Analysing data from the European Social Survey, in this article we try to capture the main features of European families. Accounting for the changing trends of the last forty years in family arrangements, practices and values we also discuss some theoretical and methodological issues raised by the exercise of comparing countries. General configurations like family size, composition of the household, living arrangements and marital status are identified and analysed by clustering European countries. The insertion of men and women in the labour market, fertility rates and the hours of work of parents are another central focus of discussion. Our results tend to contradict some stereotypes. The majority of Europeans are formally married or living together, conjugal disruption is transitory for the divorced and the separated tend to return to conjugality. With modern ideals family is, for all European countries and with very similar averages, the most valued dimension of personal life.
Analysing data from European Social Survey in this article we try to capture the main features of the European families. Accounting for the changing trends of the last 40 years in family arrangements, practices and values we discuss some theoretical and methodological issues raised by the exercise of comparing countries also. General configurations like family's size, composition of the households, living arrangements and marital status are identified and analysed clustering European countries. The insertion of men and women on the labour market, fertility rates and the hours of work of parents are also other central focus of discussion. Our results tend to contradict some stereotypes. The majority of Europeans are formally married or living together, conjugal disruption being transitory for divorced and the separated tend to return to conjugality. With modern ideals, family is, for all European countries and with very similar averages, the most valued dimension of personal life. 97 Keywords family marriage gender values work and family European families PJSS 6 (2) 97-133
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.