What happens to family life when the gender revolution matures?

Par Gosta ESPING-ANDERSEN, Professor of Sociology at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra.

The first stages of the revolution of women’s roles fostered declining fertility, fewer marriages, and considerable marital instability with heightened divorce risks. What we are beginning to see, as the revolution matures, is a clear u-turn in terms of all three key components of family formation — especially led by the vaguard of women’s role change.

 

Biography:
Gosta Esping-Andersen is professor of Sociology at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra where he directs the DEMOSOC research unit. In 2009 he was nominated ICREA-Academia professor.
Born in Denmark, he studied economics and sociology at Copenhagen University and at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, where he received his PhD. His scientific work centres on life course dynamics, social stratification and comparative social policy. Before coming to Pompeu Fabra, he taught at Harvard University, the University of Trento and the European University in Italy. Among his major academic publications are numerous books, including The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism (translated into Chinese, Greek, Japanese, Korean and Spanish) for which he was awarded the APSA’s Aaron Wildavsky Enduring Contribution Award in 2005; The Social Foundations of Postindustrial Economies (translated into Italian and Japanese); and, most recently, Trois Lecons sur L’Etat Providence (Paris, Le Seuil). His later book is The incomplete revolution (Polity Press 2009) .
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Doctor Honoris Causa at Roskilde University, and honorary professor at the University of Aalborg. He is member of the scientific board of numerous scientific institutions including the Danish National Institute for Social Research and the CEACS of the Juan March Institute and IMDEA.
The first stages of the revolution of women’s roles fostered declining fertility, fewer marriages, and considerable marital instability with heightened divorce risks. What we are beginning to see, as the revolution matures, is a clear u-turn in terms of all three key components of family formation — especially led by the vaguard of women’s role change.