New meanings of the family in Europe: gender relations between ideology and practice. Paper presented at the First ISA Forum of Sociology

Are there new meanings in family interactions? Are these meanings related to contextual constraints? What do men and women want? • In our research results we will try to show for Europe: • In terms of discourse, new meanings of the family across Europe • Egalitarian perspectives but also ambiguities and difficulties in assuming positions. • Differences by country and by material and social resources. • In terms of practice, incidence of housework related disagreements among european couples. Family relations suffered a deep transformation process in the last 40 years of the XX century. Does these transformations mean less valorisation of the family? • Some authors claim that, regarding work and family, women choose a life style according to their preferences (Hakim’s theory); • Others (Crompton et al) have shown that structural, institutional and cultural constraints shape “preferences”. Choices are then constrained; • To analyse work and family we must also necessarily account for gender relations and asymmetries that are transversal to all societal institutions and cultural arrangements (Connel, Kimmel). • ESS recent data tells us that women – as well as men- want to invest in both spheres (work and family). To understand work-family conciliation we must perceive work and family as two fundamental dimensions in a process of constitution of personal life projects. Analitical Prism Face: gender and family division of paid and unpaid labou