This bestselling title has been extensively revised and updated to provide an accurate statistical portrait of the American family as it exists today. Data collected from federal and state government agencies, Gallup polls, professional journals, and research are presented in a single, easily accessible format. Nearly 350 graphs, charts, and figures are provided. The second edition reflects the changing demographics of the American family. Among the issues receiving new or expanded coverage are the amount of time husbands spend doing household tasks, the concept of equal pay for equal work, parents' interaction with children, child abuse, household income, and fathers' participation in child care.

Male Circumcision in Japan offers an analysis of the surgical procedure based on extensive ethnographic investigation, and is framed within historical and current global debates to highlight the significance of the Japanese case.

The household has traditionally been neglected in studies of Asian political economy. While there is an emergent literature that looks at this relationship, to date, it is fragmented. The contributors consider how the household economy has increasingly been incorporated into development planning and policy making within both states and multilateral development agencies. They examine the social consequences of the tendency to view households as marketizable spaces, and explore how the household economy relates to broader structures of industrial production in the region. With case studies on Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, India, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and China, they provide a comprehensive picture of the centrality of the household economy to ongoing processes and struggles associated with the continuous economic transformation of the region.

How does the insecurity of work affect us? We know what job insecurity does to workers at work, the depressive effect it has on morale, productivity, and pay. We know less about the impact of job insecurity beyond the workplace, upon people's intimate relationships, their community life, their vision of the good self and a good life. This volume of essays explores the broader impacts of job precariousness on different groups in different contexts. From unemployed tech workers in Texas to single mothers in Russia, Japanese heirs to the iconic salaryman to relocating couples in the U.S. Midwest, these richly textured accounts depict the pain, defiance, and joy of charting a new, unscripted life when the scripts have been shredded. Across varied backgrounds and experiences, the new organization of work has its largest impact in three areas: in our emotional cultures, in the interplay of social inequalities like race, class and gender, and in the ascendance of a contemporary radical individualism. In Beyond the Cubicle, job insecurity matters, and it matters for more than how much work can be squeezed out of workers: it shapes their intimate lives, their relationships with others, and their shifting sense of self. Much more than mere numbers and figures, these essays offer a unique and holistic vision of the true impact of job insecurity.

"Sexual Pathways" introduces the topic of bisexuality--a subject largely misunderstood. Persons who display dual sexual attraction experience some form of erotic fulfillment with both same-sex and opposite-sex partners. They may or may not identify themselves as bisexual, but during significant periods of their life span they act bisexually. Studies of human sexuality world-wide indicate the incidence of bisexuality ranges from high to low prevalence in all literate and many nonliterate societies. To better understand the bisexual perspective, the author presents interviews with 30 men and women. Each describes his or her sexual pathway from birth to adulthood, portraying the construction of a lifestyle that incorporates a bisexual perspective.

This book provides a critical engagement with the intensified struggles to be found within elderly care provision. Various social and political processes, including the forces of globalisation and the de-gendering of care, have changed how we might understand this national and global political concern. Emerging discourses such as neoliberalism have also reframed elderly care to increase existing tensions at the individual, national, and transnational level. Dahl argues that in order to grasp these new realities of care we need a new analytical framework that redirects us to new sites of contestation. Dahl approaches these issues from a post-structuralist and radical feminist position, while drawing from feminist sociology, feminist political science, nursing philosophy and feminist history. In particular, Struggles In (Elderly) Care highlights how the predominantly feminist theorization of care has been dominated by a sociological bias that could be improved using insights from political science concerning concepts of power and struggle, and the importance of the state and governance. This book will be of interest to researchers in sociology, gerontology, nursing, and feminist studies.

This volume addresses the tensions between work and welfare with respect to fertility. Focusing on childbearing choices (intentions, desires) as influential predictors of future fertility, the contributors examine the importance of labour force attachment on young women's fertility plans in the context of increased labour market flexibility and differences in work-life balance policies across Europe in the early 21st century. Both high- and low-fertility societies of different welfare regimes are studied, illuminating processes of uncertainty and risk related to insecure labour force attachment and the incoherence effect in terms of women's and men's equal access to education and employment but unequal share of domestic responsibilities, constraining fertility. The synthesis of the findings shows how childbearing choices in relation to uncertainty, risk and incoherence offer a lens for understanding the capabilities of families to have and care for children in contemporary Europe. This volume contributes to the conceptual development of further research on the complex relationship between fertility, paid work and work-life balance policies.

Recently considerable interest has developed about the degree to which anthropological approaches to kinship can be used for the study of the long-term development of European history. From the late middle ages to the dawn of the twentieth century, kinship - rather than declining, as is often assumed - was twice reconfigured in dramatic ways and became increasingly significant as a force in historical change, with remarkable similarities across European society. Applying interdisciplinary approaches from social and cultural history and literature and focusing on sibling relationships, this volume takes up the challenge of examining the systemic and structural development of kinship over the long term by looking at the close inner-familial dynamics of ruling families (the Hohenzollerns), cultural leaders (the Mendelssohns), business and professional classes, and political figures (the Gladstones)in France, Italy, Germany, and England. It offers insight into the current issues in kinship studies and draws from a wide range of personal documents: letters, autobiographies, testaments, memoirs, as well as genealogies and works of art.

Marriages across ethnic borders are increasing in frequency, yet little is known of how discourses of 'normal' families, ethnicity, race, migration, globalisation affect couples and children involved in these mixed marriages. This book explores mixed marriage though intimate stories drawn from the real lives of visibly different couples.

Many people seem to be searching for answers to help explain their past, understand their current way of being, and create a happier, more satisfying future. It is the current trend to blame mothers for such emotional problems. "Poppa" Psychology calls into question this habit of blaming mothers, and focuses, instead, on the father-child relationship. Regardless of whether the father is present or absent, his actions will have a direct influence on the child's development. Fathers have received a great deal of media attention lately, but the main focus has been on their absence. "Poppa" Psychology deals with the psychological ramifications of the father-child relationship, regardless of whether the fathers are present or absent. Specifically, it highlights factors that are related to maladjustment in children and provides suggestions for raising psychologically healthy children.

Unaisi Nabobo-Baba observed that for the various peoples of the Pacific, kinship is generally understood as "knowledge that counts." It is with this observation that this volume begins, and it continues with a straightforward objective to provide case studies of Pacific kinship. In doing so, contributors share an understanding of kinship as a lived and living dimension of contemporary human lives, in an area where deep historical links provide for close and useful comparison. The ethnographic focus is on transformation and continuity over time in Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa with the addition of three instructive cases from Tokelau, Papua New Guinea, and Taiwan. The book ends with an account of how kinship is constituted in day-to-day ritual and ritualized behavior.

This book is about Italian American women, food, identity, and our stories at the table. This mother-daughter research team explores how Italian American working-class women from Syracuse, New York use food as a symbol and vehicle which carries multiple meanings. In these narratives, food represents home, loss, and longing. Food also stands in for race, class, gender, sexuality, immigration, region, place, and space. The authors highlight how food is about family and tradition, as well as choice and change. These women's narratives reveal that food is related to celebration, love, power, and shame. As this study centers on the intergenerational transmission of culture, the authors' relationship mirrors these questions as they contend with their similar and disparate experiences and relationships with Italian American identity and food. The authors use the "recipe" as a conversational bridge to elicit narratives about identity and the self. They also encourage readers to listen closely to the stories at their own tables to consider how recipes and food are a way for us to claim who we are, who we think we are, who we want to be, and who we are not.

There has been a widespread fascination with age-dissimilar couples in recent years. This book examines how the romantic relationships of these couples are understood. Based on qualitative research, McKenzie investigates notions of autonomy, relatedness, contradiction, and change in age-dissimilar relationships and romantic love.

This book explores how low fertility levels could fundamentally change a country's population and society. It analyzes the profound effects below average birthrates have on virtually all aspects of society, from the economy to religion, from marriage to gender roles. An introduction written by Dudley L. Poston Jr. provides a general overview of this relatively new phenomenon that has already impacted nearly one-half of the countries of the world today. Poston also discusses the broad implications of the changes that these societies are currently experiencing and the ones that they will soon confront. Next, each of the 12 essays collected in this volume look into how a low fertility level affects a particular demographic or societal structure or process. In addition, case studies offer an in-depth portrait of these changes in the United States and China. Coverage includes the dynamics of low and lowest-low (where the birthrate is well below average) fertility, high and increasing life expectancies in the United States, the implications of native-born fertility and other socio-demographic changes for less-skilled U.S. immigration, ageing and age dependency in post-industrial societies, good mothering and gender roles in China, the increasing prevalence of voluntary childlessness, how low fertility and prolonged longevity could result in slow economic growth, the decreasing relevance of traditional religious systems, and more. The emergence and persistence of population decline produced by low fertility levels has the potential to greatly alter key aspects of society as well as individual lives. Containing insightful analysis from some of the top minds in demography today, this book will arm readers with the knowledge they need to fully understand these transformations.

Based on open-ended interviews with adult children and children-in-law, this book documents how plain folk from the working and middle classes manage to provide care for their frail, elderly parents while simultaneously meeting the obligations of their jobs and their own immediate families.

Adult children who care for elderly parents are pressured daily trying to juggle the responsibilities of work, family, and caregiving. Deborah Merrill shows how plain folk (as one caregiver termed herself) from the working and lower middle classes manage to provide care for their frail, elderly parents while simultaneously meeting the obligations of their jobs and their own immediate families. The evidence is drawn from open-ended, in-depth interviews with adult children and children-in-law, all of whom have worked outside of the home at some point during caregiving.

Merrill examines the strategies that caregivers use to combine work and caregiving and the accommodations they make in their jobs. She also points to the pathways that lead family members to caregiving roles and how those pathways vary according to family history, gender, and in-law status. By focusing on class differences in caregiving and pointing to policy implications, Merrill has provided an invaluable resource for students, researchers, and policymakers in social work, gerontology, family studies, and social issues.

Why does sex and relationship education (SRE) continue to have mixed success? Why is teaching SRE difficult? And why do some adolescents practice safe sex according to the SRE messages while others still engage in risky sexual behaviour? To answer these questions, this book explores a cutting edge Youth Work-based SRE programme that examines how young people aged 15-21 engage with SRE, describing how a range of socioeconomic, cultural and sexual norms, values and attitudes differently shape their decision-making on sex, intimacy and future pathways. The empirical data presents young people's rich accounts from diverse socioeconomic contexts and relationships, as well as sex educators' views on the efficacy of SRE. Important key themes are family and friendship networks, education and employment expectations, and personal and romantic relationships. Uniquely theorising classed circumstances and expectations with gendered heterosexual practices, Understanding Sex and Relationship Education, Youth and Class reveals that understanding the contextual specifics of teens lives is crucial for the relevancy of SRE. Drawing on SRE and Youth Service practice, alongside policy debates in the UK and international context, means that this book will be useful for readers worldwide, and those interested in sociology, social policy, sexual and public health studies, as well as policymakers and youth practitioners.

Optimal Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement analyzes the psychological, social, and academic phenomena comprising engagement, framing it as critical to learning and development. Drawing on positive psychology, flow studies, and theories of motivation, the book conceptualizes engagement as a learning experience, explaining how it occurs (or not) and how schools can adapt to maximize it among adolescents. Examples of empirically supported environments promoting engagement are provided, representing alternative high schools, Montessori schools, and extracurricular programs. The book identifies key innovations including community-school partnerships, technology-supported learning, and the potential for engaging learning opportunities during an expanded school day. Among the topics covered: Engagement as a primary framework for understanding educational and motivational outcomes. Measuring the malleability, complexity, multidimensionality, and sources of engagement. The relationship between engagement and achievement. Supporting and challenging: the instructor's role in promoting engagement. Engagement within and beyond core academic subjects. Technological innovations on the engagement horizon. Optimal Learning Environments to Promote Student Engagement is an essential resource for researchers, professionals, and graduate students in child and school psychology; social work; educational psychology; positive psychology; family studies; and teaching/teacher education.

The United States Constitution has already been interpreted to provide a variety of family-related protections which, if applied consistently, also protect same-sex couples and their children. Only by radically reformulating and severely undermining existing protections can courts and commentators justify the claim that the Federal Constitution does not offer a wealth of family protections, including the right to marry a same-sex partner.

Discussing the constitutional implications of civil unions with a special focus on how they might be treated in the interstate context, Strasser explains how the courts and commentators have reworked and significantly weakened a variety of constitutional protections in their attempts to establish that same-sex couples are not afforded constitutional protections. He further suggests that the constitutional protections for religion support rather than undermine the constitutional protection of same-sex unions.

Promotion of the low risk "ABC" behaviors-Abstinence, Being faithful, and Condom use-has had only limited success in Africa. This book draws on a large qualitative study affiliated with an adolescent intervention trial to examine how ABC promotion can be improved. It evaluates the MEMA kwa Vijana sexual health program, which was implemented in 62 primary schools and 18 health facilities in rural Tanzania, scrutinizing its teacher-led curriculum, peer education, youth-friendly health services, youth condom distribution, and community mobilization components. The book examines how implementing such a low-cost, large-scale program involved many compromises, including those between national policies and international "best practice" recommendations, between the most desirable intervention design and one that was affordable and sustainable at a large scale, between optimal teaching methods and real-world teaching capacity, between ideal curriculum content and what was acceptable to the local community, and between adults' values and youths' realities. The program's impact is evaluated by triangulating findings from three person-years of participant observation, in-depth interviews, survey interviews, and biomedical tests. The book also provides in-depth case studies to examine the motivations and strategies of extraordinary young people who practiced ABC behaviors. It outlines broad principles for ABC promotion, including: acknowledging existing youth sexual relationships; promoting each low risk behavior in complexity and depth; working with preexisting, culturally compelling motivations; and intervening at individual, interpersonal, community, and structural levels. Many recommendations for the promotion of specific ABC behaviors are discussed, such as reducing pressures and incentives for girls to have sex; targeting male risk-perception and self-preservation; promoting alternative forms of masculinity than sexual conquest; strengthening premarital and marital relationships; tailoring fidelity programs for hidden couples, couples planning to marry, and monogamous and polygynous married partners; and addressing pleasure, trust, pregnancy prevention, and fertility protection in condom promotion. The book concludes with additional recommendations specific to school programs, and a review of promising complementary interventions for out-of-school youth, women, men, couples, and parents.

The practice of karo kari allows family, especially fathers, brothers and sons, to take the lives of their daughters, sisters and mothers if they are accused of adultery. This volume examines the central position of karo kari in the social, political and juridical structures in Upper Sindh, Pakistan. Drawing connections between local contests over marriage and resources, Nafisa Shah unearths deep historical processes and power relations. In particular, she explores how the state justice system and informal mediations inform each other in state responses to karo kari, and how modern law is implicated in this seemingly ancient cultural practice.

Recent literature has identified modern "parenting" as an expert-led practice-one which begins with pre-pregnancy decisions, entails distinct types of intimate relationships, places intense burdens on mothers and increasingly on fathers too. Exploring within diverse historical and global contexts how men and women make-and break-relations between generations when becoming parents, this volume brings together innovative qualitative research by anthropologists, historians, and sociologists. The chapters focus tightly on inter-generational transmission and demonstrate its importance for understanding how people become parents and rear children.

The family remains a fundamental social, emotional, and economic unit, but it is undergoing change, especially in the European Union. Reimagining the Family explores contemporary films and literature about the effects of legal and illegal immigration on the structure and the stories of the contemporary 'European' family, with a focus on Germany. Multiple models, from nuclear to extended, local to transnational, encounter each other in statistics and in fictions. Narratives about work, love, generational difference, and conflicts among them alternately resist and embrace the influences of migration and immigration. Defining cosmopolitan identities in new and more inclusive ways, these stories of transnational families go beyond the demographic studies to expand the range of possibilities for understanding work, parenting, and citizenship in contemporary Europe.

With the recent media interest in celebrity childhood sexual abuse and rape cases, we think we know what sexual violence is and who 'rape victims' are. But this portrayal is limited. Drawing on in-depth accounts from women who have experienced rape, this book revisits issues of credibility, responsibility and feminism to provide missing details.