Family goals and behaviour in an international comparative analysis

Alicia will discuss the paper and its aims to develop a conceptual framework for identifying family goals/values and to understand how they impact family behaviour (especially union formation and fertility). 

The authors of the paper designed a survey to collect this information via both conventional survey questions and novel randomly-generated vignettes of family profiles that individuals are asked to evaluate in terms of their “success” and desirability. Family profiles varied in terms of their marital status, number of children, family investments and interactions, educational aspirations and gender labour market specialisation. 

The survey was conducted in 2021 using online panels in Italy, Korea, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Japan, China and the US. Many of these countries are characterised by some of the lowest fertility rates in the world, but have very different institutional settings, labour market arrangements, and family formation processes.

A better understanding of family goals and values should allow us to theoretically integrate the ways in which mechanisms governing micro-level intimate family contexts scale up to (partially) explain macro-level trends in family patterns.

This event will be particularly useful for those interested in quantitative social science, demography and families.

N.B. This is a hybrid event and you can attend either virtually or in-person.

Related links

• QSS seminar series
• Quantitative Social Science (QSS)
• Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS)
• Social Research Institute

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