Frank F. Furstenberg in the News

PSC/PARC Researchers Hans-Peter Kohler, Frank F. Furstenberg, Andres Felipe Castro Torres, and Luca Maria Pesando were featured in a Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research press release on their new article, "Family Change and Variation Through the Lens of Family Configurations in Low- and Middle-Income Countries," published in Population, Space, and Place and supported by the National Science Foundation. This paper is a result of the Global Family Change project, supported by the PSC, which is also a PARC Research Network.

Key Points:

• This paper finds a strong correlation between traditional partnership regimes (early and widespread marriage and early transition to motherhood) and traditional gender norms within the household and at a societal level.
• The correlation between traditional partnership and gender regimes is relatively independent of reproduction levels, meaning it exists in countries with both high and low fertility levels and contraceptive use.
• In some countries, traditional partnership and gender regimes differentiate between urban and rural geographies suggesting the influence of the Western family model is uneven cross-nationally and more present in urban areas.
• The family configurational approach developed in this paper encompasses more dimensions, characteristics, and functions in the study of families in a global comparative context. These characteristics include, for example, family formation patterns, gender roles, and fertility.
• This approach provides new insights and questions on how and why the institution of the family has and will change.

Frank Furstenberg (PSC/PARC Research Associate) was featured in a Philadelphia Inquirer article about what dating, sex, and marriage will look like post-pandemic.

New Population Center Working Paper (PSC/PARC): Batyra, Ewa, Hans-Peter Kohler, and Frank Furstenberg. 2020. "Changing Gender Gaps in the Timing of Partnership Formation in Sub-Saharan Africa." University of Pennsylvania Population Center Working Paper (PSC/PARC), 2020-43. 

New Population Center Working Paper (PSC/PARC): Furstenberg, Frank 2019. "Family Change in Global Perspective: How and Why Family Systems Change." University of Pennsylvania Population Center Working Paper (PSC/PARC), 2019-22.

Global Family Change: Persistent Diversity with Development, authored by Luca Maria Pesando, Andrés Castro, Hans-Peter Kohler, Frank Furstenberg and other international collaborators, was posted today in the PSC Working Paper Series. Read the abstract and paper here.

A USA Today article on increasing responsibility to care for both younger and older family members quotes Frank Furstenberg.

Frank F. Furstenberg's new book, "Behind the Academic Curtain: How to Find Success and Happiness with a Ph.D.," is discussed in a Penn News Press Release.

In a New York Times op-ed, Frank Furstenberg says the current crop of college grads' failure to launch may not be a bad thing.

Frank Furstenberg comments on his research studying the connection between education and family economic status.