Global Family Change

本项目通过探索低收入和中等收入国家家庭变化的复杂方式，推进全球家庭变化研究。该项目的创新之处在于一个前提，即我们需要更好的基础来理解家庭在全球范围内发生变化的原因和方式。虽然存在针对全球金融危机的具体国家和小规模比较研究，但社会学家目前缺乏对这些家庭制度变化的全球和全面视角，特别是在变化最为迅速和戏剧性的中低收入国家。该项目有助于从理论和实证两方面理解全球金融危机的决定因素和后果，培训来自中低收入国家和弱势背景的学者，并为研究全球金融危机创建易于获取的数据基础设施。该项目推动的研究议程还将有助于为全世界有关家庭、保健和性别政策的讨论、评价和发展提供信息。该项目整合了450多项人口与健康调查（DHS）和多指标类集调查（MICS），以及与全球金融危机相关的政策、社会规范、地理和环境信息，涵盖118个独特的低收入国家，时间跨度超过30年（1980年代至今）。在这一丰富数据的基础上，该项目力求：(i)在全球层面制定一套基于理论和与政策相关的家庭变化比较指标，涵盖全球金融危机的多个维度，如个人行为、“联系生活”和生命历程模式；检验关于家庭制度如何以及为什么随经济和人口发展而变化的主要理论，包括分析人口发展是否导致家庭制度趋同，以及文化和制度如何缓和变化以在区域或国家内产生不同的模式；（三）通过将全球金融危机的不同模式与其人口、经济、健康和社会后果联系起来，调查全球金融危机对各国福利的影响。研究小组将采用多种人口统计学方法来解决上述研究问题，例如标准化和生命表技术、空间分析、回归分析和聚类分析。

This project advances the study of global family change (GFC) by exploring the complex ways in which families are changing across low and middle-income countries (LMICs). The innovation of the project lies in the premise that we need better foundations for understanding why and how families change on a global scale. While country-specific and small-scale comparative research on GFC exists, sociologists currently lack a global and comprehensive lens on these changes of family systems, particularly in LMICs, where change is most rapid and dramatic. The project contributes to both theoretical and empirical understandings of the determinants and consequences of GFC, training of scholars from LMICs and disadvantaged backgrounds, and the creation of an easily accessible data infrastructure for studying GFC. The research agenda promoted by the project will also help inform discussions, evaluations, and developments of family, health, and gender-related policies worldwide. The project integrates over 450 Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)--along with GFC-related contextual information on policies, social norms, geography, and environment--for 118 unique LMICs covering a time span of more than three decades (1980s-present). Building on this wealth of data, the project seeks to: (i) develop a theory-based and policy-relevant set of comparative indicators of family change at the global level, across multiple dimensions of GFC such as individual behavior, "linked lives", and life-course patterns; (ii) test the leading theories of how and why family systems change with economic and demographic development, including analyses of whether demographic development leads to the convergence of family systems, and how culture and institutions moderate change to produce divergent patterns within regions or nations; (iii) investigate the implications of GFC for the welfare of nations by linking diverse patterns of GFC throughout LMICs to their demographic, economic, health, and social consequences. The research team will adopt a wide array of demographic and statistical approaches to address the above research questions, such as standardization and life-table techniques, spatial analyses, regression analyses, and cluster analyses.