This book presents various studies that go beyond the mere opposition between macro and micro determinants of social and family changes. The cross-cultural, transdisciplinary and generational perspectives on selection of the partner, marriage, cohabitation, LAT relationships, divorces, ageing and interchanges, children, types of households, inheritance and construction of the domestic space contribute to deepen the analysis of diversity in families and their multiple interactions with cultural, demographic, economic, and social processes. The authors reveal the complex connections between the internal and external spheres of the family, the historical moments and contexts, the intergenerational experiences, the macro-structural processes and the individuals' multiple possibilities of action, between the everyday decision-making and the changes in the families' practices. Exceptional situations, such as catastrophes or economic crises, contribute to the diversification of the family and promote retrocession in gender equality. Crisis and war intensify female care and domestic work. Diversification implies that families are not adscripted to closed systems, determined automatically within also closed societies that portray family as a miniature reflection of social structures. Deconstructing this myth, most of the authors recognize family diversity and its variations in space and time. The understanding of the economic, social, cultural and demographic family processes and practices permits to relate population and society. The duplication of the life expectancy and the reduction of births by almost one half in entire populations worldwide lie behind marriage markets, reproductive practices, generational availability, coexistence probabilities, intergenerational exchange and new and different familial arrangements. Increases in life expectancy and changes in the timing and number of children lead social actors to reconsider gender and generational roles; the solidarity among generations has another background and acquires different meanings; although there has been an increase in gender equality, it has come with an increased social inequality within the countries and among them. Demographic processes are an inherent part of social processes, and the age structure of the populations constitutes the human and biological basis for the analysis of social behaviors that these populations choose to reproduce, as well as for the understanding of the differences in the distribution of resources into and between countries, genders, generations and social groups.
About the Author: Cristina Gomes is a physician with specialization in Public Health (National School of Public Health; Oswaldo Cruz Foundation), and holds the PhD in Population at El Colegio de Mexico. She is professor and researcher at the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales in Mexico and has been consultant for the Ford Foundation, the Population Council and the United Nations Population Found. In Brazil she has coordinated researchers on morbility and mortality, and coordinated work groups in health policies for women, elders, mental health and alternative therapies in social security systems. In Mexico she has been Coordinator of assessors at the National Council of Population (CONAPO). She is member of the International Union for Scientific Studies in Population (IUSSP), of the International Sociological Association (ISA) and of the Committee on Family Research (CR 06-ISA). Her areas of interest are poverty, ageing, family and life-course, health and gender. She has three books published in Spanish, and her recent articles in English are: Social Security in Mexico, in Encyclopedia of Social Welfare History in North America, (Coord. J.M. Eric and P.H.Stuart) London (2005); Ageing in Mexico-Families, Informal Care and Reciprocity (Co-author with V. Montes de Oca), in Living Longer (Coord. P.L.Sherlock) Zed Editors London (2004); Households and Income-Institutional and Gender Inequalities in Brazil and Colombia, in Journal of Development Societies, University of Arizona (2003); Households and Income: Ageing and Gender Inequalities in Urban Brazil and Colombia, in Through the Eyes of Women: Gender, Social Networks, Family, and Structural Change in Latin America and Caribbean (Coord.C.Menjivar) de Sitter Publications, Ontario, (2003); Life course, households and institutions in Comparative Studies of Family, Canada (2002); Income Structure and Social Policy in Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, in Exclusion and Engagement: Social Policy in Latin America (Coord.C.Lewis) Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London, London (2002); Immigration to the United States - The Southern Cone (Co-author with L.Marteletto), in Encyclopedia of Immigration. Vol 3, part III.2, New York, M.E.Sharpe, 2001.