In this book, distinguished demographers consider whether changes in women's roles are the cause of such changes in family life as rising divorce rates and declining marriage rates, increases in out-of-wedlock childbearing, declining marriage rates, and a growing disconnection between the lives of men and children. The discussion covers over twenty countries, including the United States, the countries of western Europe, and Japan.

This timely and thought-provoking book explores how social and family change are colouring the experience of childhood. The book is centred around three major changes: parental employment, family composition and ideology. The authors demonstrate how children's families are transformed in accordance with societal changes in demographic and economic terms, and as a result of the choices parents make in response to these changes. Despite claims that society is becoming increasingly child-centred, this book argues that children still have little influence over the major changes in their...

Low fertility in Europe has given rise to the notion of a 'fertility crisis'. This book shifts the attention from fertility decline to why people do have children, asking what children mean to them. It investigates what role children play in how young adults plan their lives, and why and how young adults make the choices they do. The book aims to expand our comprehension of the complex structures and cultures that influence reproductive choice, and explores three key aspects of fertility choices: * the processes towards having (or not having) children, and how they are underpinned by...