Stages of change and engagement in a family intervention

Prochaska and DiClemente's stages of change model facilitate understanding of engagement difficulties in psychosocial intervention processes. We assessed the link between stages of family change and intervention dropout in a sample of 141 families with relational conflicts between parents and adolescent children. Each family member's stage of change was defined according to three criteria: seeing the conflict as a relational problem, assuming part of the responsibility for the dysfunctional relationship, and understanding one's own mental and emotional states and those of the other family members involved in the conflict (mentalization). Our dropout rate for the sample was 41.8% and was higher for immigrant families. We found a strong association between engagement and the contemplation stage of change, particularly the mother's. In family conflict interventions, participation of all the family members is essential so as raise awareness of the relational aspects of the conflict and the shared responsibility for the conflict and its resolution.     

Household division of labor and cross-country differences in household formation rates

This paper considers the extent to which the gender division of labor affects the likelihood of household formation. Using repeated cross sectional data covering highly-developed nations, we consider the differential effects of aggregate social norms regarding the division of household labor. Controlling for other factors that affect the marriage market, our findings indicate that more egalitarian norms are associated with an increase in the probability of forming a household. When additionally controlling for individual attitudes, we find that, ceteris paribus, more egalitarian women are less likely to form a household, while more egalitarian men are more likely to do so. This pattern of results is consistent with economic models of the marriage market where partners contract over the future household division of labor. Moreover, given the salience of household formation as a proximate determinant of fertility, our results potentially shed light onto the process of below replacement fertility and the economic challenges associated with it.     

The Role of Family Policy in Explaining the International Variation in Child Subjective Well-Being

The article proposes an innovative analyse for cross-national differences in the subjective child well-being introducing new indicators and measures. This dimension addresses the issue of welfare support to parents and child early education. The question of this research is to what extend family policies can explain the variability of subjective child well-being components in different European countries. Based on this question, the two objective of this proposal are: (1) to review the existing literature with respect to conceptualization, measurement, and correlates of children’s subjective well-being, with a special emphasis on the context of family policies and family well-being in different European welfare states, and (2) to analyse the relation between these policies and subjective child well-being. In order to get these aims we have elaborated two indexes: the index of child subjective well-being and family policy index. Data for HBSC (Health Behaviour in School-aged Children) for the first index and data from OECD Family Database is used to build these indicators. We found that the index of child subjective well-being is comparatively higher in those countries where family policies are more generous in the areas of preschool education, family services, family spending and duration of paid parental leave.     

The perfect storm? How to explain the rise of intergovernmental conflicts in Spain? (1984–2014)

As in other federal-like countries, intergovernmental relations in Spain are characterised by a series of conflicts between central and regional governments. But, which factors explain this dynamic of contention? This investigation operationalises intergovernmental conflicts through a specific dataset constituted by the volume of contestations between regional and central executives (and vice versa) in Spain before the Constitutional Court. This research demonstrates that from 1984 to 2014 the periods of absolute majority at the Congress and the victory of peripheral nationalist parties at the head of autonomous communities increased the level of intergovernmental contestations.     

Calibrating Time-Use Estimates for the British Household Panel Survey

This paper proposes an innovative statistical matching method to combine the advantages of large national surveys and time diary data. We use data from two UK datasets that share stylised time-use information, crucial for the matching process. In particular, time-diary information of an individual from the Home On-line Study, our donor data set, is imputed to a similar individual from the British Household Panel Survey, our recipient dataset. Propensity score methods are used in conjunction with Mahalanobis matching to increase matching quality.     

Future perspectives on work and family dynamics in Southern Europe: the importance of culture and regional contexts

The Southern countries model (Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece) take a specific family-oriented approach to work–family reconciliation. They are family-oriented in that they entrust the family with more responsibilities that in other countries. Work–family reconciliation is considered as a political action that gives quite limited and unstable support to encourage women’s labour-market participation; this results in the poor development of external services and in few benefits for women, who have to undertake multiple roles inside and outside the family. In these countries, negotiation is left to the private spheres of the couple or local communities, so that each family can decide on the best way to use the existing policies and consider the possibilities available to them. In this sense it is not possible only to apply ‘outside models’ (such as the Nordic, French, German, etc.) to find an effective approach for these countries. The special issue, starting from the current situation explores possibilities for future scenarios in Southern Europe countries concerning work–family dynamics. It includes general comparative papers or case study on work-care arrangements, family and care policies, early childhood education and care (ECEC) with regard to family well-being, gender equality, fertility or father involvement in Southern European countries.     

Social norms, partnerships and children

This paper presents a social norms interpretation to explain cross-country differences in partnership formation rates. Social norms are modeled as a constraint on the allocation of household labor that diminishes the gains of entering a partnership, especially for highly educated women with a higher opportunity cost of time. Results using individual level data from 7 waves of the European Community Household Panel (1995?C2001) confirm the predictions from the theory. These results are robust to controlling for country varying factors such as childcare policies and divorce rates, and are mostly driven by marriage (as opposed to cohabitation) decisions. Given that household formation is a necessary prerequisite to having children, our results potentially shed light onto the process of below replacement fertility and the economic challenges associated with it.     

The Time-Crunch Paradox

Previous research has shown little difference in the average leisure time of men and women. This finding is a challenge to the second shift argument, which suggests that increases in female labor market hours have not been compensated by equal decreases in household labor. This paper presents time-use and leisure satisfaction data for a variety of western European countries, and shows that accounting for socio-economic factors that differ between men and women is vital for understanding gender differences. We find that working mothers have leisure levels that are much lower than those of working fathers and singles. Working mothers are also most likely to report the least satisfaction with free time. Finding that time stress and leisure time are positively correlated within socio-demographic groups suggests that the second shift argument is still valid, and that feelings of time stress are indeed associated with the lack of leisure time.     

Economic and Social Determinants of Human Development: A New Perspective

The aim of this work is to determine the factors affecting development, not only the economic ones, which play a central role in economic literature, but also social. To do so we have used a wide sample of countries and have estimated a panel data for 171 of those that have been members of the United Nations for a period of 16 years (from 1995 to 2010 inclusive). The results obtained allow us to conclude that fight against poverty, provision of basic infrastructure, and investment in greater democracy, greater stability and less corruption, have, in all cases, a positive effect on human development in these countries.     

Gender equality and family changes in the work–family culture in Southern Europe1

The wider context of the trade-off between work and family is not just a matter of changing preferences. The focus of the literature in this area has been strongly concerned with the identification of factors promoting high levels of female employment than with the location of policy determinants of cross-national fertility variation. Work–family reconciliation is considered as a political action that gives quite limited and unstable support to encourage women’s labour market participation, this results in the poor development of external services and in fewer benefits for women, who have to undertake multiple roles inside and outside the family. The Southern European countries (SEC) model take a specific family-oriented approach to work–family reconciliation. They are family-oriented in that they entrust the family with more responsibilities that in other countries and take a conservative/corporatist-family-oriented approach to work–family reconciliation. The key role and the interconnection between fertility and employment among women, as well as the influence of the gender system and, on the whole, of the welfare system depend on the specific culture of different countries. Based on these theoretical premises, this paper reviews the academic discussion of the meaning of work–family balance concept in the cultural context of SEC from a comparative perspective, taking in account the gender equality debate.