Families in Europe

Analysing data from European Social Survey in this article we try to capture the main features of the European families. Accounting for the changing trends of the last 40 years in family arrangements, practices and values we discuss some theoretical and methodological issues raised by the exercise of comparing countries also. General configurations like family's size, composition of the households, living arrangements and marital status are identified and analysed clustering European countries. The insertion of men and women on the labour market, fertility rates and the hours of work of parents are also other central focus of discussion. Our results tend to contradict some stereotypes. The majority of Europeans are formally married or living together, conjugal disruption being transitory for divorced and the separated tend to return to conjugality. With modern ideals, family is, for all European countries and with very similar averages, the most valued dimension of personal life.