Demographic and societal changes are strongly affecting the contexts of childhood and the experience of being children. At the same time, across social groups and across societies, diversities and inequalities in childhood are taking new forms. In the developed world, in particular, children their number, their welfare, their education, the division of power and responsibilities over them among the different social actors have entered the public agenda, at the national and supranational level. Public concern over issues such as fertility rates, mothers working, early childhood education and...

This volume of "Comparative Social Research" emphasizes unsolved issues and new developments within class and stratification analysis, discussing both theoretical and methodological innovations and revisions. Studies of social stratification comprises a range of topics, such as social mobility, economic inequality, labor market inequalities, ethnic stratification, gender inequality, family patterns, educational attainment, and health inequality, the stratification of cultural consumption, life styles, values and attitudes. Comparative analysis has also revealed cross-national differentiation...

The 2004 reunification of Eastern and Western Europe and the subsequent economic crisis caused a surge in intra-European labour mobility and a profound shift in preceding patterns of migration in Europe. While previous decades of European integration brought very modest cross-border flows of labour, the past decade has engendered the largest European movements of labour in modern time - mostly from East to West, but eventually also from South to North. In a situation of record high European unemployment, this has sparked controversy about the very notion of free movement, one of the basic...

Despite criticism of inefficiencies and unlimited growth, bureaucracies still fill crucial positions in modern societies. This volume examines `varieties in bureaucracies' across Europe, with a specific focus on the Nordic region.

This volume contains an Open Access chapter. The present volume of Comparative Social Research offers a broad set of comparative studies of elites, stretching from the Arab Spring in Tunisia and Egypt to women's political leadership in Brazil and Germany, via attainment of elite positions among minorities in France and the US.