Global Family Change: Persistent Diversity with Development

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Population Center Working Papers (PSC/PARC)
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socio-economic development
family change
fertility
marriage
cohabitation
life-course
household structure
Demography, Population, and Ecology
Family, Life Course, and Society
Growth and Development
Social and Behavioral Sciences
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Andriano, Liliana
Behrman, Julia A.
Billari, Francesco
Monden, Christiaan
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This paper provides a broad empirical overview of the relationship between family change and socio-economic development drawing on 30+ years of Demographic and Health Survey data from 3.5 million respondents across 84 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). We conduct two sets of analyses. First, we document global and regional-level associations between the Human Development Index (HDI) and novel indicators reflecting multidimensional family change. Second, we use methods from the growth convergence literature to examine whether – and in which domains – there is evidence of cross-country convergence in family indicators over levels of development. We show that families in LMICs have transformed in multiple ways, changing differently across domains, world regions, and genders. Fertility, intra-couple decision-making, and women’s life-course timing indicators are strongly associated with HDI, yet cross-country convergence is limited to the latter domain. Marriage, cohabitation, household structure, and men’s life-course timing indicators are more weakly associated with HDI, and span a broad spectrum of convergence dynamics ranging from divergence to modest convergence. We describe this scenario as “persistent diversity with development,” and shed light on the underlying regional heterogeneity – driven primarily by sub-Saharan Africa.

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2018-02-07
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Recommended Citation: Pesando, Luca Maria, Andrés Castro, Liliana Andriano, Julia Behrman, Francesco Billari, Christiaan Monden, Frank Furstenberg, and Hans-Peter Kohler. 2018. "Global Family Change: Persistent Diversity with Development." University of Pennsylvania Population Center Working Paper (PSC/PARC), 2018-14. This working paper was published in a journal: Pesando, Luca Maria, , Andrés F. Castro, Liliana Andriano, Julia A. Behrman, Francesco C. Billari, Christiaan Monden, Frank F. Furstenberg, and Hans‐Peter Kohler. 2019. "Global Family Change: Persistent Diversity with Development." Population and Development Review 45(1):133-168. https://doi.org/10.1111/padr.12209.
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