Events

Family matters: a data-driven approach to dismantling the myth of the nuclear family

  • 22 Nov 2018

    11:00-12:30, Clay Room, Nuffield College

  • Sociology Seminar   Add to Calendar
Speaker: Dr Rebecca Sear

London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

This event is part of the Sociology Seminar Series.

Abstract: Despite a widespread assumption that the nuclear family is normative, the family takes a number of different forms cross-culturally. In this talk, I’ll present evidence which suggests that help from family members beyond the married couple is important for raising children. I’ll then go on to consider how such help from family influences women’s fertility. The data used in this talk will be largely secondary data, but the sources are varied, from large-scale nationally representative datasets, through longitudinal demographic surveillance sites in lower income contexts, to data from small-scale societies collected by anthropologists. The conclusions of this talk are that the extended family has an important influence on demographic outcomes such as child mortality and female fertility, though how this influence plays out varies in different cultural and economic settings.

The Sociology Seminar Series is convened by Richard Breen and Ridhi KashyapFor more information about this or any of the seminars in the series, please contact sociology.secretary@nuffield.ox.ac.uk.