ASA Family Section

The McLanahan Award is given in honor of Sara McLanahan, a remarkable scholar, mentor, and policy advisor. The award goes to a senior scholar for extraordinary contributions to the study of family change, the well-being of children and families, and related social policies.

Make an impact on the future of sociology! Donate to the ASA Student Travel Award Fund before Dec. 3 to help emerging scholars attend the ASA Annual Meeting! University travel support is increasingly scarce, so your donation is more important than ever! https://www.asanet.org/donate.

Socioeconomic inequalities and single women’s entry into parenthood in Belgium - N-IUSSP Socioeconomic inequalities shape the ways in which people form families. Denise B. Musni and Christine Schnor show that these inequalities influence women’s likelihood of becoming a mother while singl...

N-IUSSP: Families and households
Socioeconomic inequalities and single women’s entry into parenthood in Belgium

www.niussp.org/family-and-h...

#demography
#populationstudies

Research on views of child support over time, working parents sharing childcare, and more is available now in JMF's October issue: tinyurl.com/JMF-Oct2025

#FamilyScience #SocialScience #SocialSciences #SocialScienceResearch #ParentingResearch #OpenAccess

Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Studies (two positions) The Department of Human Development and Family Studies invites applications for two 9-month tenure-track appointments at the Assistant Professor level, starting August 2026. We seek dynamic and colleg...

UNC-Greensboro is hiring two assistant professors in the Human Development and Family Studies Department! Sociology PhDs are eligible...this is one of the top HDFS programs in the country spartantalent.uncg.edu/postings/32914

New article out in @sociusjournal.bsky.social.

It shows how closely linked motherhood penalties 🤰📉 and gender inequalities 👨‍💼💰👩‍💼 are by studying many local labour markets.

Thread 👇

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Do Friend Support and Strain Moderate the Association Between Physical Limitations and Older Adults’ Depressive Symptoms? - Deborah Carr, Shinae L. Choi, 2025 Stress theories propose that the mental health consequences of physical health problems are buffered by social support and amplified by relationship strain, yet...

Friend support is a powerful buffer against depression for older adults with health problems - especially among unmarried persons. @geronmedia.bsky.social @asasmh.bsky.social @buciss.bsky.social @nacda-icpsr.bsky.social @popassocamerica.bsky.social @asamedsoc.bsky.social @asa-family.bsky.social

The Mundane and the Extreme: Women’s Experiences of Housework and Marital Violence in India - Kausiki Sarma, Yang Hu, 2025 Mainstream theories tend to consider housework a form of labor and its gendered division a result of resource exchange or bargaining and an act of “doing gender...

🚨 Our new paper (w/ Kausiki Sarma) on housework & marital violence in India is just out!

We provide a "radical" rethinking of housework beyond labour division and gender performance.

@sriucl.bsky.social @wfrn.bsky.social @asa-family.bsky.social

journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

I spoke about adolescent peer cultures, gender norms, and technological harm with the Council on Contemporary Families for @thesocietypages.bsky.social. Thanks @aliciamwalker1.bsky.social and @ariellekuperberg.bsky.social for the invite! #AcademicSky #Sociology

thesocietypages.org/ccf/2025/09/...

<em>Journal of Marriage and Family</em> | NCFR Family Science Journal | Wiley Online Library Objective This study examines unmarried Chinese people's preferred characteristics of a spouse and how the preferences vary by gender and across socioeconomic groups. Background Extensive research.....

What makes a desirable spouse in China?

Our @jmfncfr.bsky.social paper (w/ Jia Yu, @yueqiansoc.bsky.social, Yang Zhou & Yu Xie) draws on a national survey experiment to net out and examine mate preferences among unmarried Chinese & their roles in shaping assortative mating doi.org/10.1111/jomf...

Coming up later today at the @asanews.bsky.social conference, promoting your family research at 12:30pm, and the family reception/awards ceremony tonight, 6:30-8:30! See you there!

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

💘 Do apps make dating more efficient?

New in @josoperrel.bsky.social August issue, Manlin Cai, @yueqiansoc.bsky.social & I draw on a temporal lens and in-depth interviews to explore the "efficiency paradox" in how immigrants experience time & efficiency in online dating.

doi.org/10.1177/0265...

Significant Drop in Share of Young Adults Achieving Four Milestones: Moving Out of Parental Home, Marriage, Work and Having Kids Less than 25% of 25- to 34-year-olds lived outside their parental home, worked, were married and had kids in 2024, down from almost half in 1975.

45% of 25-34-year-olds in America had married, had a kid, joined the labor force and lived away from their parents in 1975.

21% of this same age group had achieved these milestones in 2024.

https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2025/08/milestones-to-adulthood.html

This #FathersDay, flip the script: give your time. A new @ccfamilies.bsky.social brief by Daniel Carlson & @pettsric.bsky.social shows that when dads share childcare & housework everyone wins: better relationships, healthier kids, and happier dads. Read more here: sites.utexas.edu/contemporary...

Get to know our #ASA2025 host city of Chicago!

added!

Rushed into adulthood: Child marriage and women’s work-family life courses in Egypt Prevalent in the Global South, child marriage powerfully shapes women’s work and family lives. Analyzing data from the Egypt Labor Market Panel Survey…

How does child marriage alter women's work-family life courses? How do key interventions fare? Mariam Abouelenin & I look into these Qs – we highlight accelerated transition into adulthood as a key feature of life course transitions in the Global South:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Are you coming to the ASA conference? Be sure to stop by the Family section reception and award ceremony on Monday August 11th from 6:30-8:30pm at The Gage, 24 South Michigan Avenue. See you there!

Here's a paper that thoroughly reviews the economic implications of low fertility AND thoroughly discusses the many options for addressing the potential consequences. www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

Did you know that 22.8% of Belgians care for/provide support to family members who need help due to age, illness or disability?

A striking stat from a recent @reusilience.bsky.social paper by @bartovalzbeta.bsky.social @wvlancker.bsky.social powered by TSS data and proposed as ESS Rotating Module.

added!

Love and Belonging: How Immigrants Find Romantic Partners in Canada - Centre for Migration Studies Dr. Yue Qian explores how online dating fosters immigrant belonging by promoting inter-nativity relationships and social integration.

This research brief "Love and Belonging: How Immigrants Find Romantic Partners in Canada” (migration.ubc.ca/publications...) may be of interest to @asa-family.bsky.social @popassocamerica.bsky.social @news.ubc.ca @migrationcollab.bsky.social @ncfr.bsky.social @contexts.org @theglobeandmail.com

The fertility fallacy: Five things you didn’t know about global fertility rates UNITED NATIONS, New York – “Do you want kids?” Every day, people around the world ask themselves, and others, this question. But it also begs another: “Do you feel able to have children

Many people ask: "Do you want children?"

But few are asking: “Do you feel able to have children?”

Let @unfpa.org—the #UnitedNations sexual and reproductive health agency—reveal how #TheRealFertilityCrisis is a story of agency and choice, not numbers: unf.pa/fty

🆕📄Journal of Marriage and Family w/ M. Jacob📄

Parenthood in Europe: Not More Life Satisfaction, but More Meaning in Life

Previous research in soc was very focused on satisfaction & happiness.
BUT: many find meaning equally or more important than happiness.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Graph showing falling tfr

94. When total fertility rates dipped below 2.0 in England and Wales in the 1930s, some people blamed the introduction of white bread. (This hypothesis has not been definitively disproven)

Added!

Figure showing infant mortality rates across countries using countries' own definition vs a uniform definition.

Even when you adjust definitions of infant mortality, the US experiences this at far higher levels than its peer nations.

ourworldindata.org/where-are-ba...

How do women become relational managers in marriage?

@Aliciamwalker1.bsky.social tells us about this silent labor of love this week @CCFamilies.bsky.social blog hosted by @TheSocietyPages.bsky.social

Check it out: thesocietypages.org/ccf/