Prelims

Half Title Page

INDIAN FAMILIES

Series Page

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY RESEARCH

Series Editor: Sampson Lee Blair

Previous Volumes:

Editorial Board

• Anja-Kristin Abendroth

  Bielefeld University, Germany

• Anna-Lena Almqvist

  Mälardalen University, Sweden

• Clarence M. Batan

  University of Santo Tomas, Philippines

• Eli Buchbinder

  University of Haifa, Israel

• Yu-Hua Chen

  National Taiwan University, Taiwan

• Patricia Neff Claster

  Western Pennsylvania University, USA

• Teresa M. Cooney

  University of Colorado-Denver, USA

• Rosalina Pisco Costa

  University of Évora, Portugal

• Alda Britto da Motta

  Federal University of Bahia, Brazil

• Olufemi Adeniyi Fawole

  University of Ilorin, Nigeria

• Veronica De Leon Gregorio

  National University of Singapore, Singapore

• Ana Josefina Cuevas Hernandez

  University of Colima, Mexico

• Man-Yee Kan

  University of Oxford, UK

• Timothy J. Madigan

  Commonwealth University, USA

• Marion Müller

  University of Tuebingen, Germany

• Josip Obradović

  Catholic University of Croatia, Croatia

• Christina L. Scott

  Whittier College, USA

• Ria Smit

  University of Johannesburg, South Africa

• Heidi M. Williams

  Virginia Tech, USA

• Yongjun Zhang

  The State University of New York, USA

Title Page

CONTEMPORARY PERSPECTIVES IN FAMILY RESEARCH - VOLUME 26

INDIAN FAMILIES: CONTEMPORARY FAMILY STRUCTURES AND DYNAMICS

EDITED BY

VINOD CHANDRA

Shri Jai Narain Misra PG College, India

and

SAMPSON LEE BLAIR

The State University of New York, Buffalo, USA

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

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL.

First edition 2024

Editorial matter and selection © 2024 Vinod Chandra and Sampson Lee Blair.

Individual chapters © 2024 The authors.

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83797-596-9 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-595-2 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83797-597-6 (Epub)

ISSN: 1530-3535 (Series)

Contents

About the Editors

Sampson Lee Blair is a Family Sociologist and Demographer at The State University of New York (Buffalo). He received his BS and MS degrees from Virginia Tech, and his PhD from Penn State. Much of his research focuses upon parent–child relationships, with particular emphasis on child and adolescent development. In 2010, he received the Fulbright Scholar Award from the US Department of State, wherein he conducted research on parental involvement and children’s educational attainment in the Philippines. He has examined a wide variety of relationship dynamics within families. He has published 21 books, in addition to numerous journal articles and book chapters, and has presented over 140 research papers at conferences in the United States and abroad. His recent research has focused upon marriage and fertility patterns in China. In 2022, he published Mate Selection in China: Causes and Consequences in the Search for a Spouse (with Timothy J. Madigan and Fang Fang). He has served as Chair of the Children and Youth research section of the American Sociological Association, as Senior Editor of Sociological Inquiry, Guest Editor of Sociological Studies of Children and Youth, and on the editorial boards of Asian Women, Journal of Applied Youth Studies, Journal of Divorce and Remarriage, Journal of Family Issues, Marriage and Family Review, Social Justice Research, Sociological Inquiry, International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, and Sociological Viewpoints. He also serves on the international advisory board of Tambara, at Ateneo de Davao University, in the Philippines. In 2018, he was elected as Vice-President (North America) of the Research Committee on Youth (RC34), in the International Sociological Association. Since 2011, he has served as the Editor of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research. He is a recipient of the SUNY Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. Abroad, he has served as a Visiting Professor at the University of Santo Tomas (Manila) and Xavier University (Ateneo de Cagayan) in the Philippines. In China, he has been a Visiting Professor at East China Normal University (华东师范大学), Qingdao University (青岛大学), Shanghai International Studies University (上海外国语大学), and Shanghai University of Finance and Economics (上海财经大学). In 2020, he was initiated into the NCFR Legacy Circle of the National Council on Family Relations. In 2021, he received the Distinguished Career Service Award from the American Sociological Association’s research section on Children and Youth.

Vinod Chandra has been teaching Sociology for the last 35 years in various institutions such as Sri Jai Narain Misra Post Graduate College of Lucknow University and Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur. He has obtained his doctoral degree from Warwick University, UK, as Commonwealth Scholar on “Children’s Domestic Work,” and has pursued his postdoctoral research from Fondation Maison des Sciences de L’Homme Paris on “Elite Higher Education Institutions in India and France.” He has strong past record of researcher in the field of childhood and youth research where he has been involved in empirical research of child rights, child labor, child abuse and neglect, etc. His main interest is to study youth and children’s experience of education, work, labor, and leisure. Currently, he is working on children and youth well-being, both subjective well-being and objective indicators of well-being. He has been involved in a Multinational Qualitative Study of 23 Countries – CUWB – Global and Local Context in the recent past and conducted a study on “Children’s Understanding of Well-being in India – A Case Study of Children in Lucknow City, India.”

His professional association with International Sociology Association is for the last 30 years where he has contributed as Vice-President (Asia Region) of Research Committee on Sociology of Youth (RC34), International Sociology Association (ISA) for 2018–2022 and 2014–2018. He is still serving RC34 in the same capacity. He has served as Secretary of Research Committee on Sociology of Population (RC41), ISA, for 2018–2022. In India, he has served as President of Indian Association of Life Skills Education for the period of 2018–2020. He was instrumental in organizing the Research Committee of Sociology of Youth and Childhood at Indian Sociological Society as well along with its founding President Prof. Bula Bhadra. He is an Executive Secretary of the Circle for Child and Youth Research Cooperation in India, Lucknow (A University-College Teachers’ and Researchers’ Network Working on Youth and Childhood Studies). He has published six books on children and youth, and his latest book titled Childhood Realities: Working and Abused Children was published by Kalpaz Publications, Delhi, in March 2016. He has published 26 research articles in national and international journals of repute and presented 76 research papers in various international professional platforms. His latest publication is India Child Well-being Report 2021 brought out by World Vision India and University of Bath, UK. He has vast experience of editorial work as he is the Editor of Manav, 60 years old, a very prestigious journal published by Ethnographic and Folk Culture Society, Lucknow; Editor of Samajbodh, a journal of social understanding (7-year-old journal), published from Lucknow; working as Editorial Board Member – Youth and Globalization (published by BRILL UK); and contributing as Editorial Advisor – Young – Nordic journal of youth studies (published by SAGE London).

About the Contributors

Melissa Alcaraz is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at Brigham Young University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of education, family formation, and migration. To study this intersection, she uses a variety of methods to focus on the transition to adulthood and how adolescents’ goals for family formation interact with other goals, such as education and migration. Her research spans both the United States and international contexts, particularly Mexico. Her work has been funded through both internal and external sponsors, including the National Institutes of Health, and has been published in journals including Journal of Marriage and Family, International Migration Review, and Sociology of Education. She is currently working on new projects on tied migration and family outcomes, unaccompanied migrant children in the United States, and cross-cultural family formation aspirations.

Saswati Bhattacharya is working as an Assistant Professor under the Department of Psychology at Christ (Deemed to be University), Delhi NCR. She is pursuing her doctorate from the University of Delhi. Her topic is “Exploring the Socio-Cultural Factors on Ageing Well.” She worked as a senior psychologist under various government and private organizations for more than seven years. She has worked as a Research Associate at Central Institute of Psychiatry, Kanke, Ranchi, from 2013 to 2016. Her area of specialization remains clinical psychology, abnormal psychology, applied social psychology, and social gerontology.

Shivangi Deshwal is an independent researcher and a feminist social worker trained from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. Her main research interests are addressing barriers to help-seeking behavior for survivors of domestic violence from South Asia. She hopes to find culturally relevant interventions for domestic violence globally. She wishes to understand the intersectionality of caste and class as a factor in help-seeking behavior for survivors of domestic violence from South Asia. Her recent publications include a co-authored article titled “Exploring the Formation of Jat Masculinity in Contemporary Punjabi Music (2022),” published in the Economic and Political Weekly and another co-authored article, “Changing the Way Nonprofits Prepare: Lessons Learned from Early Resettlement of Rohingya Unaccompanied Refugee Minors (2023),” in the Journal of Human Service Organizations: Management, Leadership, and Governance. She is also a co-author of a study, Professional Social Work Response to COVID-19 Affected Families in India – Facilitating Services and Building Awareness During The Second Wave (2022) published by the National Association of Professional Social Workers in India, New Delhi. She has been a gender-based violence prevention consultant. She has extensive research and direct practice experience of working in violence against women interventions – with the State Police, NGOs, and the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Government of India. She has been associated with the Resource Centre for Interventions on Violence against Women (RCI-VAW), Tata Institute of Social Sciences, SNEHA’s Programme on Prevention of Violence against Women and Children, and Special Police Unit for Women and Children, Delhi Police. Recently, she was a Graduate Research Assistant at the University of Maryland School of Social Work, University of Maryland Baltimore, USA.

Mikaela Dufur is a Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean for Faculty Development in the College of Family, Home, and Social Sciences at Brigham Young University. Her work focuses on the social resources children and adolescents build and how those resources might facilitate positive development. She also researches how gender influences both parent and child outcomes in single-parent contexts. She has published on children and families in Australia, China, Germany, India, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In her rare spare moment, she studies race and gender in sports contexts. Her work has appeared in Social Forces, Journal of Marriage and Family, Socius, Population Research and Policy Review, Family Relations, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, American Behavioral Scientist, Social Science Research, Journal of Child and Family Studies, and Youth & Society, among other outlets. She is especially happy that more than 80% of her publications in the past decade include student co-authors.

Ashley Larsen Gibby is an Assistant Professor of Family Studies at Brigham Young University. She has two branches of research – one focused on adoption and its relation to societal biases and family functioning and one focused on how gender ideology (i.e., views about women’s and men’s roles and responsibilities in society) shapes family practices and experiences. She has studied these issues both in the United States and international contexts, most frequently India. Her research appears in Journal of Marriage and Family, Journal of Family Issues, Journal of Child and Family Studies, Children and Youth Services Review, Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Population Research and Policy Review, Maternal and Child Health Journal, Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, and Social Sciences, among other outlets.

Megha Jacob is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi. She is currently pursuing her PhD in Economics from the TERI School of Advanced Studies, Delhi. Her areas of specialization are development and health economics, public finance, macroeconomics, and environmental economics. Her research interests include the economics of health, education, gender, tourism, climate change, MSMEs, and local governance. She is the recipient of the SAARC Education Award for her outstanding contribution in the areas of environmental education. She has worked on several Indian government-funded projects for NHRC, Ministry of Labour, NIEPA, Ministry of Panchayati Raj and Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation, CSO, Government of India. She was a co-investigator in the first study of India on Human Rights of Transgender sponsored by NHRC for the Government of India. Her international publications include a book which is being referred to in the library of Deakin University, Australia, which is titled, Local Governments and Public Health Delivery System in Kerala: Lessons of Collaborative Governance published by Cambridge Scholars Press, London. She has also written several research papers in different Scopus and UGC-Care-listed and peer-reviewed journals. She also has an e-lesson published for the International Council of Sciences and the World Bank on “Shadow Prices and Market Prices.”

Barani Kanth is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Psychology, Pondicherry University, India. He was a recipient of Raman postdoctoral fellowship awarded by University Grants Commission, India, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Psychological Sciences, Kent State University, Ohio, USA. His areas of interest include family psychology and counseling, psychology of interpersonal relationships, and quantitative methods in psychology. He has published works in the area of couple and family relationships, premarital romantic relationships, cross-cultural validation of measurement instruments and dyadic data analysis. He is the lead author of an upcoming book published by Springer Nature titled Measuring Couples and Family Dynamics in India: Cultural Adaptations and Validations, which is a source book of 19 culturally validated measurement instruments in family psychology. Recently, he and his team of researchers have developed and validated a curriculum-based training module namely Personal Relationship Education Programs for Young Adults that aims at improving interpersonal skills among youth for better mental health and relationship outcomes. He is an active member of International Association of Relationship Research and an invited member of the Scientific Committee for Cross-Cultural Research, Division-52 (International Division) of American Psychological Association. He serves on the editorial board of leading journals such as Marriage and Family Review and Interpersona. Besides teaching at the university, he also conducts regular training programs and workshops for industrial organizations on mental health, relationships at work, and work–life balance. Apart from psychology and relationship research, he is interested in mindfulness meditation, Indian mythology, and astrology.

Shivani Katara has always been driven to understand the forces that shape our existence within the society and influence the way we think, feel, and act. Structural dynamics of society, such as values, norms, religion, culture, gender, ethnicity, social and political institutions, and legislation, have always intrigued her. While pursuing her bachelors in Dental Surgery, she got interested in the social and personal aspects of health, illness, and utilization of care. She realized that every person is responding to their social or local worlds in which there is some kind of organization that shapes their everyday behavior and choices. She explored for an academic course dovetailed to this interest. Sociology as an interdisciplinary field has provided her a lens to look at these crucial areas objectively and framed her understanding about the world.

Along with her clinical practice, she did her postgraduation in Sociology. She has been awarded a Junior Research Fellowship by the University Grant Commission, Government of India. Later, she completed her doctorate in Sociology from Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi. Her research work spans issues of gender, culture, sexuality, health, law, bioethics, and medical professionalism. Through a qualitative research on married Muslim women, she has tried to explore how gender operates within the realms of society, culture, technology, health, and human rights. She has focused on issues around agency and norms, sexual and gender-based violence, culture-bound syndromes, obstetric violence, biomedicalization, health policy and health systems, as well as sexual and reproductive health. In particular, her research work provides a rich, interdisciplinary tapestry of the intersection between women’s reproductive and sexual health, family planning practices, and a multitude of other domains that can help us in considering complex social problems from a broad, nuanced, and multifaceted perspective.

Ananda Krishnan is a Research Scholar at the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, India. He is currently working on mental health and help-seeking in India. He did his master’s in Applied Psychology from Pondicherry University. His other areas of interest include positive psychology, men’s mental health, and interpersonal relationships. He has presented papers at national and international conferences.

Nancy Luke is currently a Research Specialist in the Department of Sociology and Criminology at Pennsylvania State University and former Professor of Sociology and Demography. Her research focuses on gender, family, and health and well-being in international contexts, including gender dynamics within relationships, gender inequality in child health, and the influence of gender attitudes on health decision-making. She has designed and directed large-scale surveys, intervention studies, and qualitative research in Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Ethiopia, India, Nepal, and Vietnam. In support of this research, she has received numerous grants from the National Institutes of Health. Her research appears in American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Journal of Marriage and Family, Demography, Population Studies, Population and Development Review, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, Review of Economics and Statistics, and Journal of Development Economics, among other journals and edited volumes.

Tiffany Fox Okeke is a sociology master’s student at Brigham Young University, having graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Family Studies in 2023 with interests in her Africana studies, global women studies, and sociology minors. She worked as a research assistant for Dr Ashley Larsen Gibby as an undergraduate, and in her master’s program, she now works with Dr Mikaela Dufur. She has research interests in social and systemic inequalities as well as social policy.

B. Devi Prasad was former Professor and Chair at the Centre for Equity and Justice for Children and Families, School of Social Work, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). He was formerly Director of Centre for Social Studies, Surat. He was earlier teaching at Department of Social Work, Andhra University, Visakhapatnam. At TISS, he coordinated the International Family Studies course offered by the Global Consortium for International Family Studies during the period 2013–2017. His main research interests include family studies, social work education, social policy, and the development sector. He carried out major research projects on elder abuse, declining sex ratio, working families, and recently on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on families. He also studied professional social work’s response to the pandemic in India. He taught courses on Research Methodology, Content Analysis, Family Studies, and Social Policy and Development. He has published widely on family, social work education, research methods, and development sector. His recent publications include an edited volume by him with two of his colleagues, titled The Contemporary Indian Family – Transitions and Diversity (2021), published by Routledge; a chapter “My Journey as a Professional Social Work Educator” in an edited volume Journeys in Social Work Education in India: Emerging Reflections (2020) by Murli Desai et al.; an article with co-authors titled “The Impact of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Intra-household Interactions in India” (2022), published in the Economic and Political Weekly; and lastly, a study on Professional Social Work Response to COVID-19 Affected Families in India – Facilitating Services and Building Awareness During the Second Wave (2022) published by the National Association of Professional Social Workers in India, New Delhi.

Y. Gunjan Ramraj is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Patliputra University, Patna and currently the Head of the Post Graduate Department of Sociology, B.D. College, Patna. She is a graduate of Fergusson College, Pune and a post graduate from Jawaharlal Nehru University. She has completed her M.Phil. and Ph.D. from the Centre for the Study of Social Systems, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, for which she received a Junior Research Fellowship from the University Grants Commission. Her dissertation entitled “Engaging Bourdieu: Analysing Gender in the Indian Context” utilized Bourdieu’s conceptual apparatus as a heuristic device to analyse Gender in the Indian Context for interpreting various contemporary issues related to women’s labour, violence against women and marriage. Her doctoral research captures the changes in family, marriage and gender among youth by studying the changing preferences and choices in online matchmaking in India. By using both quantitative and qualitative data and a variety of methods, her thesis explores the influence of the Internet as a new medium of matchmaking in India and extensively engages with issues such as individual agency, family approval, kin support, endogamy, changing norms of matchmaking, intimacy and compatibility with regard to matchmaking in India.

Sonal Mobar Roy is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Wage Employment and Livelihoods at the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Hyderabad, India. She did her master’s in Social Anthropology from Lucknow University and her doctorate in Sociology from the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur. Her doctoral study focused on stigma related to TB and HIV in Ladakh region of India, and the fieldwork was sponsored by Parkes Foundation, UK. Her research interests include Sociology of Health and Education, Culture and Tribal Studies, Rural Development, and Ethnography. She is a member of international editorial boards and has been involved in teaching, training, and research at her institute. She has national and international publications to her name and strives to bridge the gap between theory and practice through her writings and research. She has presented papers at universities of repute such as Oxford University, Imperial College London, and the University of Berkeley, California.

Japjot Kaur Saggu holds an undergraduate honors degree in Economics from Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi. She has a keen interest in the sphere of public health, particularly with a focus on women’s health. In the quest for deepening her understanding of mathematics, quantitative economics, and analytics, she interned with the Health and Family Welfare vertical of Niti Aayog, the apex think tank under the egis of the Government of India. At Niti Aayog, she worked on providing data-driven insights and comprehensive analyses on health policy data. This provided her with insights into the complex intersection of policy, public health, and governance. This experience catalyzed her deep interest in Menstrual Hygiene Management. During her academic journey, she has also worked on topics relating to the repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on the travel and tourism industry. Her professional trajectory includes an 11-month tenure at KPMG Global Services, wherein she was a part of the research, analytics, and knowledge vertical. Her work at KPMG was primarily focused on harnessing her technical acumen in the area of content strategy and development, facilitating the distribution of content and data across business operations. Furthermore, she is passionate about leveraging technology’s transformative potential in addressing prevalent societal challenges.

Debasmita Sen is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Vishwakarma University, Pune. She has completed her Masters in Applied Psychology from Pondicherry University, Puducherry. She takes deep interest in research related to Cultural Psychology and has also presented papers on the same in national conferences. She has guided many bachelors’ students in their research work and continues to work in the area related to Cultural Psychology, mental health of women post-childbirth, and developmental issues of individuals during their childhood.

Jyoti Sidana, who has a master’s degree in Sociology and Psychology, is working as an Associate Professor in Sociology in Government Arts Girls College, Kota. She did MPhil in “South Asia Studies” from University of Rajasthan, Jaipur, and has obtained the PhD degree on the subject of “Politics, Society and Knowledge Elite.” Thirty chapters have been published in various books/textbooks of Hindi Granth Academy Jaipur, Punjab School Board, Chandigarh, Vardhaman Mahavir Open University, Kota, and NCERT, Delhi. She received the Prof. O.P. Sharma Memorial Award (2011) for the best sociological writing on Rajasthan by the Rajasthan Sociological Association and Prof. Radha Kamal Mukherjee Young Social Scientist Award (2012) by the Indian Social Science Association. UGC Research Award (2014), State-Level Teacher Award 2018 for academic contribution by Rajasthan Government (2018), Godavari Devi Award for writing on women’s topics by Samayantar Delhi (2022), and Young Social Scientist Award by Madhyanchal Samajshastriy Parishad (2023). Her main research areas are sociology of education, sociology of knowledge, sociology of media, and social psychology. Her critical writings in various national dailies and critical participation in Doordarshan, Akashwani and other electronic media platforms make her a public sociologist.

Tushar Singh is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Banaras Hindu University, India. He specializes in the areas of forensic psychology, health, and cognition. His research focuses on understanding the miseries of and advocating for the rights of gender and social minorities. He has a number of publications in national and international journals and is working in the editorial committee of reputed journals such as Depression & Anxiety, Health and Social Care in the Community, Frontiers in Psychology, Frontiers in Sociology, Psychological Studies, etc.

He has numerous professional recognitions such as the “Emerging Psychologist” award from the International Congress of Psychology in South Africa in 2012 and the Young Researcher Award by the International Council of Psychologists in Montreal, Canada, in 2018.

He is also involved in academic administration and is associated with various national and international organizations in various capacities. Currently, he is serving as Treasurer of the National Academy of Psychology India, and is elected as President (elect) of the academy for the year 2024. He is also serving as a member of the board of directors at the International Association of Applied Psychology (IAAP).

G. V. Snigdha Raj is an Assistant Professor at Centre for Comparative Religion and Civilizations at Central University of Jammu (J&K), India. She did her master’s in Anthropology from Central University of Hyderabad and her doctorate in Sociology from Department of Sociology, Osmania University. Her doctoral study focused on a de-notified community named Vadderas. She studied their genesis, social history, and present status. Her research interests include tribal studies, anthropology of religion, ethnography, and cultural studies. She is a member of Indian Sociological Society. She has national and international publications on her name. She has presented her papers in various national and international seminars. Through her writings, she strives to contribute more in the area of research.

Sunil K. Verma is currently working as Associate Professor at Vivekananda College, Delhi University, India. He has published more than 50 research papers in reputed national, international journal and book chapters in the area of applied social psychology, social gerontology, and family research. Besides this, he has authored a book titled Family Dynamics and Intergenerational Relations: Psycho-Social Analysis, Concept Publication India, and participated in various national and international conferences. He was the Principal Investigator of various projects including Suicide in Sikkim: A Psycho-Social Study, A Psycho-Social Study on Intergenerational Relation in Interdependent Society, and The Grass Is Not Always Greener on the Other Side: A Study on Male Marginalization and Victimization. He has received several fellowships to participate in international conferences from UGC Travel Grant, IUPSY, and ARTS. In 2012, he was selected as Emergent Psychologist in Cape Town by IUPSY and ICP 2012.

Foreword

With a rich and diverse cultural history dating back over 4,000 years, India is a unique society, by any measure. In 2023, its population of over 1.4 billion people surpassed its neighbor, China, and became the most populated country in the world. Although it is a collectivistic culture, there are over 120 languages spoken in India, across over 700 ethnic groups. Many religious groups exist in India, but the vast majority of the population adheres to the Hindu faith. Its long history of caste stratification, wherein there are approximately 3,000 distinct castes, further underscores the complexity of Indian culture. Yet, like other societies around the globe, Indian society and its culture revolve around its central social institution – the family.

Familial norms in India have a considerably long history, and understandably, many of the qualities of family structures and relationships have existed for many centuries. Indian families are often noted for their size, as its pronatalist culture has resulted in relatively high fertility rates, coupled with a strong tendency toward the maintenance of strong intergenerational ties. Hence, families with multiple children and a broad assortment of kin from multiple generations are common. The strength of familial bonds among Indian families is also seen in one of its more common family structures, the joint family, wherein it is common for adult siblings to live together, along with their respective spouses and children, in the same home. Such traits are viewed as providing greater stability and loyalty within families and providing an enduring strength to the family, itself. Indian culture has a long history of patriarchy, and this is readily evident within families, as patriarchal families have long been the norm, as is patrilineal lineage. With a firm hierarchy of authority across generations, parents tend to exercise considerable control over the lives of their children, who are expected to quickly comply with parental requests. The common practice of arranged marriage in India is evidence of the extent to which parents retain control. With its history of patriarchy, there is a strong preference among couples to bear sons. This preference, however, has resulted in a variety of practices, including female infanticide, that has led to a skewed sex ratio, with substantially more males than females in the adult population. Nonetheless, the expectation of marriage, childbearing, and the maintenance of the family has always been core norms within Indian culture.

On the one hand, India, along with its families, has an incredibly long history. However, like many other societies, it has also experienced substantial change over recent decades. The combinations of economic, political, social, and cultural changes have led to notable variations in many of the aforementioned attributes. In some parts of the country, particularly in urban areas, individual nuclear family units are becoming more commonplace. Arranged marriages remain common, yet many young adults openly prefer to choose intimate partners without parental influence. Egalitarian gender roles within marriage, with wives wielding equal authority, are also increasing in prominence. Even fertility rates have fallen substantially, resulting in smaller numbers of children and, of course, smaller generations within families. Simply, Indian families are changing, and in ways which absolutely require the attention of researchers.

In this volume of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research, a variety of researchers attempt to delve into many of the contemporary family structures and relationship dynamics among Indian families. In doing so, a number of fascinating discoveries are revealed, and the tremendous diversity across families in India is also demonstrated. In “No Preference? An Examination of Child Sex Preferences in Rural South India,” Ashley Larsen Gibby, Tiffany Fox Okeke, Nancy Luke, Melissa Alcaraz, and Mikaela Dufur explore the nature of sex preference among childbearing couples, along with the consequences of such preferences for the resulting children. Using a large sample from Southern India, they demonstrate that approximately one-fourth of couples expressed no preference for sons (nor daughters), and that children of these couples tended to have fewer mental or emotional issues, during adolescence. Shivani Katara also examines fertility in India, with a focus upon fertility aspirations. In “Fertility Aspirations and Family Planning Behavior: A Qualitative Study in a Small Town of Uttar Pradesh,” Katara uses data from a set of qualitative interviews of both women and men, noting that fertility aspirations are readily influenced by a combination of personal, family, and societal factors. Prospective parents are aware of cultural expectations, yet also recognize the outcomes which their fertility choices may have for their children.

In “Exploring the Transitions in Family Structure of Vaddera Community Through a Deconstructive Lens,” Sonal Mobar Roy and G. V. Snigdha Raj examine the transitions in family structure among the Vadderas (an indigenous group) in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. While the Vadderas are quite traditional, many of the aspects of family structure and relationships have undergone considerable change as a result of modernization and the many aspects of how their lives have changed, as a result of external forces. Vinod Chandra details the more macro-level changes which Indian families are experiencing in “Changing Landscape of Indian Family.” Structural changes in regard to the number of children and the size of the household, along with behavioral and relationship changes, such as in mate selection and childrearing, are slowly, but surely, leading to a new form of Indian family life. In “Menstrual Hygienic Disparity in India: An Inter-State Analysis Using NFHS-5 Indicators,” Megha Jacob and Japjot Kaur Saggu explore the usage of hygienic menstrual products, as these patterns of usage are influenced by various factors and differ across regions. Socioeconomic factors are shown to be strongly associated, and the researchers propose that the rural–urban differences in women’s health need to be better addressed by existing policies, so as to improve and ensure women’s well-being.

Sunil K Verma et al digs deeper into the nuances of intergenerational relationships and family dynamics in changing patterns of family systems in interdependent society. The researchers made special emphasis on Indian perspectives focusing on urban and rural backdrop with 720 participants exploring cultural attitude, socio economic variables and coping strategies within family. Findings highlighted complex interplay of ambivalence, solidarity, affection and association among family in featuring newer trends in family dynamics.

In “Family Dynamics and Intergenerational Relation in Interdependent Society - An Indian Perspective,” Sunil K. Verma, Saswati Bhattacharya, Tushar Singh examine how family relationships, both within and across generations, have changed over time. Using a sample of both urban and rural members of joint families, they note that there are a multitude of factors, including changing cultural norms, urbanization, economic growth, and others which have brought about substantial change in intergenerational relationships. Y. Gunjan Ramraj uses a mixed-methods approach to examine how online matchmaking sites are changing the ways in which young adults find partners and also how this new approach works within the context of traditions and norms concerning mate selection. In “Intermediating Individual and the Community: Indian Family in Online Matchmaking,” Gunjan Ramraj finds that young people do seek to have more control over their selection of a partner and make use of the internet to both seek more autonomy, while at the same time respecting the wishes of their elders. In “Premarital Romance, Dating, and Arranged Marriages in India: The Intersection of Tradition and Globalization,” Barani Kanth, Ananda Krishnan, and Debasmita Sen also address the changing nature of mate selection in India, as they explore how young adults are increasingly seeking more autonomy and freedom of choice. They note that while young people do engage in romantic and sexual relationships, they frequently face an array of challenges from their families and the larger culture.

B. Devi Prasad and Shivangi Deshwal offer a range of recommendations concerning the changing attributes of Indian family life in their chapter, “My Family: Classroom Exercises on Unlearning and Learning about Families.” The exercises which they present address a range of issues, including the myth of a normative family, nature of family change, and multigenerational extended kin relationships. These teaching techniques provide numerous possible usages by researchers, teachers, and practitioners. Finally, Jyoti Sidana addresses the various aspects of change which are impacting the family in “Towards a Sociology of ‘New Family’ in India.” The family, in terms of its prevailing structures and norms, is being affected by a multitude of forces, including economic change and increasing materialism, increases in the elderly population, changing gender ideologies, and the growing presence of technology in family life. All of these are having a substantial impact upon families, along with the very definition of what constitutes a family.

This volume of Contemporary Perspectives in Family Research has presented an excellent collection of studies focusing upon families in India. A prominent theme across the enclosed chapters is that of change. Indian family life is built upon thousands of years of cultural norms, practices, and traditions, yet many of the long-standing traits of Indian families are clearly changing. The changes in structure, such as the growing presence of single nuclear family units, and the changes in norms, such as the increasing desire of young adults to choose their own partners, signal a fundamental shift in how the concept of family is to be defined in India. Like many societies around the globe, forces such as modernization and urbanization have slowly led families to adapt to the larger societal changes. There is no doubt, whatsoever, that Indian family life will change in coming decades. More importantly, there is also no doubt that they will retain much of the qualities which make them so unique. Researchers of all varieties should focus more attention upon Indian families.

We extend our sincere gratitude to all of the authors for their important contributions to this volume, to all of the anonymous reviewers who provided thoughtful and detailed reviews, and to the invaluable assistance of the members of the editorial board.

Vinod Chandra

Sampson Lee Blair