Care of the State blends archival, oral history, interview and ethnographic data to study the changing relationships and kinship ties of children who lived in state residential care in socialist Hungary. It advances anthropological understanding of kinship and the workings of the state by exploring how various state actors and practices shaped kin ties. Jennifer Rasell shows that norms and processes in the Hungarian welfare system placed symbolic weight on nuclear families whilst restricting and devaluing other possible ties for children in care, in particular to siblings, friends, welfare workers and wider communities. In focussing on care practices both within and outside kin relations, Rasell shows that children valued relationships that were produced through personal attention, engagement and emotional connections. Highlighting the diversity of experiences in state care in socialist Hungary, this book's nuanced insights represent an important contribution to research on children's well-being and family policies in Central-Eastern Europe and beyond.

Even in secular and civil contexts, marriage retains sacramental connotations. Yet what moral significance does it have? This book examines its morally salient features - promise, commitment, care, and contract - with surprising results. In Part One, "De-Moralizing Marriage," essays on promise and commitment argue that we cannot promise to love and so wedding vows are (mostly) failed promises, and that marriage may be a poor commitment strategy. The book contends with the most influential philosophical accounts of the moral value of marriage to argue that marriage has no inherent moral significance. Further, the special value accorded marriage sustains amatonormative discrimination - discrimination against non-amorous or non-exclusive caring relationships such as friendships, adult care networks, polyamorous groups, or urban tribes. The discussion raises issues of independent interest for the moral philosopher such as the possibilities and bounds of interpersonal moral obligations and the nature of commitment. The central argument of Part Two, "Democratizing Marriage," is that liberal reasons for recognizing same-sex marriage also require recognition of groups, polyamorists, polygamists, friends, urban tribes, and adult care networks. Political liberalism requires the disestablishment of monogamous amatonormative marriage. Under the constraints of public reason, a liberal state must refrain from basing law solely on moral or religious doctrines; but only such doctrines could furnish reason for restricting marriage to male-female couples or romantic love dyads. Restrictions on marriage should thus be minimized. But public reason can provide a strong rationale for minimal marriage: care, and social supports for care, are a matter of fundamental justice. Part Two also responds to challenges posed by property division on divorce, polygyny, and supporting parenting, and builds on critiques of marriage drawn from feminism, queer theory, and race theory. It argues, using the example of minimal marriage, for the compatibility of liberalism and feminism.

This open access book explores how young people engage with chemical substances in their everyday lives. It builds upon and supplements a large body of literature on young people's use of drugs and alcohol to highlight the subjectivities and socialities that chemical use enables across diverse socio-cultural settings, illustrating how young people seek to avoid harm, while harnessing the beneficial effects of chemical use. The book is based on multi-sited anthropological research in Southeast Asia, Europe and the US, and presents insights from collaborative and contrasting analysis. Hardon brings new perspectives to debates across drug policy studies, pharmaceutical cultures and regulation, science and technology studies, and youth and precarity in post-industrial societies.

This book examines the implications of rural residence for adolescents and families in the United States, addressing both the developmental and mental health difficulties they face. Special attention is given to the unique circumstances of minority families residing in rural areas and how these families navigate challenges as well as their sources of resilience. Chapters describe approaches for enhancing the well-being of rural minority youth and their families. In addition, chapters discuss the challenges of conducting research within rural populations and propose new frameworks for studying these diverse communities. Finally, the volume offers recommendations for reducing the barriers to health and positive development in rural settings. Featured topics include: Changes in work and family structures in the rural United States. Rural job loss to offshoring and automation. The opioid crisis in the rural United States. Prosocial behaviors in rural U.S. Latino/a youth. Demographic changes across nonmetropolitan areas. Rural Families and Communities in the United States is a must-have resource for researchers, professors, clinicians, professionals, and graduate students in developmental psychology, family studies, public health as well as numerous interrelated disciplines, including sociology, demography, social work, prevention science, educational policy, political science, and economics.

This book examines the relation between the phenomenon of globalization, changes in the lifeworld of young people and the development of specific youth cultures. It explores the social, political, economic and cultural impact of globalization on young people. Growing diversity in their lifeworlds, technological development, migration and the ubiquity of digital communication and representation of the world open up new forms of self-representation, networking and political expression, which are described and discussed in the book. Other topics are the impact of globalization on work and economy, global environmental issues such as climate change, political movements which put "nationalism first", change of youth`s values and the significance of body, gender and beauty. The book highlights the challenges of young people in modern life, as well as the way in which they express themselves and engage in society - in culture, politics, work and social life.

This two-volume, edited collection lays the groundwork for an international exploration of incarceration and generation, cover a range of geographic, judicial and administrative contexts of incarceration from contributors across a range of subjects. Volume I explores an array of experiences, dynamics, cultures, interventions and impacts of incarceration in specific generations: childhood, youth and emerging adulthood, adulthood and older age. It covers topics such as: the expansion of the penal landscape; deprivation of liberty regarding children, the problem of unaccompanied migrant children; the incarceration of young adults and adults, exploring its impacts within and beyond incarceration and the consequences of imprisoning older populations. Volume II examines intergenerational relations issues within different contexts of incarceration. This collection discusses public policies and the role of the state and the citizen deprived of liberty. It speaks to academics in criminology, sociology, psychology, and law, and to practitioners and policymakers interested in incarceration.

In the emotional public debate about women and work, conventional wisdom holds that middle-class women "choose" whether or not to work, while working class "need" to work. Yet, despite the recent economic crisis, national trends show that middle-class women are more likely to work than working-class women. In this timely volume, Sarah Damaske debunks the myth that financial needs determine women's workforce participation, revealing that financial resources make it easier for women to remain at work, not easier to leave it. Departing from mainstream research, Damaske finds not two (working or not working), but three main employment patterns: steady, pulled back, and interrupted. Looking at the differences between women in these three groups, Damaske discovers that financial resources made it easier for middle-class women to remain at work steadily, while working-class women often found themselves following interrupted work pathways in which they experienced multiple bouts of unemployment. While most of the national attention has been focused on women who leave work, Damaske shows that both middle-class and working-class women found themselves pulling back from work, but for vastly different reasons. For the Family? concludes that the public debate about women's work remains focused on need because women themselves emphasize the importance of family needs in their decision-making. Damaske argues that despite differences in work experiences, class, race, and familial support, most women explained their work decisions by pointing to family needs, connecting work to family rather than an individual pursuit. In For the Family?, Sarah Damaske at last provides a far more nuanced and richer picture of women, work, and class than conventional wisdom offers.

This book is about the impact of austerity in and on everyday life, based on a two-year ethnography with families and communities in 'Argleton', Greater Manchester, UK. Focused on family, friends and intimate relations, and their intersections, the book develops a relational approach to everyday austerity. It reveals how austerity is a deeply personal and social condition, with impacts that spread across and between everyday relationships, spaces and temporal perspectives. It demonstrates how austerity is lived and felt on the ground, with distinctly uneven socio-economic consequences. Furthermore, everyday relationships are subject to change and continuity in times of austerity. Austerity also has lasting impacts on personal and shared experiences, both in terms of day-to-day practices and the lifecourses people imagine themselves living.

This book analyses leisure choice as a complex concept, made more complicated in later life than at any other time. The author posits that there are many unanswered questions about the new booming generation of healthy, older people, and this book asks what it is really like to be old at the beginning of the 21st century in the United Kingdom, analysing leisure in older people in the context of the subtle politics of the day to day. Throughout the chapters, the author highlights the often missing depictions of older people who enjoy and enact bold, informed agency as part of their everyday lives. Drawing upon secondary data from the Mass Observation Archive, a social thesis of leisure and ageing emerges that challenges the individualism inherent in 'active ageing.' It is proposed that the idea of 'active ageing' creates complex constraints to leisure as people strive to measure up to cultural expectations. The stories in this book advocate for an appreciation and re-evaluation of passive leisure in later life, and the enjoyment and freedom it can bring. The project is therefore useful to students and researchers of leisure studies, gerontology and sociology of ageing.

The long tradition of Western political thought included kinship in models of public order, but the social sciences excised it from theories of the state, public sphere, and democratic order. Kinship has, however, neither completely disappeared from the political cultures of the West nor played the determining social and political role ascribed to it elsewhere. Exploring the issues that arise once the divide between kinship and politics is no longer taken for granted, The Politics of Making Kinship demonstrates how political processes have shaped concepts of kinship over time and, conversely, how political projects have been shaped by specific understandings, idioms and uses of kinship. Taking vantage points from the post-Roman era to early modernity, and from colonial imperialism to the fall of the Berlin Wall and beyond this international set of scholars place kinship centerstage and reintegrate it with political theory.

This exciting new book engages with the recent resurgence of interest in the family, offering empirical material and theoretical analysis which give rise to a fresh understanding of the nature of family practices in modern societies.
The past decade has seen the emergence of an orthodoxy which depicts the family as being in moral decline and 'blames' parents for the harms of divorce. Family Fragments? takes issue with this political vision and with the idea that divorce is inevitably a harmful process. Although some households are fragmenting, the authors argue that moral commitments are not simply sundered. Instead they put forward a different perspective on divorce as well as formulating principles of policy based on an ethic of care.
Family Fragments? draws on a qualitative study of separating parents and examines the diverse and fluid patterns of parenthood that are negotiated and re-negotiated in the aftermath of separation. The authors show that the quality of parental relationships, both before and after separation, are vital for achieving joint parenting after divorce. They examine the moral reasoning of parents and explain how this may vary considerably with the sort of solutions imposed in a legal forum.
This book has a direct bearing on current debates concerning the family and will be essential reading for those studying gender and family relations in sociology, social policy, law and social work.

This book provides a broad survey of Chinese rural households at a time of rapid change in China's rural economy, examining the dual identity of households as consumers as well as producers of goods in terms of supply and demand. Based on the results of the China Rural Household Panel Survey (CRHPS) by Zhejiang University, this book analyzes four types of economic activities of rural households in China, particularly considering changes at the micro level. It examines how households strive to maximize family efficacy through input-output production decision-making in allocating limited resources. Examining data pertaining to agricultural production, land exploitation, migration and nationalization, as well as changes in economic behavior, this book offers a snapshot of the current situation of rural households in China and suggestions to improve living standards and related policies.

The popular imagination of marriage migration has been influenced by stories of marriage of convenience, of forced marriage, trafficking and of so-called mail-order brides. This book presents a uniquely global view of an expanding field that challenges these and other stereotypes of cross-border marriage.

This perceptive volume presents conceptual, theoretical, and empirical approaches to social policy analysis comparing China and Nordic countries in their treatment of the elderly. An international panel of experts offers valuable policy insights into issues of housing, community care, family care, pensions and social security, and mental health as China translates and adapts Western examples, particularly those set by Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The book contrasts shared issues in the contexts of economic history, accountability and service improvements, and sustainability while also examining specifically Chi nese problems such as care gaps between urban and rural elders. Coverage also considers the centrality of aging policy in China as the nation works toward its long-term goal of eradicating poverty. Included among the topics: Building a welfare system with Chinese characteristics: from a residual type to moderate universalism. "Aging in community": historical and comparative study of aging welfare and social policy. Sweden: aging welfare and social policy in the 21st century. Policy responses to aging: care services for the elderly in Norway. China's elderly care policy and its future trends. Aging Welfare and Social Policy will interest professionals and researchers addressing questions of Chinese and comparative social policy, health psychologists, and sociologists focused on family, youth, and aging.

This book brings together international research from scholars and activists on the forms of violence that older women experience into a unique, comprehensive two-volume set. This volume is concerned with understanding the consequences and impacts of violence against older women. The majority of policy and practice has been developed to reflect the dynamics and contexts of violence affecting young women, and most of the available support services had focused on the needs of those of child-bearing age. This volume sheds light on the specific needs and effectiveness of responses to violence against older women, and identifies both challenges and opportunities for developing services that meet older survivor's needs. It will be of interest to researchers in social and health care, gerontology, sociology and social policy, feminist research and criminology.

This edited book empirically discusses stratification in contemporary Japanese society. It is unique for its examination of social inequality in relation to declining fertility and an aging population. Japan is the most aged society in the world: according to the Statistics Bureau of Japan, people who are aged 65 and above comprised 29.1% of the country's total population in 2021. Meanwhile, the fertility rate has continuously declined since the mid-1970s. Japan experienced a dramatic change in its demographic structure in a short period of time. Such fast change could be a major factor that generated social stratification. In her industrialization, Japan was thought to share a pattern of social stratification similar to that of developed European and North American countries but with a low degree of socio-economic inequality and a high degree of homogeneity. There is no clear support for this description of Japan, although the country does share a pattern and degree of social stratification similar to that observed in Europe and North America. The social stratification theory has been developed in close relationship to the labor market; however, it is necessary to further examine the social stratification of very aged societies in which a substantial number of the population-namely, retired persons-no longer have any ties to the labor market. In this book, the contributors explore the pattern of social stratification at three life stages: young, middle-aged, and elderly. Included are discussions of various aspects of stratification such as education, work, wealth, marriage, family, gender, generation, and social attitudes.

Following on from Making Sense of Motherhood (2005) and Making Sense of Fatherhood (2010), Tina Miller's book focuses on transitions to first-time parenthood and the unfolding experiences of managing caring and paid work in modern family lives. Returning to her original participants, it collects later episodes of their experience of 'doing' family life, and meticulously examines mothers' and fathers' accounts of negotiating intensified parenting responsibilities and work-place demands. It explores questions of why gender equality and equity are harder to manage within the home sphere when organising caring and associated responsibilities, re-addressing the concept of 'maternal gatekeeping' and offering insights into a new concept of 'paternal gatekeeping'. The findings presented will inform both scholarly work and policy on family lives, gender equality and work.

This volume provides an international perspective on parental leave policies in different countries, goes beyond this to examine a range of issues in depth, and aims to stimulate thinking about possible futures and how policy might underpin them.

This open access book makes a contribution to our understanding of one of the social challenges facing many western nations i.e. the challenge of an ageing population. It specifically addresses the issue of competence among older employees. Others have studied ageing populations in terms of the economic burden or the pressure on healthcare services and generally view the rising numbers of seniors more as a challenge than an opportunity. In this book, authors discuss ways of gaining positive benefits from our ageing and more experienced work force.

Explores the hopes and anxieties of urban, middle-class parents in contemporary China. This book reveals how global transformations are expressed in the most intimate of human experiences. Ultimately, the book offers a meditation on the nature of moral agency, examining how people discern, amid the myriad contingencies of life, the boundary between what can and cannot be controlled.

The concept of "Waithood" was developed by political scientist Diane Singerman to describe the expanding period of time between adolescence and full adulthood as young people wait to secure steady employment and marry. The contributors to this volume employ the waithood concept as a frame for richly detailed ethnographic studies of "youth in waiting" from a variety of world areas, including the Middle East Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the U.S, revealing that whether voluntary or involuntary, the phenomenon of youth waithood necessitates a recognition of new gender and family roles.

Marginalisation of Older Men: The Lost Boys focuses on the phenomenon of the marginalisation of older men and the impact of gendered ageing as a pathologic disorder leading to suicide ideation, rather than a celebratory state. In this engaging investigation,Deborah Mulligan explains why and how some older men have become marginalised in society, and the effects of this social isolation. The book offers effective and unique methods for researching marginalised groups and individuals to maximise innovativeness, reciprocity and utility for research participants. Mulligan skilfully articulates and communicates the hitherto unheard voices of older males. These voices represent a vital element in the mitigation of loneliness, social isolation and suicide. The lived experience of these individual men and their peers provides vital health information for older men in both contemporary and future society.