Households without Family or Homeless Families? A Sociological Analysis of Factual Families in Spain

Abstract

In this article the author surveys fresh developments of family forms in Spain, especially focusing on the discussion of the recent rise of «factual families» and «new households», i.e. non-marital cohabitation and oneparent families. In the first section he tries to present and analyse the scarce empirical material on the question available through national surveys and census data, while in the last part of the article an effort is made to describe the changes undergone by the Western family in the last decade through the hypothesis of a second family transition, characterised by the privatisation of family norms and the growth of feminism and individualism.