Exploitable results Conceptualising and measuring families and family policies in Europe The first issue in the sixth series of Cross-National Research Papers examined some of the methodological questions raised in the first stage of the IPROSEC project. The papers discussed differences in social constructions of the key concepts used in the project, as well as problems of ensuring comparability when measuring socio-demographic change across EU member and applicant states. The first paper located the research in relation to the wider context of cross-national theory, methods and practice. It reviewed critically the methodological choices that had to be made by the project team and their possible implications for the findings from the project. Members of the research team were aware that any similarities or differences revealed by the study might be no more than an artifact of the choice of countries. They also cautioned against drawing out generalizations from a limited number of cases or attributing seemingly similar outcomes to the same causes. The IPROSEC project, therefore, adopted a multimethods approach to enable the findings to be validated. The paper concluded that, if recurring patterns of phenomena were found within clusters of countries, both in terms of inputs and outputs, then it might be possible to justify extrapolation of policy practices between countries that have undergone similar policy processes, and to determine under what conditions the policy solutions adopted in one country could be transferred elsewhere. The second paper examined issues concerned with conceptual equivalence in different societal and linguistic settings, taking account of the ways in which context-specific traditions contribute to the social construction of phenomena. The project was interested in identifying indicators of societal coherence by studying the relationship between social phenomena and their socio-cultural settings. A number of the key concepts selected to exemplify societal differentiation, particularly between the member and applicant states represented in the project, were discussed: biological ageing, lifelong learning, parenting skills, intergenerational solidarity, welfare dependency, informal economy, labour market concentration and segregation, reconciliation of paid and unpaid work, distribution of household labour and individualization of social rights. It was noted that, although Eurostat uses internationally agreed definitions of social indicators, the data it collates and harmonizes are collected at national level. They are, therefore, dependent on national statistical tools, traditions and practices, which means that they must be interpreted in relation to the socio-economic and political contexts in which they are socially constructed. The third paper looked at the definitions of some of the more problematic indicators used in the project to track family change. Issues of measurement and comparability were discussed, with reference to data availability and consistency over time (within countries) and space (across countries). The indicators selected for analysis were grouped around the topics that were central to the themes of the project: family forms, fertility, population ageing and aspects of labour market activity and inactivity that impinge on family life. The analysis highlighted the problems that the research team was facing in establishing a database using European data sources, particularly with regard to the candidate countries. It also identified the importance of tracking family change at sub national level if the reality of family formation and structure are to be properly understood. The final paper explored national interpretations of the place of the family in the relationship between the public and private spheres in the EU member states and candidate countries included in the project. From a comparative perspective, it examined the extent to which family policy is legitimised institutionally, for example through references in a countrys constitution, by falling within the remit of a designated government department and by being identified in law and practice as a specific policy domain. The paper began the task of characterizing family policy in the countries under study. From the information examined, France stood out as the country with the most explicit and coherent official family policy, while Sweden had adopted a more individualistic approach, emphasizing gender equality and the interests of children. Hungary was found to have retained its attachment to an explicit family policy, narrowly based on a normative definition of the family, which confines women within the home. Germany recognized the legitimacy of government involvement in family affairs, but with the conjugal relationship as the centrepiece of policy. After transition, Poland had maintained its focus on support for the traditional family values underpinning society. As in the case of Hungary, in Estonia, the third candidate country, financial imperatives were limiting the development of a coherent family policy. In the United Kingdom, the hands-off approach was giving way to greater acceptance of political intervention in family life. By contrast, in the southern European countries and Ireland, the state was shown to impose formal mutual obligations on family members, while expecting them to manage their affairs with only minimal support from public policy. The employment relationship and family life The papers in the fourth issue in the series, edited by Peter Ackers, analysed the relationship between employment and family life. The introduction showed how, through their power to regulate employment policy and working conditions, EU and national institutions impact on the everyday lives of families. Government intervention to reconcile paid work and family life was taken as an example of how indirect employment levers affect the quality of family life and legitimate further state intervention. In his contribution, Devi Sacchetto analysed the new forms of labour contract in Italy associated with flexibility and employability. He argued that they are bringing about a more economic attitude to relationships within families, whereby family life is treated as an industrial process. The capacity of the Italian family to adapt to different situations was found to be in a state of crisis. The rigidity of family life in terms of economic needs and care duties contrasts with the total availability demanded of workers in the employment relationship and forms of flexibility on employers terms. In the second paper, Monica Badia i Ibanez described the more heterogeneous model of the family emerging in Spanish society and the self-help strategies parents are adopting to combine work and household life. The lack of effective public policies was found to be reinforcing reliance on the male breadwinner and family solidarity. Kait Kabuns findings in Estonia were not dissimilar. He explored womens changing role in paid and unpaid work as Estonia made the rapid transition from Soviet-style socialism to Western capitalism, and prepared to join the European Union. He was interested in the reasons for the relative shortage of public intervention as well as the unwillingness among employers to deal with the reconciliation issue more actively. He identified the rise in unemployment, poverty and social exclusion as the most pressing concerns for government. Employers, he argued, seem to be unaware of equality issues and reconciliation strategies. Although family-friendly company schemes are being promoted, employers have yet to be persuaded by the business case for supporting worklife balance. Two of the papers focused on British employment policies under New Labour. Peter Ackers maintained that the Blair government has substantially changed the legal and institutional framework of British employment relations, while also helping to shape employer and trade union initiatives in the direction of social partnership and family-friendly policies. He concluded that family-friendly workplace policies remain tenuous. In the past, many of them were introduced during a period of economic boom and abandoned when the economy went into recession. The regulatory framework used by the Blair government to bring in statutory employment rights continues to encounter opposition. Although family-friendly policies are not yet deeply embedded in British workplace culture, they are found to have gained a social momentum due to the growing labour market activity of women that it would be difficult to hold in check. Elizabeth Such was more sceptical about New Labours record. Illustrating her case by reference to dual-earner couples and the difficulties they experience in reconciling work and family responsibilities, she pointed out that, although Labour has brought childcare and parental leave back onto the policy agenda, the lingering conception of the family as a private affair has kept its provisions to a minimum. Roberta Guerrinas concluding paper provided an overview of EU family-friendly policies and assessed the assumptions the Commission makes about family structures, gender roles and the employment relationship. She asked whether, in the context of the expanded role of the social partners and the changing balance between hard and soft law, a new employment model is emerging in Europe, or whether the relationship is converging towards an established model. Her analysis underlined the significant differences between countries in the application of the principles enshrined in EU regulations. She argued that the regulatory framework continues to provide an important reference point for employers and employees and has strengthened the position of women in European societies, thereby encouraging the development of a more inclusive work culture. In conclusion, she advocated a multidimensional approach to worklife balance policy, addressing both economic and equality issues. Comparing family policy actors The papers in the third issue in the series reported on the findings from the elite interviews with political, economic and civil society actors in the IPROSEC project countries. The interviews were designed to investigate the policy process and develop a greater understanding of national policy responses to sociodemographic change. The authors compared the involvement of different actors in family policy and analysed their accounts of how policy is formulated and implemented in different national contexts. In his discussion of political actors, Paul Byrne acknowledged the impact of party politics on policy development. Legitimacy of state intervention in family life and policy focus were presented as possible explanations for cross-national variations. Despite the overall diversity between countries, he identified two common strands with respect to family policy: competing ideologies and national policy styles. Across the IPROSEC countries, virtually all parties of the right advocate the traditional family model as the cornerstone of a stable society, particularly where the Catholic Church is strongly entrenched. They support universalistic approaches to family welfare. Parties of the left are more likely to prioritise issues of worklife balance and gender equality, a targeted approach to benefits and support for de-institutionalised family forms, even though conventional family units are perceived as a useful way of transferring some of the welfare burden away from the state. Despite similarities, in terms of policy styles, in the perception that political actors have of the inadequacy of policy co-ordination, only in very few cases could policy thinking be said to be joined up. The conclusion to the paper noted a wide consensus among political actors that family policy can be an important instrument for achieving other policy objectives, including social cohesion and the rolling back of the state as a major funder of welfare. Peter Ackers paper on economic actors assessed the contributions made by employers representatives and trade unions to family policy. Although substantial numbers of women were employed in all IPROSEC countries, national approaches were found to be ranged along a continuum between those where gender and employment policies are regarded as separate spheres (southern Europe), those where linking policies are emerging (Germany and the United Kingdom) and those where substantial integration already exists (France and Sweden). Major differences in workplace attitudes and approaches to family policy across and within countries were attributed to welfare policies, the perceived legitimacy of intervention in family life, changing family structures and gender roles, the policy environment and employer relations at national and workplace levels. Ackers argued that the business case for harnessing human resources through family-friendly policies only works for the more skilled and highly educated categories of employees in full-time protected employment, and that state-initiated social regulation is needed to generalize and institutionalise such policies and to encourage employers to take a broader view of their employees family responsibilities. In conclusion, he cautioned against over-regulation, particularly of working and opening hours, which merely served to reinforce gender segregation by denying women access to the labour market, and he warned against flexibility purely on employers terms, which reinforced insecurity for men, women and their families. Louise Appletons paper considered national variations in the roles played by the civil society sector in the family policy process and related them to social perceptions of the legitimacy of policy intervention in family life, the competing or complementary roles of the economic and political sectors, and the functions of not-for-profit organizations as lobbyists or specialists in policy implementation and service delivery. Despite the great diversity within and between countries of civil society organizations in the area of family policy, several patterns were identified among the IPROSEC countries. At one end of the spectrum is France, with its active and well integrated civil society sector working in partnership with the state in the policy process. At the other, are the candidate and southern European countries, where the sector is less well developed and less influential, with the significant exception of the powerful, though declining, role played by the Catholic Church. The concluding paper, also by Louise Appleton, identified two main policy network models among the countries in the project. The first is integrated, with close co-operation between policy actors, although only in France are the roles of policy actors fully harmonized. In the second model, the three sectors are perceived as separate entities with distinct family policy agendas, minimum co-operation and varying degrees of segregation. As in the analysis of the civil society sector, most countries fall between the extremes. France and Sweden can be characterized as having the most comprehensive approach to policy integration. Germany, Ireland, Italy, the United Kingdom and Poland have a partially integrated arrangement. Spain and Greece are minimalist in their approach and come closer to the segregated model, while Estonia and Hungary are aspiring to shift towards a more integrated approach. European case studies in family change and policy practice All the papers in the sixth issue in the series, written by the national research assistants in the participating countries, attempted to track changing family structure, with a view to identifying the challenges being faced by policy actors, their responses, and the experiences and perceptions of families themselves. Each of the country case studies drew together the findings from the different stages in the IPROSEC project. The first paper presented the situation in France, where family policy is well established on the policy agenda, and where a close partnership exists between policy actors. Addressing the four project themes of population decline and ageing, changing family structures, gender and intergenerational relations, Olivier Buttner found that, in all cases, the French state and electorate are aware of the need for policy and recognize the legitimacy of intervention by the state. Building on this consensus, policy has been adapted in response to changing socio-demographic trends. While the normative family has become less rigidly defined, families have been given greater choice as to how they organize their lives, with support from publicly provided services. The state has, thereby, become the facilitator of choice. Despite the long tradition and strong consensus between policy actors over the responsibility of the state towards families, the author concluded that parties from the right and left continue to differ in their views about the forms family support should take. The second paper also illustrated the close relationship between policy actors in the formulation of family policies and the acceptance among Swedish families of increased state intervention in certain areas of family life. Olga Nimeus focused on the first three themes of the project, illustrating the link between population decline and ageing, changing family forms and changing gender relations associated with women's greater participation in the workforce. She demonstrated how extensive public policy, especially the provision of public services such as childcare, has been adapted to the changing needs of families, facilitating, among other things, the balance between work and family life. She found that, despite extensive state support for reconciliation and gender equality, the workplace remains gender segregated, and women continue to carry the main responsibility for caring. Consensus appears to be less strong than in France among policy actors about the extent to which the state should intervene in family life. The third paper, which reported on the situation of families and family policies in the United Kingdom, illustrated the gradual shift towards greater acceptance of state intervention in family life and the development of partnerships between policy actors. Elizabeth Monaghan, Elizabeth Such and Moira Ackers focused on the two themes of population decline and ageing, and changing family structure, arguing that such issues have been addressed by a more 'hands-on' policy approach since the late 1990s, with the introduction of explicit policies to encourage women into work, to institute parental leave and to regulate working time. The aim of policy is to tackle child poverty and social exclusion, and to strengthen communities by obliging families to meet their responsibilities. Paradoxically, while the state has intervened more directly than before in family life, its policies have been designed to increase rather than replace the responsibilities of families towards their members. The researchers found that families expect public services to play a greater, though not an intrusive, role in assisting them in their daily lives. In her analysis of the German case, Jutta Trager focused on the themes of population decline and ageing, and changing gender relations, identifying the need for state intervention in response to the decline in fertility and low female economic activity rates. While the right and the left are divided in their responses to these issues between the stay-at-home mother and the working mother with children in day care, family members were found to be calling for greater intervention to support them in their desire to have children. They are demanding the improvement of living conditions and infrastructures to assist with the care, education and financial costs of raising children. German families are seeking a holistic approach to family life, aware that single policies fail to meet all their needs. Disagreement was revealed, however, over who should provide that assistance. As in the United Kingdom, the state has delegated responsibility to families and civil society. While families continue to reject state interference in what they see as private decisions, they expect the state to work with civil society to guarantee a safety net for families at risk. The paper on Ireland also illustrated the ambivalence of attitudes in Irish society regarding socio-economic change and policy responses. Julia Griggs examined the four project themes, contending that, while the impact of population decline and ageing, and changing intergenerational relations is not yet being felt to the same extent in Ireland as elsewhere in Europe, policies have already been implemented to help cope with the problems that are likely to arise in the future, demonstrating that Ireland has learnt from the experience of other EU member states. At the same time, Irish governments have been more cautious in addressing issues arising from changes in family structure and gender relations, largely due to the influence of conservatism, which was enshrined in the 1937 Constitution and is being sustained by the Catholic Church. Change is also being impeded by the reluctance of families to see the state interfere in family life. They are, in addition, less willing than in the past to accept intervention from the Catholic Church as a civil society actor. The Estonian paper pursued the theme of the shift in responsibility for family well-being from the state to families themselves, in a context where economic restructuring and the withdrawal of the state, following the collapse of Soviet rule, have provoked a return to traditional family values, self-reliance and mutual aid, both horizontally and vertically. Kati Karelson and Katre Pall argued that transition has provided a stimulus for family empowerment and an opportunity for civil society to assume a more proactive role. However, distrust of the state extends to non-governmental organizations, with the result that families continue to rely most heavily on their own members not only in coping with adversity but also in managing everyday life. The paper by Judit Takacs again highlighted the increasing heterogeneity of family forms, in this case in Hungary, and found policy was lagging behind the new living arrangements of families. As in the other Central and East European countries, Hungary has witnessed the collapse of the state, and it is families, rather than private or civil society organizations, that are taking on responsibility for family care. While Hungarian families are more accepting of this role, they see the need for holistic policy intervention to address the many factors contributing to the combined causes and effects of declining fertility rates, including women's employment. In Poland, the third candidate country in the project, the experience of transition has brought into sharp focus the many paradoxes facing policy actors. In their paper, Malgorzata Potoczna and Lucyna Prorok-Mami ska identified the need for greater support for families to offset the effects of population decline and ageing, but they found that economic restructuring and the associated withdrawal of state and employer intervention in family life have removed vital resources from family policy. Women have been the main losers, as high unemployment and inadequate welfare support have provoked a return to the legacy of traditional conservative values buttressing the male breadwinner model. Rather than seeking explicit family-friendly policies, families are demanding the provision of job opportunities and of more effective public services, including education and health care, which are expected to create more favourable conditions for work-life balance and lead to families being able to turn their attention to family building. The reliance on family support networks was also a strong focus in the three papers on Spain, Italy and Greece, but, because of the changing roles of women, families feel less able to fulfil these duties and are calling for more state support. In her paper, Monica Badia i Ibanez argued that, as women in Spain have been entering the labour market in larger numbers, in the absence of flexible working hours and part-time contracts, the burden for child and elder care is more difficult to manage. However, the underdevelopment of the welfare state in Spain is preventing the implementation of policies that might assist families and, more especially, women. Valentina Longo and Devi Sacchetto presented a similar case in the Italian context. They argued that, despite the changes in family life that occurred over the last decade of the twentieth century, policy appears to have stagnated and, in some cases, has become inaccessible to many families because of high costs. Focusing on the first two themes of population decline and ageing, and changing family forms, they emphasized the geographical diversity in socio-demographic change and the need for it to be addressed by policy. In particular, they highlighted differences between the north and centre-north of Italy and the south, arguing that, while socio-demographic change throughout the 1990s is most apparent in the southern regions of Italy, the conservative values intrinsic to the local and regional policy environment render them inflexible. Where fertility rates and family forms have changed in the north and centre-north, policies are, however, being implemented to some extent at the municipal level to deal with the challenges raised. In contrast to Spain, however, respondents in Italy are more deeply committed to the idea that the family should take care of itself, arguing that the state should help by making services more accessible in terms of cost, and of geographical coverage and provision. The final paper on Greece also made the case that socio-demographic change has brought about a situation in which families are less able to carry the burden of family responsibilities than in the past. However, to a greater extent than in Spain and Italy, according to Dimitra Taki and Spyridon Tryfonas, while the need for state intervention is recognized, families are reluctant to allow the state to intervene, not only because it may threaten the family networks that provide the social safety net in Greek society, but also because many people do not trust the state to look after the family. The paper explored this ambivalence and the search for a compromise between family solidarity and extra familial support. The preference expressed by families was decidedly for additional benefits rather than services to enable families to choose their own forms of support without interference from the state. Spatio-temporal dimensions of economic and social change in Europe The aim of the second issue of papers in the series was to highlight spatio-temporal differences both within and between nations, and to examine the challenges they pose for cross-national research teams, and for policy formulation and implementation. In the first paper, Louise Appleton considered general theoretical and methodological questions associated with spatio-temporal diversity for researchers engaged in cross-national comparative research. She concluded that space and time are crucial factors in understanding sociodemographic change and in policy formulation since decisions taken at EU level have to be operationalized in very different socio-cultural settings, which in turn affects their efficacy. Similarly, within-country variations and changes over time, not least in political representation, determine policy diffusion and assimilation. The other contributions in this issue of papers were organized according to their geographical level of enquiry, starting with discussion of continental scale, moving through the national and regional levels to subnational diversity and the local level. In the second paper, Alec Hargreaves concentrated on continental scale ethnic diversity and its implications for understanding socio-demographic trends, and for formulating and implementing policies. He argued that obtaining formal citizenship is only a first stage in the process of effective social participation, which remains a major challenge for public policy. The third paper by Tess Kay was concerned with continental scale differences with regard to gender differentiation in employment patterns related to levels of education. In drawing out the policy implications, she demonstrated that greater disparities are often found between different groups of women according to their level of educational attainment than between men and women. She therefore stressed the need for policies combating social exclusion to concentrate on poorly educated mothers and recommended the adoption of a lifetime perspective in policy formulation and an integrated approach in social policy responses. In their paper, Dagmar Kutsar and Ene-Margit Tiit examined the problems inherent in comparative analysis of socio-demographic indicators between developed and transition countries, using the example of Estonia to illustrate the difficulty of achieving comparability over time within transition countries. They concluded that greater uniformity and comparability of indicators would make it easier to identify uniqueness. In the first of two papers concerned with regional diversity, Dieter Eibel and Jeremy Leaman compared the two Germanys (East and West), and the impact of economic, political and social upheaval associated with unification based on the federal system. They took the case of public childcare provision to illustrate the disparities between the two systems and warned against drawing generalized conclusions about social attitudes and state policy formulation. In his paper, Devi Sacchetto considered the north/south divide in Italy in terms of economic, social, cultural and political factors, the effect it has on national demographic trends, and the implications for collecting and analysing national statistical data, and for formulating and implementing policy. He also concluded that universal solutions are not appropriate for what appear, on the surface, to be identical problems. Nor, he argued, has fiscal devolution provided a satisfactory answer, precisely because the regions most in need of policy intervention receive more limited funds and lack the administrative structures necessary to ensure effective policy delivery. In her paper, Agnes Kende focused on within-nation ethnic diversity. She contrasted the Gypsy and non- Gypsy populations in Hungary, highlighting the problems of defining and measuring the Roma presence in the 1990s. She underlined the fact that poverty in Hungary is ethnicized, which means that the problems faced by Gypsies are not part of mainstream social policy, which raises important questions about social rights and equity for minorities. The theme of rural versus urban differences was addressed by Wielislawa Warzywoda-Kruszy ska and Jerzy Krzyszkowski with reference to Poland. The authors discussed the problems of declining fertility rates and increasing population ageing from both spatial and temporal perspectives, highlighting the deterioration of the situation in rural areas. They concluded that the mainly restrictive policy measures put in place to stem population decline and offset the negative impact of population ageing have not prevented rural poverty from intensifying. In the absence of supportive public policy measures, older people are being forced to rely more heavily on their family members in a context where family solidarity is being severely tested. The final paper by Maurice FitzGerald examined the implications for social life of the phenomenal economic growth that has taken place in Ireland since it joined the EU. The author argued that the benefits of economic growth have not been evenly distributed between rural and urban areas, social categories and women and men. He suggested that the changes, and particularly the speed with which they have occurred, have created important challenges for both policy formulation and implementation. Changing family structure in Europe: new challenges for public policy This fifth issue of Cross-National Research Papers was devoted to comparisons of changing family structures in the IPROSEC countries. The six papers examined different aspects of family change in recent decades with reference not only to family structure but also to value systems. The first paper by Marie-Therese Letablier and Sophie Pennec used data collected for the IPROSEC project, supplemented by information from national sources, to provide an overview of changing household and family structures and related gender issues. The paper showed that, although change has been occurring in all the countries in the project, it has not had the same impact everywhere, resulting in different challenges for national governments. The authors identified the main challenge for policy as the organization of support for families to help them reconcile work and family life through a much greater diversity of services and benefits. In his paper, Anthony Abela analysed family values, the cultural specificity of patterns of value orientations and related options for social policies in the IPROSEC countries, using the 19992000 European Values Study. He highlighted gender issues and the changing meaning of marriage and identified political profiles and attitudes towards social policy orientations. The findings showed a significant relationship between post traditionalism, political ideologies and most social policy issues. The study pointed to a weakening of the traditional leftright political divide and the corresponding options in social welfare at individual level in favour of third way politics and an increasingly complex multicultural, post-materialist and post-traditional European welfare society. The other papers in the collection focused on specific aspects of socio-economic trends, mainly associated with patterns of fertility, in an attempt to track the disparities between demographic change, perceptions and attitudes towards family policies, and their possible impact on social practices. The paper by Kati Karelson, Valentina Longo, Olga Nimeus and Jutta Trager compared the impact of public policies on family formation in four countries: Estonia, Germany, Italy and Sweden. The authors combined quantitative and qualitative approaches, drawing on national data and interviews carried out for the IPROSEC project to bring together information about trends in fertility and female economic activity with the perceptions and attitudes expressed by individuals. They examined how families perceive incentives and obstacles with regard to family formation decisions, and looked at the possible impact of social and family policy measures on family decisions about fertility and family life. They found differences not only in the timing and pace of change but also in its direction. Whereas completed fertility levels in Estonia and Sweden have remained relatively stable, they have fallen more steeply in Italy and West Germany. While women in Sweden are well supported by public policy and display high employment rates, in Germany and Italy, female employment is rising more slowly and, in Estonia, the rate fell sharply during the 1990s from a previously much higher level, in a context of withdrawal of public support for working mothers. The barriers to womens employment were cited as a possible explanation for the reluctance of couples in the latter three countries to embark on family formation. Three of the papers presented single country case studies. That by Ingrid Jonsson dealt, in greater depth, with fertility changes during the twentieth century in Sweden and the resulting challenges for family policies. She examined the development of modern family policy as well as gender and labour market policies, scrutinizing fertility trends in relation to family policies during different historical periods. Jonsson showed that not only are fertility decisions in Sweden determined by family policies, but they are also closely interrelated with a set of environmental parameters, including the labour market situation, gender relations and the family-friendliness of the social context. The paper by Dagmar Kutsar and Ene-Margit Tiit provided an overview of changes in family structure at the beginning of the twenty-first century in Estonia, with a focus on unmarried cohabitation and policy responses to it. Since the 1990s, pre-marital cohabitation has increased dramatically in Estonia and is now a widespread living arrangement, as in the Scandinavian countries. In 2000, 55% of children were born out of wedlock. As in the Swedish paper, the two authors were interested in the decision-making process with regard to living arrangement, and used results from a longitudinal survey of students attitudes in combination with qualitative data collected for the IPROSEC research to analyse trends. They found that, during the 1990s, whereas no radical change was observed in students value orientations, gender remained an important factor explaining preferences in living arrangements, with women opting for more conventional family forms. The final paper by Maria Nemenyi and Olga Toth explored the contradictions between demographic data, attitudes and values concerning families in Hungary. They found that, although radical changes have occurred in lifestyles and family life, family structures and gender roles have changed very slowly and tend to remain traditional. The Hungarian process of modernization since the 1990s has not led to a fundamental shift: conservative values are still prevalent, except among the younger generations. The authors concluded that values change more slowly than demographic behaviour. They noted that, in the 1970s and 80s, individual and collective ideology had moved closer to societal expectations, but the 1990s brought a reversal and reinforced divisions within society, impeding the modernization process. Searching for OpenAIRE data... There was an error trying to search data from OpenAIRE No results available
