English Information
Goals - Key topics - Main Research Areas
Goals
Among the ifb’s main goals are:
- Basic research in social science
- Applied research in social science
- Policy advice and scientific evaluation of demonstration projects
- Editing the Zeitschrift für Familienforschung/Journal of Family Research
Key topics
- Social, economic, and legal living conditions of families
- Impacts of labor market and workplace on families and parenting
- Changes in family structure
- Gender relationships and the changing roles of women, men and children
- Evaluation of prevention programmes and support initiatives for children and adolescents
- Longitudinal observations of family-related policy, including national and international comparisons
Main Research Areas
Family Reports and Forms of Family life:
This key research topic, on one hand, includes the continuous observation of the state of the family in Bavaria (“Family Report on Bavaria”) and, on the other hand, focuses on conducting research on selected forms of family life and family situations for which only little research has been carried out, respectively.
Reconciliation of Family and Work:
In addition to the challenge of new gender roles there are further demands for change, i.e., an adaptation of the societal conditions regarding work regulations. Given the present structures, there still are massive obstacles for a satisfying reconciliation of family and work. In this key research topic, we address the situation and describe and disseminate approaches that may provide solutions.
Family Education:
The necessity of alleviating the burden families carry with regard to raising their children results from a variety of societal developments. Among other reasons, the expectations regarding the quality of education and the advancement of children have increased: the participation of both parents in the labour market has risen, and the living situations of families have increased in diversity. Preventive family education should provide support in order to prevent – or at least to reduce – the discrimination against children living in certain family patterns or family situations. Therefore, it has been necessary to conduct research that accompanies demonstration projects in order to establish new ways of intervention.
International Perspectives on Families:
Increasing degrees of globalization call for an observation of living conditions from a comparative, cross-country perspective, for two principal reasons: on the one hand, the general globalization process has an impact on developments on the level of individual states and on the other hand, the strategies of other states can be tested regarding their transferability to the contexts in our own country. Two projects with a duration of several years have been conducted at the ifb that deal with the cross-country comparison of the living conditions of families within their specific national contexts. In our completed project “International comparison of benefits for families”, the institutional and cultural framework of selected social security systems in Germany, France and Sweden had been contrasted for investigating differences in outcomes for the living conditions of families. The ongoing project “International comparison of demographic change” will continue to investigate the impact of basic institutional and cultural conditions on the emergence of divergent patterns of fertility in modern societies.
In various countries and regions of Europe, family forms and family biographies develop in manners which are very similar to one another in some aspects. By the same token, they show large differences with regard to other aspects. The same holds true for all areas in society which are related to these forms and biographies, e.g. the labour market and care institutions. The respective social policies and welfare systems largely contribute to these developments. Against this backdrop, within the current Seventh Framework Programme, the European Commission have established a “platform”, in which findings from research in family science and the experiences of both interest groups and political decision makers in the realm of the families should be brought together. Against the backdrop of major societal developments, the principal goal of this project is to generate core research questions, to identify political key issues and to discuss them critically. For advancing this goal, a consortium consisting of scientific and non-scientific member institutions has been established. This consortium has been formed by nine European research institutions from Germany, Hungary, Italy, Estonia, Portugal, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Finland, and three internationally operating family associations. It is the task of those associations to take care that those political aspects, which are relevant for the everyday life of families, do have effects on the discussions of the Platform. This, in turn, may help pointing the general public to the Platform’s work.
