| Imprint: |
Edward Elgar Publishing 2021 |
| Abstract: |
This chapter explores living arrangements across 21 European countries. Globally, European living arrangements are characterised by uniquely high levels of single-person households, the predominance of nuclear families, and low levels of intergenerational co-residence between adult children and their parents (Eurostat 2015; United Nations 2018). European households show lower levels of complexity than households in Africa, Latin America, or Asia (Esteve and Liu 2018; Esteve et al. 2012). European households overwhelmingly consist of married or cohabiting parents with their minor children. However, living arrangements are far from homogenous across European countries. A wide range of family forms and household types can be found across sub-regions and countries within Europe. |
| Abstract: |
The diversity of living arrangements in Europe is the result of deep historical roots of family systems that trace back to preindustrial times (Hajnal 1982). The structural or cultural nature of this diversity has been debated since the late nineteenth century. The main focus of these debates has been on intergenerational co-residence between adult children and their parents. Earlier scholarship on intergenerational coresidence centred on its relationship with economic development (Le Play 1871). By the twentieth century, it was widely accepted that single-generation nuclear families had become dominant in the West as a response to the needs of industrial societies for flexibility and individualism (Burgess 1916; Ogburn 1933; Parsons 1949). It was further assumed that with economic development, the nuclear family would inevitably spread across the world (Goode 1963). However, little, if any, of this theorising was informed by empirical analyses of large-scale trends until Peter Laslett compiled crude measures of family composition for 100 preindustrial English communities (Laslett and Wall 1972). His findings led to the revisionist hypothesis that there has been no long-term change in family composition (Hareven 1993), and that the indelibility of family norms and values would ensure regional diversity for centuries to come (Hajnal 1965; Reher 1998; Thornton 2013). The validity of this assumption is supported by the heterogeneity of in living arrangements that is still present in Europe. |
| Abstract: |
This chapter provides an account of Europe's regional diversity in living arrangements. A traditional way to approach the study of family diversity is by using the family as a unit of analysis. Given the nature of our data, we take an 'individual approach' in which we use the individual as a unit of analysis and classify the respondents by their living arrangements. This enables us to break down the analysis by individual-level characteristics, such as by age and sex. The age distribution of living arrangements provides valuable information for characterising family diversity over the life course and across countries. Moreover, the tabulation of living arrangements by age provides insights into when people experience major life course transitions in the family domain, such as leaving the parental home, partnership formation, having children, and union dissolution. This chapter highlights the diversity of these patterns within contemporary Europe, and allows us to investigate at which ages the living arrangements of Europeans are more likely to diverge or to converge. Data for this analysis come from the Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS) 2006 and 2016. |
| Grants: |
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación RTI2018-096730-B-I00
|
| Rights: |
Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, i la comunicació pública de l'obra, sempre que no sigui amb finalitats comercials, i sempre que es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. No es permet la creació d'obres derivades.  |
| Language: |
Anglès |
| Document: |
Capítol de llibre |
| Subject: |
Living arrangements ;
Households ;
Family transition ;
Family diversity ;
Europe |
| Published in: |
Research Handbook on the Sociology of the Family, 2021, p. 187-204, ISBN 978-17-8897-553-7 |
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