"The editors incorporate some of the biggest names in family sociology alongside those of newer scholars. Notably, the book focuses on trends and changes in families globally, allowing the authors to explore the ways in which forces such as globalization and the global recession impact all aspects of family life, from marriage to fertility. . . Appropriate for advanced family scholars while also accessible for students. . . Summing Up: Highly recommended."

Choice

Unprecedented social changes are taking place that pose new challenges for families. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to The Sociology of Families brings together a collection of original essays that investigate partnering, parenting, and families against the backdrop of rapid social change brought about by globalization, contested cultural values, severe economic shocks, new technologies, and widespread rethinking of welfare state protection for families today.

Written by a team of leading researchers from five continents, these newly commissioned essays maintain a focus on family inequality and diversity over the life course while offering fresh insights into new family forms and intimate relationships. Extensively reworked since its publication over a decade ago, the volume spans a broad range of topics including changes to partnering and parenting in North American, European, Asian, and Latin American families; intergenerational relationships; immigrant and transnational families; cohabitation and divorce; same-sex families; and much more. Authoritative and timely, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to The Sociology of Families offers illuminating insights into the complex processes that are transforming family life in our globalized world.

JUDITH TREAS is Chancellor's Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center for Demographic and Social Analysis at the University of California, Irvine. Her previous book, edited with Sonja Drobnič, is Dividing the Domestic: Men, Women and Household Work in Cross-National Perspective (2010).

JACQUELINE SCOTT is Professor of Empirical Sociology in the Faculty of Human, Social and Political Sciences, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Queens' College. Her recent edited books include Gendered Lives: Gender Inequalities in Production and Reproduction (with Shirley Dex and Anke Plagnol, 2012); Gender Inequalities in the 21st Century: New Barriers and Continuing Constraints (with Rosemary Crompton and Clare Lyonette, 2010); and Women and Employment: Changing Lives and New Challenges (with Shirley Dex and Heather Joshi, 2009).

MARTIN RICHARDS is Emeritus Professor of Family Research, Centre for Family Research, University of Cambridge. His recent books include Reproductive Donation: Practice, Policy and Bioethics (edited with Guido Pennings and John B. Appleby, 2012), and We Are Family? Relatedness in Assisted Reproduction: Families, Origins and Identities (edited with Tabitha Freeman, Fatemeh Ebtehaj, and Susanna Graham, 2014).