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The Influence of Personal Networks on Decision Making About Family Formation: Has It Changed?

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Family Continuity and Change

Part of the book series: Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Family and Intimate Life ((PSFL))

Abstract

For centuries, family formation has been associated with the reproduction of family members and the preservation of the socioeconomic status quo inherited by the family (Becker 1993 [1981]). Eventually, strategies, including social norms and control mechanisms of family formation, were developed and integrated into historic European societies (Bourdieu 1976; Lesthaeghe 1980). According to Malthus (1798), matrimonial behaviour depended on the interrelation of two control systems: positive control meaning socioeconomic restrictions to individual choices (i.e., competition in the labour market, unemployment, poverty, others) and preventive control meaning the establishment of social norms and social control (i.e., early marriage or its postponement, conscious celibacy, large families, childlessness, others).

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Acknowledgments

The author wishes to acknowledge the Research Council of Lithuania for funding the project ‘Trajectories of Family Models and Personal Networks: Intergenerational Perspective’ (code No.VP1-3.1-ŠMM-07-K-01-106), making it possible to carry out an investigation, the results of which are presented in this chapter.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Welfare, and Sociological Research Laboratory, Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius, Mykolas Romeris University in Vilnius, University in Vilnius, Lithuania

    Vida Česnuitytė

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  1. Vida Česnuitytė
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Correspondence to Vida Česnuitytė .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Mykolas Romeris University , Vilnius, Lithuania

    Vida Česnuitytė

  2. Federal Institute for Population Research, Wiesbaden, Germany

    Detlev Lück

  3. University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Eric D. Widmer

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Česnuitytė, V. (2017). The Influence of Personal Networks on Decision Making About Family Formation: Has It Changed?. 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_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59028-2_6

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-59027-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-59028-2

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