Changing European Families

Abstract

This chapter addresses the main features of changing families in Europe. The disconnection of marriage and childbearing is the most dramatic change in families. While young couples once followed a predictable sequence of events in family formation, there are nowadays more variations in the process. The transformation of the family includes new family arrangements such as cohabiting unions, same-sex marriages, single-parent families, and living alone. Becoming parents remains salient to defining families and an important way of defining partnership commitment. Young people wait longer to become parents and have fewer children than before. Although most married couples stay together until death, increasing numbers of marriages are dissolving. Most changes in family behavior are found across Europe but with extensive variation in level and tempo of changes.

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