Prelims

Half Title Page

Families in Economically Hard Times

Title Page

Families in Economically Hard Times: Experiences and Coping Strategies in Europe

Edited by

Vida Česnuitytė

Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania

Gerardo Meil

Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Howard House, Wagon Lane, Bingley BD16 1WA, UK

First edition 2020

© 2020 by Emerald Publishing Limited. Selection and editorial matter © Vida Česnuitytė & Gerardo Meil, under an exclusive licence. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-83909-072-1 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83909-071-4 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83909-073-8 (Epub)

List of Figures

List of Tables

List of Abbreviations

About the Contributors

Prof. Martina Brandt is Professor for Social Structure and Sociology of Ageing Societies at TU Dortmund (Germany). She was Assistant Coordinator (Research) of the European SHARE project and currently leads an international ORA project on inequalities in care and wellbeing. Her quantitative research focuses on ageing, family, health and social inequality.

Prof. Julia Brannen is Professor of the Sociology of the Family at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education, and fellow of the Academy of Social Science (UK). She has an international reputation for research on methodology, the lives of children and young people in families, work–family life and intergenerational relationships. Recent books include Fathers and Sons (2015), and Social Research Matters (2019).

Dr. Benedetta Cappellini is a Professor of Marketing at the University of Durham (UK). Her research falls broadly into the areas of consumer culture, critical marketing and sociology of consumption. Topics she has recently studied include food cultures, meal practices, austerity, intensive mothering and domestic violence. She has published in journals such as Journal of Business Research; Journal of Marketing Management; Consumption Markets and Culture; Sociology; Sociology of Health and Illness and the Sociological Review. She has co-edited books on the practice of the meal and mothering and food consumption.

Dr. Vida Česnuitytė is Associated Professor of the Sociology at Mykolas Romeris University (Vilnius, Lithuania). With over 15 years in various positions she has participated in research projects. Main research interests concern family conceptualisation, family practices, family quality life, social policy, and social research methods. Individually or in co-authorship she has published over 20 articles, book chapters and books in Lithuanian and English.

Dr. Christian Deindl is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute of Medical Sociology at the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf (Germany). He is involved in projects involving the harmonisation of ELSA and SHARELIFE, employment in old age and inequality in care. His research covers intergenerational relations, family sociology, health, employment and life course research.

Prof. Diego Dueñas Fernández is Professor in the Department of Economics at the University of Alcalá (Madrid, Spain). He was awarded the prize for extraordinary doctorate in the year 2012 at the University of Alcalá. His line of research focuses on issues of gender in the labour market, topics of analysis regarding labour segregation and wage discrimination.

Dr. Vicki Harman is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Surrey (UK). Her research interests include family life, gender, food practices and social inequalities. Her research has been published in journals including Sociology; Sociology of Health and Illness; Families, Relationships and Societies; International Journal of Consumer Studies; Young Consumers; the European Journal of Marketing and Ethnic and Racial Studies. She is the co-editor of Feeding Children Inside and Outside the Home: Critical Perspectives (Routledge, 2019).

Dr. Bettina Isengard is Senior Research Associate at the Institute of Sociology, University of Zurich (Switzerland) and a member of the research group ‘LAbour, Generation, Stratification’ (AGES). She has a PhD in Sociology of the University of Mannheim, Germany. Current research activities include studies about generations, social structure and inequality.

Dr. Abigail Knight is Lecturer in Sociology at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education (UK). As well as teaching, she is a qualitative researcher with children and families and has researched and written widely on the lives of young people in care, children with disabilities and families living in poverty.

Dr. Ronny König is Graduate Research Assistant at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) and member of the research group ‘LAbour, Generation, Stratification’ (AGES). He has a PhD in Sociology at the University of Zurich since 2015. His main research interests are social inequality, stratification and intergenerational relationships.

Dr. Alessandra Marilli is a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Department of Sociology and Political Studies, University of Florence (Italy). Her research interests are media consumption, media representation of gender and ethnicity and family consumption. She held various research and teaching positions at the University of Florence. She has just concluded a European Union–funded research project on the Italian media representations of immigrants.

Prof. Dr Aušra Maslauskaitė is Professor of Sociology at the Department of Sociology, Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania) and Senior Researcher at Lithuanian Social Research Center. Her research interests include family demography and family sociology. She works on issues related to family formation and dissolution, causes and consequences of divorce, families and inequalities, gender and intergenerational relationships.

Dr. Sara Mazzucchelli is an Assistant Professor in Family Sociology at the Faculty of Psychology and collaborates with the Family Studies and Research University Centre (Italy). Her research focuses primarily on family–work reconciliation and corporate welfare; the socio-cultural transformations of the family; social policies and services for the family. She teaches Sociology of cultural and communication processes and Sociology of cultural welfare processes.

Prof. Gerardo Meil is Professor at Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain), and former President of the European Society on Family Relations. His research fields include family lives, balancing working and private lives, gender studies, domestic violence, new family forms, job mobility, social policies and family policies. His research has been funded in competitive calls by the regional government of Madrid, the Spanish Ministry of Education and/or Science, the European Union and private institutions. He has published scientific articles, book chapters and books in Spanish, English, German or French.

Prof. Almudena Moreno Mínguez is Professor in Sociology at the University of Valladolid (Spain). She is a specialist in family issues, welfare state, public policies and comparative research on gender. Her research work has been recognised with the International Award for Young Sociologists, given by the International Sociological Association.

Dr. Miriam Parise is Post-Doc Researcher in Social Psychology at the Family Studies and Research University Centre of the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Milano (Italy). Her research focuses primarily on the couple relationship, which she studies from a psycho-social perspective. She teaches ‘Psychology of groups’ and ‘Psychology of educational contexts: juridical and social aspects’ at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at UCSC-Brescia and UCSC-Piacenza.

Prof. Elizabeth Parsons is a Professor of Marketing at the University of Liverpool Management School (UK). She is interested in consumer culture and critical marketing. Recent topics include food poverty, food and family and marketplace exclusion. Her approach to research is interdisciplinary and she has published in Sociology; Sociology of Health and Illness; Organization Studies and the Journal of Consumer Culture. She is co-editor of the journal Marketing Theory which publishes critical and alternative perspectives on markets and consumption.

Ernesta Platūkytė is a PhD student in Sociology at Vytautas Magnus University (Kaunas, Lithuania) since 2013. In 2004, she graduated from Vilnius University, and obtained a Master's degree in Social Work. Between 2004 and 2006 she was PhD student in social work at Lapland University. Her research interests concern sociology of family.

Dr. Rebecca O'Connell is a Reader in the Sociology of Food and Families at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education (UK). She is co-author, with Julia Brannen, of Food, Families, and Work (2016) and Principal Investigator of the European Research Council–funded study, Families and Food in Hard Times.

Prof. Marc Szydlik has been a full Professor of Sociology at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) since 2004. He previously worked at the German Institute for Economic Research, the Max-Planck-Institute for Human Development, the Free University of Berlin and the University of Erfurt. He recently directs the research group ‘LAbour, Generation, Stratification’.

Prof. Eric D. Widmer is Professor at the School of Social Sciences of the University of Geneva (Switzerland), and a member of the board of I-DEMO. His long-term interests include intimate ties, family and other interpersonal relations, life course research and social networks. Along with others, he has been developing for two decades research on families in configurational perspective. He is an active member of NCCR lives, and the author of numerous books and research papers.

Preface

The edited collection Families in Economically Hard Times: Experiences and Coping Strategies in Europe was initiated by the members of the European Sociological Association's Research Network ‘Sociology of Families and Intimate Lives’ (ESA RN13). The editors invited researchers to contribute their papers presented at sociological conferences, and also invited prominent authors who work on corresponding themes.

The book provides readers with novel knowledge on experiences and behaviour strategies of European families during the decade after the global economic crisis at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The research studies provide answers to the questions: how challenges emerging in an economically hard context influenced the way of life of European families? Which known and unusual behaviour strategies are specific to families of various configurations in solving vital issues caused by the latest economic crises? Research results focus on material deprivation, functional solidarity and practices concerning co-residence, sharing of money and food acquisition.

Authors from six countries (Germany, Italy, Lithuania, Spain, Switzerland and the UK) present original research results by developing and applying innovative theoretical and methodical approaches for a deeper understanding of phenomena. The most promising papers that best correspond with the book's aims, and give an integrated vision, are included in the collection. The editors of the book express special gratitude to Benedicte Brahic, Donatella Bramanti, Berit Brandth, Esther Dermott, Jacques-Antoine Gauthier, Detlev Lück and Claude Martin whose valuable comments enabled to significantly improve the quality of the book's content.

The main benefits of the book are the following: the novelty of findings, innovative research approaches and, finally, international dimension in terms of countries represented and compared in the empirical analyses. The editors hope that this edited collection will be a useful reading for researchers, teachers, students, professionals and others who are interested in scientific knowledge on the family in economically hard times.

Vida Česnuitytė & Gerardo Meil

Book editors