This study investigates the nexus between the rise of female leaders and the appointment of women to cabinets and how family ties, crucial for women’s political ascendance, impact these appointments. Using a unique dataset across 160 countries from 1966 to 2021, we find that female leaders generally appoint more women to their cabinets and key cabinet roles. However, this effect is significantly moderated by the “Goldilocks” principle, defined by the nature of a leader’s family ties. Specifically, female leaders with moderate family ties are most likely to appoint women. In contrast, their counterparts from political dynasties and those without familial political ties are less inclined to do so. The exploratory analysis suggests potential mechanisms driving this dynamic: female leaders with a “just-right” degree of political lineage are more likely to have advanced degrees and Western education, potentially aligning them more closely with liberal and feminist values.

In Vietnam, for a long time, family is considered as being significant for economic, instrumental, social, emotional, and care support for older adults due to strong filial piety, high family values, low institutional coverage, and limited social services, given that the majority of older adults are living in family-based communities. Recently, due to increasing migration, nuclearization, and individualization in Vietnamese families, there is an increasing withdrawal of family caregivers from caregiving to their parents and there seems to be confusion and tension of roles and supports among family members. Meanwhile, Vietnam is observing changes in demographics and family structure, which is linked to an increase in the number of elders in need of care, drop in fertility rate, resulting in a shrinking supply of family caregivers. This article examines the economic dynamics of ageing with limited family ties by examining the formal care services and demographic changes in order to investigate raising social problems towards elder population. It also explores how older adults from varied living backgrounds in Vietnam restructure their lives in terms of acculturation, re-establishing kin networks, psychological well-being in contemporary Vietnam. It demonstrates how Vietnamese elders actively engage in unpaid work within family and community environments, such as housework and childcare, shaped by cultural norms of familialism and filial piety, with regional variations in the north emphasizing stronger familialism and economic motives, and the central coast showing more individualism and sentimental values.

Families are not only the first institution ever created, they are also, for most people, the first institution ever encountered. The preindustrial family structure, which was a function of local ecology and cooperation needs, instilled family members with different values, such as trust in strangers and respect for elders. These values passed through generations and, as we show in three studies, impact today's political attitudes and policies. First, using surveys of second-generation immigrants representing roughly 180 ethnicities living in 32 European countries, we show that the tighter kinship structure of a person's ancestors predicts right-wing cultural attitudes. Among those who are less engaged in politics, tighter ancestral kinship structure also predicts left-wing economic attitudes. In a second study, we control for country-level differences by comparing ethnic groups within countries and find that ancestral kinship strength predicts right-wing cultural attitudes but not left-wing economic attitudes. Finally, in a third study, we examine the policy implications of ancestral kinship. We show that stronger country-level ancestral kinship strength also increases anti-LGBT policies and welfare spending. Finally, we examine whether value systems link preindustrial kinship with modern political attitudes. In total, this work indicates that our political beliefs are rooted in the value systems and familial institutions created by our forebears.

Although the literature on social capital, social support and social networks uses the concept of emotional support, studies rarely recognise nuances of the emotional relationships in late life. Using a personal communities framework, we examine the subjective meaning of family and friendship ties that form the network of emotionally close relationships of a cohort of Chilean people between 60 and 74 years of age. Chile is an interesting case to investigate personal communities, as the country is facing both a rapid process of population ageing and the consequences of abrupt socio-cultural changes triggered by a military government. We conducted qualitative semi-structured interviews using personal communities diagrams that enabled study participants to reflect on what and how different types of personal ties were important to them. Data analysis included thematic analysis of interview transcripts and classification of identified personal communities using Pahl and Spencer's typology. The personal communities framework proved useful in capturing the composition of older people's networks of close relationships and in reflecting the diverse ways different ties are relevant in late life. We further developed a complementary typology based on the distinction between ‘clustered’ and ‘hierarchical’ personal communities. This complementary typology adds a cultural dimension to understand better emotional closeness in late life in a context of rapid socio-cultural changes affecting levels of social trust.

We forward the hypothesis and empirically establish that variations in the strength of family ties are rooted in culture. In particular, we show that individualism is associated with looser family ties. We exploit the associations between contemporary individualism and historical climatic and disease environments to establish a causal relationship. At both the individual- and country-levels, we find strong support that individualism reduces family ties. The estimated effects are economically large and robust to a wide variety of potentially confounding variables.

Family relationships play a major role in individuals' lives and can be a source of comfort, support and protection during the entire lifecourse. Particularly in the context of life events, such as widowhood, family relationships may be salient for (older) adults in coping with feelings of grief, loss and loneliness. Using Dutch survey data and 18 in-depth interviews from a sub-sample, this study examines the role of family relationships through the lifespan in reducing loneliness among ever-widowed older adults (i.e. persons who have at some time during their life experienced the death of a spouse). Particular attention was paid to childhood memories, family ties and support from siblings. Quantitative analyses examined associations between loneliness and childhood experiences of relationships with parents, family ties and sibling support. Qualitative data elucidated how ever-widowed adults recall relations with parents and siblings and experience current family relations. Quantitative and qualitative data showed that emotional support from siblings reduced loneliness. Additionally, positive memories of childhood relationships and current family ties were negatively related to loneliness. In times of ever-increasing longevity, work detailing how family relationships across the lifecourse are supportive in alleviating loneliness is a key issue on the social research and policy agenda.

Despite the increasing scholarly attention dedicated to the study of reception and memory of Fascism, these issues have not yet been widely addressed from the standpoint of collective memories in specific local contexts. Through a combined use of oral history and micro-history, this study explores the identity and collective memory of Predappio, Mussolini's hometown. Predappio is an emblematic place on account of its ‘public’ role within the Italian nation as the town of the Duce and, since 1957, the site of neofascist pilgrimages. By looking at memories of people born under the regime from different political orientations, ranging from the right to the left, it concentrates on the local collective memory of Fascism, of Mussolini and of the ongoing post-war cult of the Duce. The article aims to demonstrate both the relevance of local mythologies and the increasing spread of a reconciliatory narrative of Fascism based on traditional values such as family and kinship.

Throughout the world people differ in the magnitude with which they value strong family ties or heightened religiosity. We propose that this cross-cultural variation is a result of a contingent psychological adaptation that facilitates in-group assortative sociality in the face of high levels of parasite-stress while devaluing in-group assortative sociality in areas with low levels of parasite-stress. This is because in-group assortative sociality is more important for the avoidance of infection from novel parasites and for the management of infection in regions with high levels of parasite-stress compared with regions of low infectious disease stress. We examined this hypothesis by testing the predictions that there would be a positive association between parasite-stress and strength of family ties or religiosity. We conducted this study by comparing among nations and among states in the United States of America. We found for both the international and the interstate analyses that in-group assortative sociality was positively associated with parasite-stress. This was true when controlling for potentially confounding factors such as human freedom and economic development. The findings support the parasite-stress theory of sociality, that is, the proposal that parasite-stress is central to the evolution of social life in humans and other animals.