Overcoming Vulnerability: Life Course Perspectives – financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation.
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Widmer, E.D., Ganjour, O. (2017). Family Salience Across Nations: Configurations of Morphological Conditions. In: Česnuitytė, V., Lück, D., D. Widmer, E. (eds) Family Continuity and Change. Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59028-2_3
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