family

Professor Nickie Charles of The University of Warwick will present a paper at the British Sociological Association (BSA) meetings later on how the traditional boundary between people and their pets is often blurred. Professor Charles’ research is based on a survey in which people were asked to map their relationships. In addition to including family and friends, many respondents asked if they should include their dog or cat.

UK Pets reported on the findings:

“Often the request was made with a smile, but about a quarter of those surveyed asked if they could include pets.

“In some ways it makes sense that people value those family and friends which are most useful to them. If pets are useful, either as assistance animals or simply as company, then they have greater emotional value to individuals than a relative we just keep on our Christmas card list.”

Of the 193 respondents, 44 spontaneously mentioned pets in constructing their  Relationship Network Diagrams.

The Washington Post picked up on a new finding from the American Sociological Review on the truism that people become more socially and politically conservative with age. This commonly held belief that rigid thinking and old age are related is dismissed by sociologist Nicholas Danigelis in the most recent ASR.

Washington Post reporter Susan Morse reports:

“Researchers who examined the attitudes of more than 46,000 Americans over a 32-year period found that their views about such issues as extramarital sex, race relations, childbirth outside marriage and homosexuality did not become less accepting as they grew older — and that a person’s attitudes on such topics could not be predicted simply by their age.”

“Lead author Nicholas Danigelis, chair of sociology at the University of Vermont, said three factors might explain why a group of people older than 60 might appear more conservative than a group younger than 40: physiological changes such as hearing loss; the process of becoming socialized to believe certain ideas; and the ‘period effect’ — having lived through a signal event such as World War II.”

The latest report from the Council on Contemporary Families indicates that men have nearly doubled the number of weekly hours they devote to housework since the 1970s, but that it does not level the playing field…

The Mercury News reports:

“‘What it comes down to is men are doing more,’ said Scott Coltrane, a University of California-Riverside sociologist who co-authored the review released by the Council on Contemporary Families. ‘They were starting at such a low level, however, that they don’t rival what women do.'”

“Still, while the average full-time-employed married man with children has increased his housework contribution by two hours a week since the 1970s, his female counterpart does three hours less housework than she once did. Still, women on average spend 19 hours a week cooking, cleaning, shopping and doing other family work, compared with 10 hours for men. (Both partners, since the ’70s, have increased the amount of time they spend doing child care.)”

A report released this week from the Council on Contemporary Families addresses recent childbearing trends among American women with commentary from University of Maryland sociologist Steven Martin.

Steven Martin explains:

• “Although fertility rose in 2006, we are NOT witnessing the start of another baby boom. But we have reached the level at which the population is reproducing itself without added immigration.
• Love, baby carriage, and no marriage? Almost all the increase in births was accounted for by non-marital births, although educated women and very rich women, who are more likely to be married, also increased their birth rates.
• There has been a significant rise in the proportion of 3 and 4 child families among the super-rich, but this is confined to such a small sliver of the population that it does not affect national fertility rates.
• Women are increasingly delaying childbearing, and the fertility rates of educated and uneducated women seem to be undergoing a slow convergence.
• Higher birth rates of immigrants account for only a small part of the recent fertility rise.
• American women are more successful than women in most other industrial countries in being able to pursue higher education and develop careers without foregoing childbearing.” — (full report)