دانلود کتاب پویایی خانواده در طول دوره زندگی

Families are the starting point for life course journeys and all families want to give their children the best possible start in life. As children grow older and transition through key life course stages, such as schooling, entry to the labour market, rela¬tionship formation and parenthood, families continue to shape experiences and out¬comes. There is ample evidence across many studies of the long reach of family background on opportunities and outcomes well into adulthood and across genera¬tions (Bradbury et al., 2015; Duncan & Murnane, 2011; Ermisch et al., 2012; Huang et al., 2021; Lersch & Baxter, 2021). But families vary in the extent to which they can provide the resources, skills and environments that enable children and young people to achieve their dreams. Understanding what these differences are, how they vary across social groups and how they are supported or impeded by key social institutions and across different social contexts is the focus of this book.
Our approach is guided by a life course perspective. Life course theory is a mul¬tidisciplinary perspective that foregrounds the importance of timing and sequencing of key life events, variations across time and context, connections between individu¬als through linked lives and agency for understanding variations in pathways and outcomes (Elder & Giele, 2009; Mayer, 2009). As discussed in Chap. 2, different disciplines emphasise different aspects of life course theory, but central to all approaches is the notion of connections over time as individuals move through cul¬turally and historically defined stages influenced by past experiences, events and circumstances. A life course approach draws attention to both micro-level individ¬ual factors such as cognition, personality and biology as well as social and cultural forces at the macro level, like education systems, labour markets and social and cultural values. Importantly for us, a life course approach emphasises family rela-tionships and resources as key to understanding how individual biographies develop and play out over time in both the short and long-term.
Life course journeys are always somewhat unique. There is debate about whether life courses are becoming more variable and less standardised over time or whether most people follow broadly similar, albeit different to previous generations, path¬ways (Macmillan, 2005). Some have suggested that individuals are increasingly able to pursue their own individual biographies free from many of the normative expectations and constraints imposed in previous times (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 1995). This may include delaying major life events, skipping some, adding new ones and reorganising the timing and sequencing of others (Macmillan, 2005). On the other hand, there is also evidence that most people still follow broadly normative pathways (Brückner & Mayer, 2005), although with some new stages added, such as emerging adulthood as examined in Chap. 8, cohabitation before marriage as discussed in Chap. 10 and a new stage following retirement but prior to old age, referred to by Moen (2016) as “encore adulthood.”
Andrew Cherlin (2004, 2009) elegantly captured some of these ideas in relation to changes in the timing and ordering of marriage. As discussed in Chap. 10, Cherlin argued that many of the norms that once guided marriage have been weakened or lost as societies become increasingly secular and legal institutions recognize a diversity of family types—a process he refers to as the “deinstitutionalization” of marriage. But just as marriage has lost much of its practical significance through deinstitutionalization, it has taken on a new symbolic status according to Cherlin (2004). Marriage he argues, is now something to be celebrated and achieved as the capstone to one’s life after other goals, such as having children, buying a house, establishing a career or steady employment, have been achieved. Marriage has thus shifted he argues, from being one early marker of adulthood to a prestige status that is a capstone of adult life.