Sociology: family & relationships

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Based on groundbreaking original research, this book provides a comprehensive account of the issues surrounding pregnancy and parenthood for young people in and leaving care, considering the role of state as corporate parent and grandparent.

The first hand stories in this book, collected through The Children's Society's campaign The Debt Trap, offer a unique understanding of life for families and children fighting a daily battle against poverty and debt.

In the UK, as in other rich countries, the ‘playing-field’ is anything but level and the family plays a surprisingly crucial part in maintaining inequality. This book explores how seemingly mundane aspects of family life raise fundamental questions of social justice and calls for a rethink of what equality of opportunity means.

Naomi Eisenstadt and Carey Oppenheim explore the radical changes in public attitudes and public policy concerning parents and parenting, arguing that a more joined-up approach is needed to improve outcomes for children: both reducing child poverty and improving parental capacity by providing better support systems.

Telling the stories of low-income families, this book exposes the ways that pre-existing inequalities, insecurities and hardships were amplified during the pandemic in the UK and offers key policy recommendations for change.

Debunking the myth of the ageing time bomb, this timely book from the authors of Retiring with Attitude challenges our assumptions and stereotypes and demonstrates that we are capable of living better together longer in this new, older world.

Drawing on the largest database available on labour migration to Europe, this book examines the poverty outcomes for three generations of settler migrants spanning multiple European destinations, as compared with their returnee and stayer counterparts living in Turkey.

Despite the increasing policy interest in work-life balance issues, relatively little research has been carried out into the links between self-employment and family life. This report considers, for the first time, the extent to which new family-friendly initiatives and legislation provide adequate support for self-employed parents.

Every household has to perform housework. Using quantitative, nationally representative survey data this book theorizes about how power dynamics as reflected in housework performance help us understand broader family variations.

This report explores the problems and opportunities presented for child protection workers responding to child abuse that occurred in the context of violence towards the child(ren)'s mother. It provides good practice examples for overcoming the traditional difficulties in this area.

This report outlines how employees and managers in three sectors - banking, grocery retail and local authorities - have experienced the 'family-friendly employment' options available in their place of work.  

This report is the first to examine attitudes towards flexible working and family life. Drawing on a study of over 1500 members of the AEEU and interviews with 53 shop stewards, the report addresses key questions around rights and benefits, employer's attitudes, gender differences and the effects of flexible working on health and well-being.