Editorial on the special issue “Geographical Mobilities and Family Lives”

Abstract

This special issue of Comparative Population Studies on Geographical Mobilities and Family Lives is drawn from a selection of papers presented at the Interim Meeting of the Research Network on Family and Intimate Lives of the European Sociological Association, which took place in Wiesbaden in the Fall of 2011. Although the fi ve papers included in the special issue focus on distinct national contexts, concern dissimilar issues and use different methodologies, they all contribute to the advancement of the understanding of spatial dimensions of family life. This understanding has been made easier by recent changes in family sociology, which has rejected the assumption that family units are always and above all constituted by domestic households. This challenge to the Parsonian view of families, which sees them as nuclear, has enabled researchers to emphasise the importance of spatial localisations of family members for understanding family processes. To some extent, all families are multi-local: Individuals have always had signifi cant family members living elsewhere. The forms of family multi-localism, however, change according to the historical and social contexts. The multi-localism of contemporary families is exemplifi ed by the study of Isengard (in this special issue), which deals with the distance between the residence of individuals and their adult children. Typically, this distance becomes of central concern when one considers family ties beyond the household unit as functionally important. The study of Isengard, based on data collected for 14 countries by the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) shows that a variety of factors stemming from the macro-contexts as well as from the social status of respondents infl uences the localisation of parents and their adult children. The position of individuals in the family life cycle as well as their socio-economic situation have an impact on the living distance between parents and children. The analysis also revealed that in the south of Europe, parents and their adult children live far closer than in the northern parts, a likely consequence of distinct social policies and other structural constraints. The fi ndings of the study are important, as residential distance has a whole series of consequences for exchanges between family generations. Family multilocalism has one of its roots in migration practices, which are obviously linked with work and job demands. Therefore, an interest for the link between job-mobility and family life has developed during the last decade, which eventually lead to the funding by the EU of the Job mobility and family life research project, Comparative Population Studies – Zeitschrift fur Bevolkerungswissenschaft Vol. 38, 2 (2013): 229-232 (Date of release: 25.06.2013)