Journal - Volume 2

FAMILYPLATFORM ONLINE JOURNAL VOLUME 2: SOLIDARITIES IN CONTEMPORARY FAMILIES

Contents

1.      HOW SOCIAL CHANGE IS TRANSFORMING RELATIONS BETWEEN THE GENERATIONS - An Interview with Claudine Attias-Donfut (Caisse nationale d’Assurance vieillesse)

2.      FAMILY SOLIDARITY AND THE NEW FORMS OF SOCIAL UNCERTAINTY - An interview with Carla Facchini & Marita Rampazi (University of Milan-Bicocca & University of Pavia)

3.      AMBIVALENCES, CONFLICTS AND SOLIDARITIES WITHIN THE FAMILY TODAY - An Interview with Ariela Lowenstein (Department of Gerontology / Center for Research & Study of Aging,Faculty of Welfare and Health Sciences at University of Haifa)

4.      INTERGENERATIONAL SOLIDARITY AND EU CITIZEN’S OPINIONS: SOME INDICATIONS FOR POLICY MAKING - Francesco Belletti (Forum delle Associazioni Familiari / Centro Internazionale Studi Famiglia)

5.      INTERGENERATIONAL SOLIDARITY: RE-BUILDING THE TEXTURE OF THE CITIES - Lorenza Rebuzzini (Forum delle Associazioni Familiari)

6.      EUROPE AND LARGE FAMILIES’ SOLIDARITY - Raul Sanchez (Institut d'Estudis Superiors de la Família)

EDITORIAL

This second volume of the FAMILYPLATFORM Journal is dedicated to a theme that is of great importance not just for families but for contemporary societies as a whole: intergenerational solidarity. Paradoxically, it seems, the growing tendency towards individualisation has been accompanied in more recent times by the rediscovery of forms of solidarity, at times quite unprecedented, within the family. Today, the various generations that make up the family - ever more frequently, as a consequence of demographic changes, consisting of as many as four generations - seem to be engaged not so much in conflict as in a continuous contest to offer solidarity.

The traditional conflict between older and younger generations, characteristic of western societies in the twentieth-century, exploded, as is well-known, with particular virulence in the sixties and seventies, the years of the youth and political movements. Starting from the nineties, thanks in large part to the spread of ever less authoritarian family relations (as Claudine Attias-Donfut underlines in this volume of the journal), forms of comprehension, help and reciprocal support between the various components of the family have been rediscovered as a major resource in the resolution of problems confronting the various generations in social life.

Simultaneously, the turn of the new century has seen the emergence and spread of new expectations about family solidarity. These involve in an analogous way both the young and the less young. The young, for example, confronted by ‘precarity’ and instability in the labour market, expect to receive economic and relational support from their family; young adults help in the exercise of their new parental responsibilities; and the elderly support in confronting the material, health and psychological difficulties that advancing age brings with it. And in fact - this needs to be underlined - all these expectations come to bear on the generation of adults, that of the ex-baby boomers. Today’s fifty/sixty-year-olds thus find themselves at the centre of converging expectations. Not by chance the French scholar Claude Martin has recently defined this generation as the ‘pivot generation’: a generation destined to carry on its shoulders multiple generational pressures, often difficult to reconcile.

It is in fact the first time in the history of humanity that such a large number of generations find themselves living together in the same historical time and on the same social scene. A situation, as is highlighted by the articles contained in this edition of the journal, capable of generating a scenario that was unthinkable up to a few decades ago – a scenario full of positive features but also, inevitably, of contradictions and ambivalences. Indeed, this latter characteristic constitutes a central theme of the interview with Ariela Lowenstein.

In this scenario an unprecedentedly central role is played by grandparents. The growth in the period of life in which people are grandfathers and grandmothers in good health and active on the social scene - albeit no longer in the labour market - is in fact continual. This new reality has modified not only the social profile of grandfathers and grandmothers and the representations of them but also the role that they are able to exercise in offering active support to other members of the family: no longer just care-receivers, then, but also care-givers. Consider, for example, as confirmed by European data (taken into consideration here in particular by Francesco Belletti), the caring capabilities that grandparents demonstrate in respect of grandchildren, especially those not yet of school age – a form of help that, in contrast to others, is particularly widespread in southern Europe, where the welfare system is less extensive. Although in this respect too the variable of gender is of crucial importance (grandfathers and grandmothers do not furnish the same amount, or quality, of care time: this theme is confronted in the interview with Carla Facchini and Marita Rampazi), there can nonetheless be no doubt about the positive role that both exercise in the vitalisation of forms of solidarity within the family: both through financial and non-financial help.

In short, it is necessary to reconsider the prevalent notion that the elder generations are the exclusive recipients of help provided by the younger generations. It is also appropriate to distinguish, as is also underlined in other articles in this edition of the journal, between the elderly and the ‘old elderly’. It is above all the care of the latter that has constituted in the last few decades a problem of great strategic importance in the increasingly older societies of Europe. There is no doubt that this situation is exacerbated by the growing instability of the family, together with the impossibility of an increasingly large number of adult women, on account of their involvement in the labour market, to furnish unpaid labour within the family. Nevertheless, it would be an error not to draw attention to the other side of the coin: the ‘young’ grandparents that distinguish themselves for their capacity to play an irreplaceable role in the practice of forms of family solidarity.

It is important to remember, however, in relation to the question of family solidarity, that support and reciprocal help that continue to originate from the family is not and cannot be considered to be a substitute for public support (as Attias-Donfut rightly underlines). In fact, whatever the form and degree of support of public policies, and whatever their actual capacity to respond to needs, the practices of solidarity within the family tend to combine with public services as opposed to replace them. The variety of their forms and their expressions, then, can be explained at least in part by departing from the differences in welfare policies in national and regional terms. Account must always be taken, albeit in terms of the variety of situations in question (for example, in respect of so-called ‘large families’: in this regard see the thoughts of Raul Sanchez), of the indisputable strategic importance assumed by solidarity between the generations in guaranteeing the wellbeing of the family.

At the end of the day, public and private can come together constructively to confront problems - and overcome the social obstacles and uncertainties characteristic of our times - that fall on the shoulders of families. Nonetheless, a certain number of more general goals - for example, promoting dialogue and awareness between generations and actively involving the elder generations in resolution of the problems that relate to them - remain the specific responsibility of the public sector (as is documented here in the article by Lorenza Rebuzzini, who illustrates the outcomes of initiatives in this direction undertaken by Turin and Manchester municipal councils).

In conclusion, the various points of view expressed by scholars and exponents of the world of family associations in this volume of the journal confirm our direct experience: today, solidarity between generations within the family appears more lively and vital than ever - and also more and more lively, we might add, the more the future becomes gloomy. At the same time, taken as a whole, these testimonies induce us to reflect on an important strategic feature of this reality, i.e. the increasing degree of the exquisitely social nature of this help and solidarity. These forms of help and solidarity thus turn out to constitute outcomes of specific historical circumstances, which have generated requirements and needs of an unprecedented nature in terms of support between the generations.

Carmen Leccardi & Miriam Perego
Editors of FAMILYPLATFORM Online Journal Volume 2

Department of Sociology and Social Research, University of Milan-Bicocca 

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