Tackling issues relevant to family life today, this authoritative Companion shows why studying social change in families is fundamental for understanding the transformations in individual and social life, across the globe.

• Contains original essays by expert contributors on a wide range of topics relating to the sociology of families.
• Includes coverage of social inequality, parenting practices, children’s work, the changing patterns of citizenship, and multi-cultural families.
• Gives special attention to European and North American examples.
• Discusses previously neglected groups, including immigrant families and gays and lesbians.
• Explores how revolutionary changes in aging, longevity, and sexual behavior have radically affected the experience of different generations, and the relationships between them.

Jacqueline Scott is a Reader in Sociology at the University of Cambridge and Co-Director of the Cambridge Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Ageing. Her recent publications examine youth and disadvantage, inter-generational attitudinal change and cross-national comparisons of family and demographic change.

Judith Treas is Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Irvine. A Fellow of the Gerontological Society of America, she is recognized for research on the life course and aging, family, sexuality, inequality, and population. Her recent publications investigate cross-national differences in gender beliefs and family behavior, the lives of elderly immigrants, and the determinants of change in sexual attitudes.

Martin Richards is Director of the Centre for Family Research and Professor Family Research at the University of Cambridge. His publications include Sexual Arrangements: Marriage and Affairs (with Janet Reibstein, 1963), What is a Parent: A Socio-Legal Analysis (2001) and Body Lore and Laws (2002), both edited with Andrew Bainham and Shelley Day-Sclater.