Search results

This book critically assesses the main features of the modernization of family life and personal relationships by examining and comparing three European countries with different social and political pathways: Portugal, Switzerland and Lithuania. Drawing on national surveys of family trajectories and social networks, the contributors highlight personal and family relationships through the lens of network and life course perspectives as well as gender and generational perspectives.0Providing innovative, comparative findings on families and personal networks through the use of diverse methodologies, this edited collection will be of interest to scholars, students and policymakers across a range of social science disciplines

Cette étude esquisse, sur la base d'un grand échantillon représentatif et longitudinal de couples vivant en Suisse et du point de vue des femmes ayant répondu à l'enquête, un tableau de l'évolution des problèmes conjugaux rencontrés au cours des différentes phases de la vie familiale. Le processus de dégradation de la relation est reconstitué à partir de deux mesures faites dans un intervalle de 5 ans. La genèse des difficultés conjugales est considérée à travers le prisme des transitions familiales, en particulier la naissance des enfants, leur entrée à l'école et leur départ du domicile parental. L'analyse révèle le potentiel déstabilisateur de ces transitions pour le couple. Les bouleversements de l'équilibre relationnel évoluent, dans certains cas, vers un cumul de difficultés qui envahissent l'espace conjugal pour déboucher sur une situation inextricable.

This study focuses on the constitution of financial reserves in Switzerland from a longitudinal perspective. Personal income after retirement derives from financial reserves whose constitution depends both on positional factors, such as sex and birth cohorts, and processual factors, such as occupational trajectories, in the institutional context of the Swiss pension system (structural factors). We hypothesise that some processual, positional and structural factors interact with each other to shape financial reserves available in old age. We assess this set of factors and their interactions using the occupational trajectory types stemming from optimal matching analysis (OMA) combined with the hierarchical clustering and regression tree methods. We used the retrospective biographic data SHARELIFE gathered during the third wave of the SHARE survey in 2009. The results show that occupational trajectories are influential factors accounting for much of the financial reserves available in later life. However, these processual factors interact with positional factors such as sex and birth cohort. The retirement schemes generalised in Switzerland during the period under consideration add up to the effect of positional factors on the constitution of financial reserves.

Stepfamilies have become a reality in modern societies. Unfortunately, most results about them stem out from research done in North America. It is striking that little is known about family recomposition's relational and developmental consequences in Europe, and even more so in Switzerland. This interdisciplinary project between sociology and psychology tests the hypothesis that family relationships provide distinct types of social capital in stepfamilies compared with first time families, which may account for a significant share of the developmental outcomes associated with family recomposition. We also hypothesize that there is a great variability of social capital and developmental outcomes within stepfamilies due to sociological explanatory factors associated with prior trajectories of family members and social class. Face to face interviews of 150 mothers of school aged children from a first family and 150 mothers from a stepfamily, are quantitatively analyzed in order to reveal the mechanisms linking family recomposition, social capital, family processes and dimensions of child development. Various validated measures of parenting, conjugal processes and network relationships are included in the project as well as direct observations of family interactions.

There are concerns that migrants may be embedded in far-flung networks with support being less collective. The spatial dispersion of their relatives and friends would result in fragmented networks with lower solidarity and lower mutual trust than densely connected networks based on geographical proximity. This may be particularly true for migrants who rarely meet their relatives and friends face-to-face. Yet, it is unclear what role, if any, distant visits play in migrants' social capital. This article examines these issues using representative data from Switzerland and a combination of network and sequence analysis. Results show that migrants have more spatially dispersed networks, which, in turn, are associated with higher number of emotional support ties compared to respondents with spatially close networks, yet they are characterised by low cohesion and low trust. Distant visits only partly moderate the influence of spatial dispersion on social capital. People who frequently visit or host their far-flung relatives and friends have more transitive networks and fewer supportive ties than those who see them less often, but they do not have higher trust in them. Overall, distant visits have relatively little impact on social capital, suggesting a network effect that goes beyond dyadic relationships.

This study examines how the work trajectories of women and men after childbirth and their subjective evaluation influence conjugal love. Data are drawn from the study, «Social Stratification, Cohesion and Conflict in Contemporary Families» (Widmer et al., 2003). The results show that an interruption of labour force participation increases the risk of feeling less in love for women, especially if the interruption is perceived as a sacrifice. Women's feelings of love also depend on the way in which their male partners consider their own work trajectories. Men's feelings of love are much less sensitive to their own and their partners' work trajectories. The results are discussed within the life course perspective.

Background: Most of the existing research relating to the life courses of people with psychiatric symptoms focuses on the occurrence and the impact of non-normative events on the onsets of crises; it usually disregards the more regular dimensions of life, such as work, family and intimate partnerships that may be related to the timing and seriousness of psychiatric problems. An additional reason for empirically addressing life trajectories of individuals with psychiatric problems relates to recent changes of family and occupational trajectories in relation to societal trends such as individualization and pluralization of life courses. Aim: This paper explores the life trajectories of 86 individuals under clinical supervision and proposes a typology of their occupational, co-residence and intimacy trajectories. The results are discussed in light of the life-course paradigm. Method: A multidimensional optimal matching analysis was performed on a sample of 86 individuals under clinical supervision to create a typology of trajectories. The influence of these trajectories on psychiatric disorders, evaluated using a SCL-90-R questionnaire, was then assessed using linear regression modelling. Results: The typologies of trajectories showed that the patients developed a diversity of life trajectories. Individuals who have developed a standard life course with few institutionalization periods reported more symptoms and distress than individuals with an institutionalized life trajectory. Conclusion: The results of this study stress that psychiatric patients are social actors who are influenced by society at large and its ongoing process of change. Therefore, it is essential to take into account the diversity of occupational and family trajectories when dealing with individuals in therapeutic settings.

Generationen – Generationenbeziehungen – Generationenpolitik: Ein dreisprachiges Kompendium ; Cite as: Lüscher, Kurt et al. (2010): Generationen – Generationenbeziehungen – Generationenpolitik: Ein dreisprachiges Kompendium

In later life, changing conditions related to health, partnership, and economic status may trigger not only support but also conflict and ambivalence, with the consequent renegotiation of family ties. The aim of this study is to investigate both conflict and emotional support in the family networks of older adults, taking the research beyond the level of intergenerational dyads. We used a subsample of 563 elders (aged 65 years and older) from the Swiss Vivre/Leben/Vivere survey. Multiple correspondence analysis and in‐depth case studies were used to identify the key social conditions that relate to the prevalence of conflicted and supportive dyads in family networks. Findings showed that the balance of conflict and emotional support in older adults' family networks varied according to the composition of their family network as well as their age, health, income, and gender.

The members of the International Network for the Analysis of Intergenerational Relations (Generationes) proudly present the most recent issue of the jointly produced compendium "Generations, Intergenerational Relations and Generational Policy". This new version includes seven languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish (New) and Portuguese (New)). Its layout is designed for using it to translate the specific concepts and terminology of research into generations and intergenerational relations from one language into another.

The members of the International Network for the Analysis of Intergenerational Relations (Generationes) proudly present the most recent issue of the jointly produced compendium "Generations, Intergenerational Relations and Generational Policy".

This new version includes seven languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish (New) and Portuguese (New)). Its layout is designed for using it to translate the specific concepts and terminology of research into generations and intergenerational relations from one language into another.

Research on the trajectories of couples shows quite consistently that the birth of the first child leads to a transformation of the family structure towards a more traditional model whose key aspect seems to be the unilateral reduction of the professional insertion of women. The more or less egalitarian beliefs of the partners hardly seem to play a role. This interdisciplinary project aims to clarify why and how this transformation is taking place. It follows, in three waves, a panel of 300 couples for a year and a half, from the 4th or 5th month of the big until the age of 1 year of the child in the canton of Vaud.

The members of the International Network for the Analysis of Intergenerational Relations (Generationes) proudly present the most recent issue of the jointly produced compendium "Generations, Intergenerational Relations and Generational Policy". This new version includes 12 languages: English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish (new), Hungarian (new), Turkish (new), Romanian (new), and Lithuanian (new). The layout of the compendium is designed for using it to translate the specific concepts and terminology of research into generations and intergenerational relations from one language into another. ; Członkowie Międzynarodowej Sieci Relacji Międzypokoleniowych (Generationes) z dumą prezentują najnowsze wydanie wspólnie opracowanego kompendium "Pokolenia, relacje międzypokoleniowe, polityka relacji międzypokoleniowych". Nowa wersja zawiera 12 języków: angielski, francuski, niemiecki, włoski, hiszpański, polski, portugalski, szwedzki (nowy), węgierski (nowy), turecki (nowy), rumuński (nowy) oraz litewski (nowy). Układ kompendium został zaprojektowany tak, aby możliwe było stosowanie go do tłumaczenia konkretnych pojęć i terminologii z zakresu badań nad pokoleniami i relacjami międzypokoleniowymi z jednego języka na inny.

Zeiten gesellschaftlicher Umbrüche und Verwerfungen bieten die Chance, sich auf grundlegende Fragen der Gestaltung des menschlichen Zusammenlebens zu besinnen. Dazu gehören die Verantwortlichkeiten, die wir als Angehörige unterschiedlicher Generationen füreinander haben, als Junge und als Alte, als Kinder, Eltern und Grosseltern, als Lehrer und Lehrerinnen, Schüler und Schülerinnen, als Erbende und Vererbende, als heute Lebende im Blick auf die künftig Lebenden. Letztlich geht es um die Stiftung von Lebenssinn und um die Vorstellungen, die wir von uns als Person und als Gemeinschaften haben. ; Cite as: Lüscher, Kurt et al. (2010): Auf dem Weg zu einer Generationenpolitik.