How Families Still Matter casts doubt on the conventional wisdom about family decline during the last decades of the twentieth century. The authors draw from the longest-running longitudinal study of families in the world - the Longitudinal Study of Generations, conducted at the University of Southern California - to discover whether parents are really less critical in shaping the life choices and achievements of their children than they were a generation ago. They compare the influence of parents (on self-confidence, values, and levels of achievement) on the Baby Boomer generation with that of Baby-Boomer parents on their own Generation-X children. The findings may surprise many readers. Generation-X youth showed higher levels of education, career attainments, and self-esteem than their parents as youth, and similar values were found across generations. They indicate the 'resilience' of family bonds across generations even against the backdrop of massive social and family changes since the 1960s.
- ISBN13 9780521009546
- Publish Date 17 October 2002
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 7 December 2022
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Cambridge University Press
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 240
- Language English