Changing Family Patterns in Chile: Social Disintigration and Social Policy (2004)

This project took a long-term approach toward addressing Chile's substantial social changes.

Those developments include changing family patterns, declining rates of marriage and high levels of births to unwed mothers. While Chileans are conducting a public debate that is framed in terms of moral values and decaying family life, the debate "has not been informed by systematic social science research," say the three co-directors of the project. They are Rev. Timothy Scully, CSC; J. Samuel Valenzuela; and Eugenio Tironi. Scully and Valenzuela are Kellogg Faculty Fellows, and Tironi, a former Kellogg Visiting Fellow, is one of Chile's leading political sociologists.

The three are leading an effort to delineate the actual characteristics and problems of Chilean families, as well as other factors such as the conditions faced by women in the country. Five research teams probed different aspects of the situation, including history and demographics, family life, marriage, poverty, the household and the workplace.

Publication

El Eslabón Perdido: Familia, modernización y bienestar en Chile (Taurus, 2006)

Edited by Rev. Timothy Scully, CSC; J. Samuel Valenzuela; and Eugenio Tironi