Books & Reports

Across the UNECE region, and across most of the world, populations are ageing, bringing challenges and opportunities which require evidence-based policy responses. Ageing affects virtually all domains of society. The need for relevant statistics is therefore equally wide-ranging.

In many ways, primary care in Denmark performs well. Danish primary care is trusted and valued by patients, and is relatively inexpensive. But there are important areas where it needs to be strengthened. Most critically, Danish primary care is relatively opaque in terms of the performance data available at local level. Greater transparency is vital in the next phase of reform and sector strengthening. Robust information on quality and outcomes empowers patients and gives them choice. It can support GPs to benchmark themselves, and engage in continuous quality improvement.

“Is every child counted” provides a status report on the data availability of child related SDG indicators showing that sufficient data is available only for half of those. Many indicators, such as those on poverty and violence cannot be compared, and are either too limited or of poor quality, leaving governments without the information they need to accurately address challenges facing millions of children, or to track progress towards achieving the Goals. The report also identifies priorities for enhancing the collection, analysis and use of data for children.

This is the first book to bring together international scholars from around the world and from a wide variety of disciplines, to discover what is known about grandfathers and analyse the impact of close involvement with their grandchildren. Within the context of increased divorce rates, single parent families and healthier, more active elders, grandfathers have come out of the shadows and re-invented themselves in a new caring, nurturing role.

This volume provides readers with recent sociological approaches to family understanding, theorising and practices within the context of continuities and change, both across generations and during individual life courses. The contributors uniquely investigate the friction between persisting family needs and changing circumstances, between holding on to traditional family norms and adapting to fast-changing demands.

This report from the Population Reference Bureau summarizes recent research conducted by National Institute on Aging-supported researchers and others who have studied the association between neighborhood characteristics and the health and well-being of older adults. This research can inform policy decisions about community resource allocation and development planning.

This review introduces the background to and issues at stake in promoting equal partnerships in families in Germany.  It encourages German policy makers to build on the important reforms since the mid-2000s to enable both fathers and mothers to have careers and children, and urges families to “dare to share”. To those ends it places Germany’s experience in an international comparison, and draws from the experience in, for example, France and the Nordic countries which have longstanding policies to support work-life balance and strengthen gender equality.

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.

This open access book provides an overview of childlessness throughout Europe. It offers a collection of papers written by leading demographers and sociologists that examine contexts, causes, and consequences of childlessness in countries throughout the region.The book features data from all over Europe. It specifically highlights patterns of childlessness in Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Finland, Sweden, Austria and Switzerland.

The review highlights continuing economic growth in the EU together with a steady decrease in unemployment. In the third quarter of 2016, employment exceeded its pre-crisis peak by 0.9%, or 940 thousand more people in employment than in spring 2008. In December 2016, there were 1.8 million less unemployed people than the year before; including 1.3 million people less in the Euro Area. Full online access to the report.