Whether considered from an American or a European perspective, the past four decades have seen family life become increasingly complex. Changing Family Dynamics and Demographic Evolution examines the various stages of change through the image of a kaleidoscope, providing new insights into the field of family dynamics and diversity.
Contributions from both eminent and contemporary scholars provide a comprehensive and multidisciplinary perspective encompassing over five decades and two continents. This is the kaleidoscope, showing the diversity and complexity of contemporary families. Each chapter is a new turn with the built-in mirrors reflecting new insights into the coloured glass and beads. Through this analogy, this book explores family transitions in the US and Europe, gender dimensions of family transitions, children in new families, intersectional approaches of demographic processes and policy perspectives as well as offering thoughts on a future outlook.
Unique and accessible, this book will appeal to students and researchers in a variety of fields including demography, the sociology of the family, gender studies and family law. It will also be of value to policy makers for children and families as well as those involved in family social care.
Edited by Dimitri Mortelmans, Centre for Longitudinal Life Course Studies (CELLO), University of Antwerp; Koenraad Matthijs, Centre for Sociological Research, KU Leuven; Elisabeth Alofs, Faculty of Law and Criminology, Free University of Brussels; and Barbara Segaert, University Centre Saint Ignatius Antwerp, Belgium