These are also values that we will work to uphold in society. Families themselves are in fact a social institution that we can chose to value and support for our greater good. Married couples can usually offer greater financial support and devote more time to socialization of children.
Strong families lead to strong communities and strong communities lead to a strong society. When we have strong family support, we are more likely fill our basic needs. This allows us to be stronger more productive members for the continuation of society.
How do families benefit society? Happy, healthy families lead to individuals who are a contributing part of society. On the other hand, people raised in an unhealthy home environments struggle to be part of society. It hard for them to find their place in the world.
The make up of the societal family units determines the values and actions of the whole. Strong, healthy, happy families are a necessity to society. They teach us how to be part of our community, give back, and be our best selves.
When we can do that, we can build a strong society and civilization. In what ways do you think families have an important influence on society? Do you think the important functions of the family are clear to the younger generation?
Short excerpts of this family blog may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Family Focus Blog with link back to the original content. Duplicating a whole post is strictly prohibited. The Role Of Family In Society The family is considered as the core of the society because it is the place where its members are most personally affected.
The Importance Of Family In Society The family unit plays an important role in making us better people individually as well as better citizens of our society. Family Set Us Up for Future Relationships As part of a nuclear family, children learn how to interact in an appropriate manner to their parents and siblings.
Families Provide a Safe Zone A strong, loving family structure provides a place where children can feel safe. Families Teach Us How to Be Part of Something Through family traditions, connections, and a sense of responsibility, families teach us to love and support others. Families Teach Us Values When children are part of a loving family that teaches discipline and family values, they learn right from wrong and become ingrained with strong values.
Families Are the Strength of Our Society Strong families lead to strong communities and strong communities lead to a strong society. Check out my latest book, Welcome To The Family! Affiliate Amazon link below. Posted January 27 — Read more. Abstract: Many studies have documented a negative association between macroeconomic indicators and fertility in times of economic crisis. These studies are based on research designs that do not allow for excluding that the observed association is driven by confounders.
We apply a difference-in-difference approach to the probability of childlessness in two pseudo-cohorts of white women who entered the age of 34—36 years old being childless before the crisis, in , and at the onset of the crisis, in Our identification strategy relies on the assumption that these two adjacent cohorts of women differ only because the latter cohort lived some critical years of reproductive life during the Great Recession period.
We then study how many childless women aged 34—36 had a child when they were 37—39, between the years and for the control group and between the years and for the treatment group. We argue that an increase of childlessness at the age 37—39 is likely to lead to an increase in permanent childlessness, since major catch-up processes are unlikely after age Our findings suggest that the Great Recession has had a positive, though mild, effect on childlessness of white women at about the age of 40 in the US.
Posted January 11 — Read more. Abstract: This article focuses on remaining childless as a result of certain choices and constraints not on becoming childless as a result of outliving children. There are two main aims of this study. First it seeks to reveal whether any specific features appear when temporarily childless people are compared with those having children in the same cohorts. The focus is on men and women who were childless in and were still childless in According to the findings, events directly connected to childbearing, such as having a stable partner or not having a partner, living in cohabitation or in marriage, have more influence on decisions about becoming parents than normative expectations, while economic factors such as having a job have some impact mainly on postponing childbearing, but do not seem to influence directly whether people will remain childless.
Abstract: Men and masculinity are considered a key factor in changing gender inequality at the transition to parenthood. This paper includes perspectives of fathers and mothers who make use of parental leave in different ways and asks how masculinity is jointly constructed, how these constructions are linked to the use of parental leave, and if and how they are oriented towards hegemonic masculinity.
The analysis is based on 44 qualitative interviews with 11 Austrian couples before and after birth when decisions concerning parental leave were made. Posted December 23 — Read more. Posted December 16 — Read more. Abstract: With the diffusion of marital instability, the number of children who spend some of their childhood without one of their parents has become significant, even in Italy. The study focuses on children aged living with only one biological parent, using data pooled together from two cross-sectional rounds of the Italian survey, Family and Social Subjects.
Posted December 1 — Read more. Abstract: This study investigates the psychological complaints of children in joint physical custody in comparison to children in sole parental care and nuclear families, while controlling for socioeconomic differences and parental ill-health. The results show that children in joint physical custody did not report higher levels of psychological complaints than those in nuclear families, while children in sole parental care reported elevated levels of complaints compared with those in joint physical custody.
Posted November 10 — Read more. We distinguish those who migrated as children 1. We compare both migrant generations to German non-migrants.
Using discrete-time hazard models, our results show that 1. The second generation lies in-between. This pattern also persists after taking the educational attainment of respondents into consideration. However, there seems to be an adaptation of highly educated second generation Turkish migrants to non-migrant Germans: we find no significant differences in the probability of having a first birth in the two groups.
For second births, we do not find this pattern which might be related to the young age structure in the sample of second generation migrants.
We also assessed how these care ideals have shifted in the early twenty-first century. We distinguished four care ideals: warm-modern family and state jointly responsible for caring, egalitarian gender roles , cold-modern large state responsibility, restricted family responsibility, egalitarian gender roles , traditional restricted state responsibility, large family responsibility, moderately traditional gender roles , and cold-traditional large state responsibility, restricted family responsibility, traditional gender roles.
Between and , there has been a shift away from warm-modern care ideals and towards cold-modern care ideals. This is remarkable, because Dutch policy makers have increasingly encouraged family members to take on an active role in caring for dependent relatives. Posted September 30 — Read more. Abstract: This study analyzes the integration dynamics across generations of immigrants in France by focusing on partnership formation patterns. It addresses how the socialization vs.
It compares i the timing of union formation, ii the type of first union cohabitation vs. The results show a convergence towards prevailing French behavior across the generations of immigrants. Second-generation immigrants form their first union later than the first generation. Structural factors such as higher level of education have led to changes in partnership formation patterns over generations of immigrants but the convergence is not complete, and cultural factors have a strong effect, especially for women.
Posted September 14 — Read more. Abstract: During the last century, the proportion of children and adolescents who have experienced a parental divorce or separation has increased dramatically, in Sweden and elsewhere. Vast research has shown that children in these families fare less well than children in intact families, both in the short and in the long run and on a number of outcomes. Much less is known about whether parental divorce means the same for children and adolescents today as it did a century ago.
Have living conditions changed and, if so, how? Moreover, has the association between parental divorce and child well-being changed in magnitude over time? To answer these questions six waves of the Swedish Level of Living Survey were used. Posted August 21 — Read more.
Abstract: Immigrants and their second-generation descendants make up more than a quarter of the current Swedish population. Their nuptiality patterns can be viewed as crucial indicators of their integration into Swedish society. This study provides data on levels of and patterns in marriage formation, divorce, and re-marriage of people in Sweden, by country of origin.
The study is based on analyses of longitudinal register data that cover all residents born in and later who ever lived in Sweden during We find evidence of variation among immigrant groups and between migrants and Swedish-born people in marriage and divorce patterns. A few groups of migrants have relatively high churning rates in family dynamics, with high levels of marriage formation, divorce, and re-marriage.
Abstract: Extensive scholarly literature documents the decline in marriage and increase in non-marital cohabitation and divorce across regions and countries of Europe, but we know less about the extent to which these new family behaviours that have emerged in host societies are adopted by migrants.
The aim of this study is to examine partnership transitions among the migrants and their descendants in Estonia, who mainly originate from the European part of Russia. By investigating an East European context, the study contributes to a more comprehensive account of migrant populations in different socio-economic and cultural settings. The results show that new family formation patterns, associated with the Second Demographic Transition, are less prevalent among migrants.
The results lend support to socialisation, cultural maintenance, and adaptation hypotheses, and underscore the importance of contextual factors. The analysis reveals disruption effects of migration on partnership processes. Posted August 10 — Read more.
Abstract: This study investigates union formation and dissolution among immigrants and their descendants in the UK. We use data from the Understanding Society study and apply the techniques of event history analysis.
The analysis shows significant differences in partnership formation and dissolution among immigrants and ethnic minorities. Women of Caribbean origin have the highest cohabitation and the lowest marriage rates, whereas cohabitation remains rare among immigrants from South Asia and their descendants, as most of them marry directly. Comparing the cases of Spain and Sweden, I argue that different characteristics of regimes and markets—rather paradoxically—produce similar results for the workers.
In both countries, there is pressure to keep the wages low. In Sweden, the private domestic services market expanded after the so-called RUT tax subsidy was implemented in Here, cleaning companies play a key role as middlemen who receive a large share of the cost for these services.
Few actors represent the workers, and those who do find themselves restrained by structural factors as NGOs in Spain or ambiguous in their support as the Swedish trade unions. Abstract: This article compares the fertility patterns of women in consensual union and marriage in 13 Latin American countries, using census microdata from the four most recent census rounds and a methodological approach that combines the own-children method and Poisson regression. Results show that in all these countries, fertility is slightly higher within consensual union than marriage and that the age pattern of fertility is very similar in marital and non-marital unions.
Further analyses show that over the period considered, childbearing within a consensual union has changed from rare to increasingly common, although not yet mainstream, for highly educated women in most countries examined.
The similarities in reproductive behavior between marital and non-marital unions are not confined to the socially disadvantaged groups, but apply as well to the better off. Posted May 26 — Read more. In particular, I test the compensatory class hypothesis which postulates that higher class families compensate the negative effects of disadvantageous life events, such as parental separation. I apply family-fixed effects models to control for unmeasured confounding characteristics of families and use data on siblings from Germany.
I do find indication of substantial negative effects of parental separation on the probability of attending the upper track in secondary school Gymnasium and on school grades in German and Mathematics. These negative consequences of parental separation are limited to children with low-educated parents.
This finding supports the compensatory class hypothesis and demonstrates that research on the consequences of parental separation has to take into account the heterogeneity of separation effects. Posted May 25 — Read more. Mens en maatschappij , 90 1 Abstract: Our point of departure is that normative care beliefs can inform the current care policy debate. We also assess how these care ideals have shifted in the early 21st century.
We distinguish four care ideals: warm-modern family and state jointly responsible for caring, egalitarian gender roles , cold-modern large state responsibility, restricted family responsibility, egalitarian gender roles , traditional restricted state responsibility, large family responsibility, moderately traditional gender roles and cold-traditional large state responsibility, restricted family responsibility, traditional gender roles.
The probability to adhere to a cold-modern care ideal relative to a warm-modern, traditional or cold-traditional care ideal is higher for men than for women. Between and a shift away from warm-modern care ideals and towards cold-modern care ideals has taken place. Abstract: Compensatory advantage is a mechanism of social stratification that complements cumulative advantage and path dependence.
In this article, I first discuss the theoretical foundations of the compensatory advantage and path dependence mechanisms and the methodological challenges that complicate identification of their effects. Next, I present a practical demonstration of the use of the compensatory advantage theoretical framework, with a regression discontinuity design estimating the probability of being continuously promoted throughout primary education in France.
Results indicate that students born just before the cutoff date for primary school entry, who are consequently the youngest in the class when starting school, face a larger risk of grade repetition.
In line with theoretical predictions of the compensatory advantage model, the risk is much smaller for students born to highly educated parents compared to students whose parents have lower educational attainment. Naumann, Ingela, K. Abstract: The importance of investing in early childhood is widely acknowledged in policy circles.
Particularly formal Early Childhood Education and Care ECEC is seen as key to creating equal opportunities and combating poverty by increasing educational achievement of children and supporting parental employment. This social investment perspective has in recent decades supported the rapid development and expansion of ECEC in most European countries. However, the international social investment discourse masks fundamental differences in European ECEC systems and detracts attention from the way ECEC is embedded in the wider welfare regime of a country.
It argues that investing in ECEC is not per se a panacea for social inclusion. Abstract: Transition to parenthood in Switzerland takes place in a particularly gendered institutional context. It is the only European country where men do not have access to any kind of statutory parental or paternity leaves.
This study empirically investigates the extent to which institutional change — through paternity leave implementation at the company level — challenges gendered representations and practices of fatherhood.
The study draws on a mixed methods case study conducted in a public administration which implemented a one-month paid paternity leave.
Results show that paternity leave implementation challenged, in a limited way, gendered representations and practices of fatherhood. Overall, motherhood and fatherhood were associated with different and specialized responsibilities. Fathers mainly had a secondary and temporary role with the newborn, while mothers were the central and taken-for-granted parent. Posted April 27 — Read more. Abstract: Using data from Eurobarometer Surveys — we examine trends and correlates of childlessness intentions and ideals across Europe over the past decade.
We distinguish childlessness as a personal preference personal ideal number of children is zero from intended childlessness intention to have no children as these reflect somewhat different dimensions of childlessness as a conscious decision. We find that, on average, childlessness as a personal preference is relatively rare in Europe, although in some western European countries a sizeable proportion of young adults express a desire to have no children. We analyse factors related to childlessness intentions and ideals on the individual and country levels.
A weaker individual socioeconomic position influences the intention to remain childless through various channels, such as unemployment or low socioeconomic status. Results also indicate that macro-economic conditions do not have a direct impact on intentional childlessness, whereas a higher prevalence of traditional family values in a country is related to a lower likelihood of individuals considering childlessness to be their ideal family form.
Posted April 21 — Read more. Abstract: There is currently little knowledge about what gay men and lesbians seek in a romantic relationship. Looking at profile and preference information, the authors examined both individual and contextual determinants in a series of multilevel logistic regression analyses.
They show that lesbians give more importance to monogamy but show less interest in starting a long-term relationship. The data also reveal the importance of life course aspects such as relationship history and presence of children. Finally, the authors empirically demonstrate that social tolerance and legal recognition of same-sex unions are associated with higher long-term dating intentions and stronger monogamy beliefs.
Posted March 12 — Read more. Social Forces , online publication, DOI: Abstract: This study examined the effect of working at non-standard times on the transition to first and second childbirth. In line with expectations about the institutional and normative context of the Netherlands, we concluded that women adjusted their work schedules to their fertility plans and that couples had a preference for the personal care of their children rather than relying on formal care arrangements.
Non-standard schedules served as a means to achieve this. Posted January 30 — Read more. Abstract: The growth in labour market participation among women with young children has raised concerns about its implications for child cognitive development.
We estimate a model of the cognitive development process of children nested within an otherwise standard model of household behaviour. The household makes labour supply decisions and provides time and money inputs into the child quality production process during the development period. Money expenditures are less productive in terms of producing child quality.
Comparative statics exercises demonstrate that cash transfers to households with children have small impacts on child quality due to the relatively low impact of money investments on child outcomes and the fact that a significant fraction of the transfer is spent on other household consumption and the leisure of the parents.
Posted January 23 - Read more. Many argue that the rise in cohabitation may have been fueled by availability of highly effective contraception, but that differences in contraceptive use between married and cohabiting couples should diminish as cohabitation becomes more established.
We ask whether cohabiting women in the United States, Spain, and France are more likely than married women in these countries to use the most effective contraceptive methods and reversible methods. We also investigate whether the association between union status and contraceptive use has changed since the mids.
Posted January 19 — Read more. Abstract: Knowledge about how race governs partner selection has been predominantly studied in the United States, yet it is unclear whether these results can be generalized to nations with different racial and immigration patterns. Using a large-scale sample of online daters in nine European countries, we engage in the first cross-national analysis of race-related partner preferences and examine the link between contextual factors and ethnic selectivity.
We show that individuals uniformly prefer to date same-race partners and that there is a hierarchy of preferences both among natives and minority groups. Notable country differences are also found. Europeans living in countries with a large foreign-born population have an increased preference for minority groups. The results have implications for immigrant integration policies and demonstrate that Internet dating allows efficient selection by racial divisions, perpetuating country-specific racial inequalities.
Posted January 19 - Read more. Analyses suggest that adolescents living in non-traditional families are not necessarily at higher risks of emotional suffering than others. Only adolescents who live in stepfamilies show a lower level of emotional well-being than those living in two-biological-parent families. Posted January 8 - Read more. Abstract: This study investigates the role of gender, functional limitations, and social interaction in the association between instrumental support from adult children and parental depression.
We apply self-determination theory to hypothesize about the role of physical needs and social resources on parental depression in a European context. A sample of 6, parents older than 65 who have nonresident children from the first wave of Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe is analyzed. The result shows that there is a U-shaped pattern between receiving instrumental support and depression that persists across country regimes.
For respondents with medium physical limitations, too little or too frequent support from children is associated with higher depression. Posted December 29 - Read more. Western Europe features a positive relationship among partners but demonstrates a U-shaped pattern among women. In Northern Europe it enables highly educated women to wholly catch up with their counterparts with medium and low education as regards the proportion having second births.
In Southern Europe, by contrast, the educational gradient turns negative following the consideration of the time-squeeze effect. We conclude that the relationship between educational attainment and second births varies not only by individual country but also by larger geographical area in Europe.
Although smaller in scale than among women, the variation also extends to male partners. Posted October 9 - Read more. Abstract: Using Swedish register data, this article examines the association between having experienced the birth of a younger half-sibling and two educational outcome measures among Swedish 9th graders from to The results show that adolescents in postseparation families with half-siblings have lower overall grades and are less likely to be eligible for school continuation after 9th grade than those without half-siblings.
The results point to interesting gender patterns both by the sex of the child and whether the half-sibling is maternal or paternal. Posted September 17 - Read more. Our analysis shows that immigrant couples have a lower risk of divorce than do natives. However, marriages between German-born individuals and immigrants have a higher likelihood of separation than marriages between two German-born individuals or between immigrants from the same country, supporting the exogamy hypothesis.
The divorce risk increases with the cultural distance between the partners and when the spouses demonstrate differences in their social backgrounds, also supporting the heterogamy hypothesis and the selectivity hypothesis. We found no support for the adaptation and convergence hypotheses.
Posted August 26 - Read more. Abstract: This paper reviews recent research on family dynamics among immigrants and their descendants in Europe. While there is a large body of literature on various aspects of immigrant lives in Europe, research on family dynamics has emerged only in the last decade.
Studies based on individual-level longitudinal data and disaggregated measures of partnership and fertility behaviour have significantly advanced our understanding of the factors shaping family patterns among immigrants and their descendants and have contributed to research on immigrant integration. By drawing on recent research, this paper proposes several ways of further developing research on ethnic minority families.
We emphasise the need to study family changes among immigrants and their descendants over their life courses, investigate various modes of family behaviour and conduct more truly comparative research to deepen our understanding of how ethnic minorities structure their family lives in different institutional and policy settings. Abstract: In this paper we study the long-term consequences of parental divorce in 14 countries. The divorce penalty is larger for children with highly educated parents.
This equalizing pattern is accentuated in countries with a comprehensive educational system. Posted May 27 - Read more. Abstract: The authors examined the association between different meanings of cohabitation and fertility intentions in nine European countries.
The authors found that cohabiters who viewed their unions as a prelude to marriage were the most likely to plan to have a child in the near future, both in Western and Eastern European societies.
The findings suggest that, although marriage and childbearing are becoming less closely linked life events, they are not disconnected decisions. Posted May 23 - Read more. Abstract: In this paper we investigate the effectiveness of family policies in the context of the social structure of a population.
We use an agent-based model to analyse the impact of policies on individual fertility decisions and on fertility at the aggregate level. This modelling framework allows us to disentangle the direct effect the alleviation of resource constraints from the indirect effect the diffusion of fertility intentions via social ties of family policies.
Our results indicate that family policies have a positive and significant impact on fertility. Posted November 20 - Read more. Abstract: How to measure homophobia in internationally comparable ways is a central issue of the present study. Our main goal was to compare attitudes on homophobia in 27 European countries as measured by different variables within two large-scale longitudinal surveys, the European Social Survey and the European Values Study, with both following multistage probabilistic sampling plans, in order to enable a better understanding of the main determinants of homophobic attitudes at the individual as well as country levels.
Posted September 13 - Read more. Balbo, Nicoletta; Billari, Francesco C. Box Charlottesville, VA If you would like to donate online, please click the button below to be taken to our donation form:. IFS on Patreon. The Institute for Family Studies is a c 3 organization. Your donation will be tax-deductible. Highlights Print Post. Nevertheless, across most of the globe, four truths stand out about the reciprocal relationship between the strength of the family and the welfare of children, adults, and nations: Fertility.
Nations depend in part upon fertility rates that do not dip markedly below the replacement fertility rate—about 2. Dramatic declines in the working-age population can imperil the economic and fiscal health of contemporary nations. In much of East Asia and Europe, for instance, long-term low fertility means the workforce is declining, the ranks of the dependent elderly are rising, and even drastic increases in immigration would not come close to stabilizing the national population.
Japan and Germany are both poised to see their working-age population fall by about 15 percent between now and , even as their elderly populations surge. Thus, nations that aim to sustain viable welfare states and robust economic growth must maintain fertility rates high enough to avoid the population declines now facing much of East Asia and Europe. Family structure. Children, particularly in the developed world, are most likely to thrive and to acquire the human capital they need to succeed in a competitive global economy when they are raised in a stable, two-parent family.
Indeed, in countries as divergent as Sweden and the United States , children born to married parents are markedly more likely to see their parents remain together. This is important, as sociologist Andrew Cherlin has noted, because children do better when they enjoy stable routines with stable caregivers.
Indeed, Figure 1 shows that children in the United States are significantly more likely to move into adulthood without a college degree, land in prison, or have a teen pregnancy if they are raised outside of an intact, married family.
For instance, teenage boys from single- and step-parent families were at least 60 percent more likely to have spent some time in prison later in life, and teenage girls from single- and step-parent families were at least 67 percent more likely to end up pregnant, compared to their peers from intact, married families.
Likewise, teens from non-intact homes were at least 66 percent more likely to have entered adulthood without a college degree. Similar patterns can be found even in countries with much stronger safety nets than the U. For instance, one study of the entire population of Swedish children found that children in single-parent families were about twice as likely as children in two-parent families to suffer from psychiatric problems, to attempt suicide, or to be addicted to drugs and alcohol.
In general, then, evidence from the developed world suggests that children are most likely to flourish economically, socially, and emotionally when they are raised in an intact, two-parent family, a family structure that is most likely to be forged within the shelter and stability afforded by the institution of marriage.
Family process. Family structure is not the only determinant of child well-being. Children are more likely to thrive in families where they receive substantial amounts of attention and affection, and requisite levels of structure and discipline, from their parents and other kin.
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