Global Family Change

该项目通过探索低收入和中等收入国家(LMIC)家庭变化的复杂方式来推动全球家庭变化(GFC)的研究。该项目的创新之处在于，我们需要更好的基础来了解为什么以及如何在全球范围内家庭发生变化。虽然存在针对特定国家和小规模的GFC的比较研究，但社会学家目前缺乏对这些家庭制度变化的全球和全面的视角，特别是在变化最快和最戏剧性的LMIC中。该项目有助于从理论和经验两方面了解全球气候变化的决定因素和后果，培训来自低收入国家和弱势群体的学者，并为研究全球气候变化建立一个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家庭、健康和性别相关政策的讨论、评估和发展提供信息。该项目结合了450多项人口与健康调查(DHS)和多指标类集调查(MIC)--以及与GFC有关的政策、社会规范、地理和环境背景信息--用于118个独特的LMIC，时间跨度超过30年(1980年代至今)。在这些丰富数据的基础上，该项目力求：(1)制定一套基于理论和政策相关的全球范围内家庭变化的比较指标，涵盖全球家庭变化的多个维度，如个人行为、“相互关联的生活”和生命历程模式；(2)测试关于家庭系统如何以及为什么随着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系统的趋同，以及文化和机构如何调节变化以在区域或国家内产生不同的模式；(3)通过将整个低中等收入国家的全球金融中心的不同模式与其人口、经济、健康和社会后果联系起来，调查全球金融中心对各国福利的影响。研究小组将采用广泛的人口学和统计学方法来解决上述研究问题，如标准化和生命表技术、空间分析、回归分析和集群分析。

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.