This research focus on family relations as key resources / potential stressors in individual processes of vulnerability and resilience at different stages of the life course. These processes are operationalized as individual’s trajectories of mental health, life satisfaction, conjugal quality, and meaning corresponding to the affective, cognitive and eudemonic dimensions of well-being. Personal relations of individuals represent a source of support, influence, engagement and reserves on the one hand, and a source of conflict and stress on the other hand.
The building and maintenance of supportive relationships have positive effects but are also socially constrained. Focusing on the partially socially determined nature of social support enlightens the fact that not everyone can build supportive relationships in the same way. At the same time, in a context of growing socio-economic inequalities and welfare state withdrawal, social support is possibly an ever more needed but rarer resource for deprived groups. The retreat of the social state could call in the coming decades for a greater reliance on interpersonal ties in the management of life adversities.
IP5-Family addresses three research gaps:
- Consideration that the overall relations patterns within family ties are embedded, including positive and negative sides.
- Investigation of the role of individuals as agents of network dynamics, in order to adapt to the consequence of critical transitions.
- Analysis of how socially supportive ties are built over long periods of time and them used for intensive social support in periods of decreasing resources.
Research questions
How do lone mothers’ and their children change their family relations and well-being?
Lone parents’ children are important actors in the dynamics of family relationships and relatedness, and their experience is an important aspect of contemporary family and relations life. Children’s experience matters in order to understand social inequalities among children under different custody arrangements and relations practices. This project investigates how children live through family changes, how custody arrangements and other social relationships matter and how children learn to cope with and manage relational instability. See the description of the lone parenthood project.
How do structural dimensions of personal/family networks impact conjugal vulnerability?
With this project, researchers consider ambivalent or negative ties in conjugal networks as a factor of conjugal vulnerability. Moreover, the structural interdependence between partners (the overlap in their social life) is framed as a relational reserve. This reserve is expected to reinforce couples’ identity, to promote the development of joint lifestyles and enhance the efficiency of support, and therefore to decrease conjugal vulnerability over the long run.
Changes in family configurations and well-being in old age: socio-emotional selectivity or activation of unequal reserves?
An important gap in the literature on successful ageing is the limited consideration given to how social inequalities shape social support (social ties construction and selection of activities and relationships at old age). This project analyses various configurations of relations resources and social practices, and look at which point in the life course they differ by gender and social status, and how they shape well-being.
How do national contexts matter for family/personal configurations?
These studies propose to investigate the global effect of being embedded in a pattern of relationships on health and well-being, adopting a person-centred approach and considering networks’ positive and negative sides as whole patterns.
