The team of FamiliesAndSocieties has published new working papers and digests. All of them are now available at Project’s website.
One of the key publications is a book entitled: “Why Fewer Babies? Understanding and Responding to Low Fertility in Europe”. Its author, Maria Letizia Tanturri, tackles key issues in the changing nature of family life from a global perspective. Not only does she cover changes in couple relationships but also talks about parenting practices and their implications for child development, key contemporary global issues, such as migration, poverty, and the internet, and their impact on the family; and the role of the state in supporting family relationships. The author links research and practice as well as provides policy recommendations at the end of each chapter.
The 62nd working paper “Child Care and Child Outcomes: A Comparison Across European Countries” explores how child cognitive outcomes at the aggregate country level are affected by macroeconomic conditions, specifically government education expenditures. The authors also investigated how investments received in early life are linked to child educational outcomes when children are adolescents. They found that higher shares of the sample with pre-primary education in early years are associated with better later outcomes.
Moreover, Susanne Fahlen has written an interesting article: “Equality at home – A question of career? Housework, norms, and policies in a European comparative perspective”. The study examines the division of housework among various couple-earner types, by determining i) whether relative resources, time spent on paid work, gender attitudes, and family structure reduce variations in housework between different couple types, and ii) whether the division of housework varies between countries with different work-family policies and gender norms.
