Understanding how families live, interact, and change.
The Family Dynamics Working Group brings together researchers from diverse disciplines — sociology, psychology, demography, law, social policy— who explore family processes through a variety of methods, from qualitative interviews and ethnography to survey analysis, network approaches, and longitudinal studies. Together, the members of the Working Group aim to advance interdisciplinary knowledge on how families function, transform, and contribute to individual, community and societal well-being across the life course.
Families are not static entities — they are dynamic systems that evolve over time. They shape the development and well-being of all members, especially children, and are themselves shaped by broader life course transitions and social contexts.
The term family dynamics refers to the continuing configuration and reconfiguration of family structures and roles following family transitions. As family members experience transitions such as union formation, childbirth, separation, or retirement, families adapt — redefining roles, relationships, and forms of support. The family members’ lives are interlinked: one person’s transition, such as leaving the parental home or becoming a parent, can reverberate across generations.
The term family dynamics also implies the exchange between family members, including emotions, communication, care, support, emotional and economic interdependence and solidarity, but also hierarchies, power relations, conflicts, and shifting roles within families.
Last, the study of family dynamics sheds light on the important transformations of contemporary societies. Rising divorce rates, re-partnering, and the diversification of living arrangements have led to increasingly complex family configurations — including single-parent, step-, same-sex, and blended families — each with specific modes of functioning and regulation. These changes are embedded in long-term societal transformations such as increasing life expectancy, smaller family sizes, and shifting gender norms, as well as in short-term shocks like economic crises or the Covid-19 lockdowns, which have profoundly affected how families interact and provide care.
Understanding family dynamics thus means understanding how families and family members adapt to social change — and how these adaptations, in turn, reshape norms, rights, and expectations surrounding family life.