Afterthoughts on an “Earthquake of Change”

Family life is continuously changing. Unforeseen crises relating to the economy, politics, environment and health on both a global and a local level are affecting individuals’ lives everywhere. The ways in which people live as families are influenced also by a wide range of cultural values and technological innovations that offer new means for creating and maintaining familial ties. The Palgrave Handbook of Family Sociology in Europe offers valuable insights into the empirical realities of European societies and informs various audiences – researchers, students, politicians and family practitioners – of the recent findings of European scholarship. Original texts by more than 60 scholars from 18 European countries cover a large number of topics related to the theoretical and methodological trends in European family sociology, demographic developments and values, legislation, the welfare state and family policy regimes, parental arrangements, parenting practices and child well-being, migration, as well as perspectives that highlight families as relationships that are formed and maintained over the life course. The editors of the handbook, who represent different academic generations, are long-term members of the Executive and Advisory Boards of the European Sociological Association’s Research Network ‘Sociology of Families and Intimate Lives’ (RN13) from Finland, France, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Spain and Switzerland. The editorial group’s fields of expertise cover a range of topics and approaches in family sociology, and the editors have published widely in both English and in their native languages.