Family and Gender
Global changes raise new questions for Family Sociology and the Sociology of Gender. Family and gender roles are shaped by economic and institutional forces and are closely tied to stratification systems. Gender and family are central to work, childbearing, sickness, death, migration, and education.
Most important social developments concern family and gender. In all societies, the shifting structures of family organizations and women's roles are resulting in smaller households, rising divorce rates, the feminization of poverty, and are making women's participation in the formal labor force increasingly important. As globalization and economic restructuring transform structures of opportunity and as state support for social welfare declines, families will be critical for providing their members with resources, knowledge, support, and connections.
The program in Family and Gender Sociology at MSU is designed to study families and households from a variety of theoretical perspectives. It concentrates on the study of conventional and emergent families (in terms of race, ethnicity, immigration, sexuality, and other forms) in different structural contexts (poverty, international, rural and urban, economics, restructuring), using qualitative and quantitative methods.
