Ageing, Lifestyles and Economic Crises: The New People of the Mediterranean
by Thierry Blöss (Editor)

About the Author
Thierry Blöss is a Full Professor at Aix Marseille University and researcher at the Institute of Labour Economics and Industrial Sociology (CNRS). He is also the academic leader of the international programme ANR SODEMOMED, from which this book stems.

About this book
No society can escape population ageing. This demographic phenomenon has profound social consequences on the lifestyles of individuals and societies. In the light of the accelerated ageing of the Mediterranean area, the analyses which inform this work aim to understand how the age-related policies of Nation-States are partly responsible for the behaviours of the generations. They also highlight how the lifestyle changes are the result of trends which are common to these societies. The Mediterranean area constructed here by the researchers offers an in-depth reflection on the national cases presented, in terms of their specificities or societal singularities, as well as of their dynamics of convergence.
Drawing on empirical research in sociology, demography, geography and economics, exploiting the most recent data available and setting the present in historical perspective, Ageing, Lifestyles and Economic Crises studies Mediterranean societies in relation to three major challenges which they now confront. These are: population ageing and its implications in terms of intergenerational family support relationships; increasingly insecure adult professional trajectories and their consequences for the evolution of social gender roles, in an economic context commonly referred to as a 'crisis'; and lastly the role of Nation-States' public policies in the social reproduction of these gender inequalities.
These three issues are the keystone to understanding the ongoing transformations in the lifestyles and life cycles of Mediterranean societies. This volume marshals a wealth of recent data that will be useful not only to many academics and scientists but also to local and national policy-makers.

Table of contents
Introduction: The Mediterranean area: a total social context
Part 1: Mediterranean disparities and convergences: the demographic order in question
Introduction: Population ageing: convergences and uncertainties in the Mediterranean
Chapter 1: An overview of demographic ageing in Italy: past, present and expected evolution
Chapter 2: Demographic transitions, ageing and the ‘great recession’ in Spain
Chapter 3: From multifaceted transition to rapid ageing: Morocco at the dawn of a new era
Chapter 4: Half a century of ageing in France: dynamics and specificities of the mediterranean coastline
Part II: Contours of familial solidarities and change in multigenerational societies in the Mediterranean
Introduction: 'The problem' of family solidarities in mediterranean societies
Chapter 5: Public policies towards the family in Italy: an analysis of the evolution of the italian welfare state and its impact on gender and generations
Chapter 6: Households of the elderly in Spain: between solitude and family solidarities
Chapter 7: Family solidarities and old age in Morocco: new realities, new challenges
Chapter 8: Family mutual support in multigenerational France. Social classes, generations and gender: memberships in question
Part III: Uncertainties in gender relations in the Mediterranean: social trajectories and modes of political regulation
Introduction: Age, gender and social trajectories: the uneven emancipation of women in mediterranean societies
Chapter 9: The gender gap at home and in the labour market: the case of Italy
Chapter 10: Gender inequalities, paid work and family formation in Spain
Chapter 11: Morocco between women’s emancipation and reproduction of gender inequalities
Chapter 12: Work-life balance through the lens of the dynamics of individualisation in France

Series: Routledge Studies in the European Economy
Length: 298 pages
Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (September 14, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1138040266
ISBN-13: 978-1138040267