The Laboratory for Comparative Social Research announces the next regular seminar, which will be held as a zoom session on December, 19th, at 02:30 p.m. CET (04:30 p.m. Moscow time, GMT+3). Maria Kravtsova (research fellow at the Ronald F. Inglehart Laboratory for Comparative Social Research, HSE University, Russia) will deliver a report "Family Structure: Persistence and Change".

To participate, please, register via the link.

Abstract

This study dismantles the view that family structure is a highly persistent concept predetermined to a large extent by geography. We create a unique dataset based on official censuses that reflects family structure at the end of the 19th century and currently. Our analysis provides evidence that family structure has changed considerably at least twice in the course of history. First, we establish a robust negative link between historical family complexity and exposure to the medieval Catholic Church. This proves the theory that the Church played a crucial role in dissolving strong kinship bonds. Second, our analysis documents a strong downward trend in family complexity due to industrialization, whereby we do not observe any persistence in family arrangements at the regional level. Third, it is shown that changes in family structure over the last century triggered by industrialization went at different speeds depending on geo-climatic conditions and previous history.

Everyone interested is invited!

Working language is English.