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Reimagining the European FamilyConclusion Postfamilial Europe?

Reimagining the European Family: Conclusion Postfamilial Europe? [In a New York Times op-ed, “The Age of Possibility” (November 15, 2012), David Brooks responds to a recent demographic study that indicates a global decline in the commitment to any idea of a traditional nuclear family. Brooks compares that stalwart structure favorably to the alternatives explored and practiced by persons around the world who advocate and exercise “personal options” (2012). Those options, in the age of possibility, include choosing a profession over childrearing, for example. The study on the shifting family, which was conducted by a group of academic investigators, prompted Brooks’ intervention into the discussion.1 The columnist suggests, with a hint of dismay, that we are entering a “postfamilial” age. The particular study and the responding op-ed assume an international perspective on a potentially universal issue: family border crossing. The transformation of Germany from a country of emigration to one of immigration serves as a heuristic narrative to account for demographic shifts from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The country and its story represent, as I hope to have demonstrated, a larger trend throughout Europe; in the era of European integration, immigration poses challenges to the validity of the political and social construct of nationhood.] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Reimagining the European FamilyConclusion Postfamilial Europe?

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Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2013
ISBN
978-1-349-47585-8
Pages
157 –168
DOI
10.1057/9781137371843_7
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[In a New York Times op-ed, “The Age of Possibility” (November 15, 2012), David Brooks responds to a recent demographic study that indicates a global decline in the commitment to any idea of a traditional nuclear family. Brooks compares that stalwart structure favorably to the alternatives explored and practiced by persons around the world who advocate and exercise “personal options” (2012). Those options, in the age of possibility, include choosing a profession over childrearing, for example. The study on the shifting family, which was conducted by a group of academic investigators, prompted Brooks’ intervention into the discussion.1 The columnist suggests, with a hint of dismay, that we are entering a “postfamilial” age. The particular study and the responding op-ed assume an international perspective on a potentially universal issue: family border crossing. The transformation of Germany from a country of emigration to one of immigration serves as a heuristic narrative to account for demographic shifts from the late nineteenth to the twenty-first centuries. The country and its story represent, as I hope to have demonstrated, a larger trend throughout Europe; in the era of European integration, immigration poses challenges to the validity of the political and social construct of nationhood.]

Published: Oct 28, 2015

Keywords: Interview Subject; Guest Worker; German Family; Male Breadwinner; European Family

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