The family has changed. What are the socio-economic implications of its transformations ? This file explores the new economic, political, legal and symbolic constraints that weigh on families today.
Contemporary societies are the place of a profound transformation of the methods of building the family bond. At the center of these developments is the questioning of the family as an institution. The family is therefore increasingly based on a contract of contractual type, as analyzed Ulrich Beck or François de Singly. The place and representation of the child were also upset. The emotional links between parents and children have indeed developed at the expense of investment logics in offspring. Recent research in economic and social sciences shed light on different aspects of this complex and moving reality, where the choices and constraints of individuals interact with increasingly interrelated political, legal, economic, social and symbolic regulations.
The life of ideas wanted to bring together a set of contributions on this theme, giving the voice to researchers who develop original looks on the family. The family being deinstitutionalized, the conjugal link can, in certain respects, be analyzed as a transaction spent on a matrimonial market where actors would be subject, as for obtaining other resources, to constraints linked to the rarity of potential spouses (see the article by Shoshana Grossbard). The liberalization of private law also leads to a deep evolution of behavior.
However, transactions that are deployed within the family contain strong symbolic dimensions, relating to the most structuring aspects of the identity of individuals and groups. With the massive entry of women into the labor market, a trend whose sustainability is subject to questions, the social and sexual distribution of tasks, which generally makes it more difficult for women, conciliation between private and professional life, is now at the heart of research on political regulation of societies and mobilizes the most intimate dimensions of individual and social life (see the article by Elena Stancanelli). Likewise, the current economic crisis re-examines the role of the family in the construction of welfare state models and solidarity systems.
– Summary of the file:
- The family is priceless, by Jeanne Lazarus, April 10, 2009.
About the work of Viviana Zelizer, American economic sociologist.
- Parenting ethnography. Interview with Florence Weber. Interview by Nicolas Duvoux (video), March 27, 2009.
- Salaries, tax regime and distribution of domestic tasks, by Elena Stancanelli, March 20, 2009.
- The interest of the child. Homoparenté and homoparentality in the United States, by Jennifer Merchant, May 20, 2010.
- Work of women and “ wedding market ” to USAby Shoshana Grossbard, March 20, 2009.
- The uses of the PACS, by Marion Leturcq, April 3, 2009.
- Love yourself in the suburbs, by Julien Beaugé, March 27, 2009.
About: I. Clair, young people and love in the cities, Armand Colin.
- The decline of marriage, a social problem ?, by Julien Damon, April 3, 2009. about: James Q. Wilson, The Marriage Problem. How our culture has been weakened familiesNew York, HarperCollins, 2002.
- The origin prohibited. Against the anonymity of donation donations. Interview with Irène Théry (video), by Nicolas Duvoux, May 8, 2009.
- Web resources on the family.
– And also on The life of ideas ::
- I have two mothers. Survey on alternative maternity units, by Jennifer Merchant, February 24, 2011. About: Virginie Descoutures, Lesbian mothers,, Puf.
- When the family rhythm gets carried away, by Christophe Giraud, September 2, 2010. About: L. Lesnard, the disadvantaged family. The new constraints of the timetable, Puf.
- From the difference man-femme to the distinction of sex, by Laura Lee Downs, November 5, 2008. With regard to: Irène Théry, The distinction of sex. A new approach to equalityParis, Odile Jacob, 2007.
- New on kinship, by Dominique Casajus, November 3, 2008. About: Laurent Barry, The kinshipGallimard.
- Economic efficiency can justify the increase in inheritance tax ? by Luc Arrondel & André Masson, June 17, 2008.
- Adjust Persons and family policies, by Julien Damon, June 11, 2008.
About Alessandro Cigno, Martin Werding, Children and PensionsCambridge, Put Press.
- Survey on homoparentality, by Frédérique Giraud, May 29, 2008. With regard to: E. Gratton, Male homoparentality. The desire for a child against social orderPUF/Le Monde.
- Family relations to the prison test, by Corinne Rostaing, May 27, 2008. With regard to: Gwénola Ricordeau, Detainees and their loved ones. Solidarity and feelings in the shade of the wallseditions otherwise.