Changing Families And Their Lifestyles (Mansholt)

Changing families and their lifestyles

M a n sh o lt p u b l i c a t i o n se ri e s - Vo l u m e 5

Wageningen Academic P u b l i s h e r s

edited by: Hester Moerbeek Anke Niehof Johan van Ophem

Changing families and their lifestyles

Changing families and their lifestyles

edited by: Hester Moerbeek Anke Niehof Johan van Ophem

Mansholt publication series - Volume 5

Wageningen Academic P u b l i s h e r s

ISBN: 978-90-8686-051-7 e-ISBN: 978-90-8686-624-3 DOI: 10.3920/978-90-8686-624-3 ISSN 1871-9309 Illustration cover: Hans Borkent, Nusanet / East West Graphics First published, 2007 © Wageningen Academic Publishers The Netherlands, 2007

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned. Nothing from this publication may be translated, reproduced, stored in a computerised system or published in any form or in any manner, including electronic, ­mechanical, reprographic or photographic, without prior written permission from the publisher, Wageningen Academic Publishers, P.O. Box 220, 6700 AE Wageningen, the Netherlands, www.WageningenAcademic.com The individual contributions in this publication and any liabilities arising from them remain the responsibility of the authors. The publisher is not responsible for possible damages, which could be a result of content derived from this publication.

Mansholt Publication Series The Mansholt Publication Series (MPS) contains peer-reviewed textbooks, conference proceedings and thematic publications focussing on social changes and control processes in rural areas and (agri)food chains as well as the institutional contexts in which these changes and processes take place. MPS provides a platform for researchers and educators who would like to increase the quality, status and international exposure of their teaching materials or of their research output. The Series is named after Sicco Mansholt (1908-1995), who was Minister of Agriculture in The Netherlands from 1945 until 1958. From 1958 until 1972 he was Commissioner of Agriculture and Vice-President of the European Commission. MPS is supported by the Mansholt Graduate School of Social Sciences (MG3S) and CERES Research School for Resource Studies for Development. The quality and contents of the Series is monitored by an interdisciplinary editorial board. MPS is published and marketed internationally by Wageningen Academic Publishers. The Mansholt Publication Series editors are: Prof. Wim Heijman Prof. Kees de Hoog Dr. Arjen E.J. Wals Prof. Leontien Visser

Contents General introduction Hester Moerbeek, Anke Niehof and Johan van Ophem 1. Formation and dissolution of families 2. Stratification and inequality 3. Consumer and household behaviour 4. Leisure time 5. Hygiene, health and society References

15 16 17 19 20 21 22

Formation and dissolution of families Are the effects of different family forms on children’s educational performance related to the demographic characteristics and family policies of modern societies? Geetha Garib, Teresa Martin Garcia and Jaap Dronkers Abstract 1. Introduction 2. Relevant literature 3. Conceptual framework 4. Selection of countries for comparison 5. Method 6. Results 7. Conclusion and discussion References Appendix Farmer looking for a wife: marital behaviour of the farming population in nineteenth-century Netherlands Frans van Poppel, Peter Ekamper and Hanna van Solinge Abstract 1. Introduction 2. Marriage patterns and behaviour of historical populations: an overview of the literature 3. Methods 4. Results 5. Conclusion and discussion References

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Families, divorce and social class: the position of children, mothers, and fathers Ed Spruijt Abstract 1. Introduction 2. Divorce (after marriage or cohabitation) figures in the Netherlands 3. Number of children of divorce 4. Legislation regarding divorce 5. Consequences of the law of January first, 1998 6. The research project Youth and Families 2006 7. Divorce and social class 8. Involving children in the divorce process 9. Play and talk group CIDS (Children In Divorce Situation) 10. Conclusions 11. Recommendations References

77 77 77 78 79 79 80 81 81 84 85 86 87 88

Stratification and inequality Status symbols, distinction and difference: a contribution to the sociology of household consumption Ynte K. van Dam Abstract 1. Introduction 2. Historical notions on status and symbols 3. Class and caste 4. Distinction and status 5. Empirical research 6. Results 7. Conclusion 8. Discussion Acknowledgements References

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93 93 93 94 95 96 97 98 103 104 105 105

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Welfare, income and socio-economic benchmarking Wim Heijman Abstract 1. Introduction 2. The world in your pocket 3. World income distribution 4. The theory 5. Testing the hypothesis that GDP per head determines the level of consumption of the composite goods 6. Results of benchmarking 7. Conclusion and discussion Acknowledgements References Appendix 1: from h to g. Appendix 2: The utility maximising model

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Diversity among the elderly, diversity in approach Katrien Luijkx and Carolien de Blok Abstract 1. Introduction 2. Research methods 3. Needs in the domains of housing, welfare, and care 4. Who takes care 5. Lifestyle 6. Diversity among elderly 7. Diversity in approach References

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The family as social capital: the influence of parents’ friends on occupational prestige Hester Moerbeek Abstract 1. Introduction 2. The remaining influence of family background: are we a society in transition or is it part of the life cycle? 3. Data and operationalisations 4. Influence of friends of the family versus own friends 5. Conclusions and discussion References

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123 123 125 128 132 134 135 136 138 141 141 141 143 145 146 149 150

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Combating social reproduction: how Frisian children can benefit from the agenda of the new Dutch minister for Youth & Family Kees Verhaar and Yvonne van Westering Abstract 1. Introduction 2. Fryslân: a deprived area? 3. Characteristics and potential influence of Frisian culture 4. Youth and family: current policy as an impetus for change 5. A cultural debate References

153 153 153 154 156 160 162 164

Consumer and household behaviour ‘Hidden persuaders’, values and gender codes in students’ selections of ads and commercials Anke Niehof Abstract 1. Introduction 2. The students and their selection 3. The contents of the selection: commodities as messages 4. Concluding notes Acknowledgements References Economic motivations, task division, family type and financial management of Dutch households Johan A.C. van Ophem and Gerrit Antonides Abstract 1. Introduction 2. Theory 3. Data and method 4. Results 5. Discussion References

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169 169 169 170 173 181 182 182 185 185 185 186 188 189 198 199

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From pedestrian fare to gourmet trend: the case of Salicornia europaea L., a traditional gathered wild sea shore vegetable Lisa L. Price Abstract 1. Introduction 2. Botanical and environmental aspects of Salicornia europaea L. 3. Nutritional value of Salicornia europaea L. and traditional diets 4. Saltwater agriculture: the growth in cultivation of Salicornia europaea L. 5. The growth in gastronomic and gourmet interest in the species 6. Discussion and conclusions References From citizen to consumer to citizen-consumer: the development of the welfare state and consumer society Anton Schuurman Abstract 1. The development of the welfare state in the twentieth century 2. The limits of the welfare state: globalization and individualization 3. Neo-liberalism 4. The development of the consumer society 5. The limits of the consumer society 6. The new citizen-consumer References

201 201 201 202 204 206 206 209 210 213 213 213 215 217 219 221 223 226

Leisure time The impact of horse ownership on activities in the domestic setting Gerda Casimir Abstract 1. Horses and horse riding as leisure activity 2. Present-day equestrian sports 3. Horse riding is a gender issue 4. The domestic context 5. A survey of the impact of horse ownership on other activities 6. Target group 7. Details of the survey 8. The Icelandic horse owners 9. Motivations of Icelandic horse people 10. Activities with and time spent on Icelandic horses 11. Expenditures and activities in relation to Icelandic horses

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12. The impact of (Icelandic) horses on other activities and resources in the domestic setting 13. Involvement of household members 14. Gender aspects in the Icelandic horse world 15. Conclusions and discussion References (Leisure) time paths of Dutch families: a theoretical time-space exploration and a methodological exercise Jan W. Te Kloeze Abstract 1. Introduction 2. Time-space theory I: a preliminary interpretation 3. Time-space theory II: a refinement 4. Time-space paths of Dutch families: an empirical illustration 5. The first analysis 6. The second analysis: an exercise 7. Conclusion 8. Discussion References Paradise by the hurricane lamp: a theoretical and empirical investigation into primitivism in nature camping Jaap Lengkeek Abstract 1. Introduction 2. A brief history 3. Counter-structure 4. Leaving home and being ‘there’ 5. Different realities: the interviews 6. Different realities: the survey 7. Counter-structure reconsidered: conclusions 8. Some final remarks References

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242 243 244 246 248 251 251 251 253 255 257 259 260 264 265 265 269 269 269 270 272 275 279 284 288 289 290

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Hygiene, health and society Lifestyle and health Maria Koelen Abstract 1. Introduction 2. Lifestyle in health education 3. Snake in the grass 4. Towards a broader perspective of health and lifestyle 5. Conclusion References

295 295 295 296 297 299 300 300

On the interference between sustainable domestic technology and home hygiene 303 Paul M.J. Terpstra Abstract 303 1. Sustainable development in the domestic domain 303 2. Domestic machine textile laundering 304 3. Domestic machine dish-washing 308 4. Conclusions and discussion 312 References 313 Running people, healthy people? Lenneke Vaandrager Abstract 1. Introduction 2. Health benefits 3. Injuries 4. Heart failure 5. Sociological explanations for the growth of running 6. Running as a status symbol 7. Running and our strength of mind 8. A better society through running? 9. Conclusion and discussion References

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Epilogue Hester Moerbeek, Anke Niehof and Johan van Ophem

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About the authors

331

Keyword index

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General introduction Hester Moerbeek, Anke Niehof and Johan van Ophem This volume comprises contributions from several fields of study in the social sciences: family sociology, family economics, consumer studies, social history, leisure studies, health-andsociety studies, and even (domestic) technology. The different disciplinary angles intersect at the level of the research subjects: families, households and consumers. Together they reflect a broad field of study that has always had its own particular niche in Wageningen, namely household and consumer studies (see Casimir, 2003, for the history of household sciences at Wageningen University). Although the title of this volume contains the word families, in fact the concepts of family and household are often used interchangeably, and they can both be found in this volume. However, they refer to different sets of activities and relationships, and whether the one concept is used or the other also depends on the context. The papers in this volume mainly deal with the Dutch and European context, in which the predominant form of household is the one based on the nuclear family. Had the geographic scope been broader, the terms household and family would have acquired more different connotations. As Chant (1997: 281) notes, ‘household’ has been the preferred term in developing societies ‘because the members of individual residential units are often embedded within strong networks of wider family and kin and it accordingly makes little sense to confine “family” to small domestic groups. Alternatively, people in Northern countries often have less contact with relatives beyond the immediate household or their natal families and so the concept of family becomes prioritised in a household setting.’ In this volume the term family is used where perhaps in another context the term household would have prevailed. In the Dutch language there is not so much ground for confusion, as the family in the sense of the domestic unit is denoted by a separate term (gezin), which distinguishes it from the wider family group (familie in Dutch). Still, the use of the term household versus that of family (in the sense of gezin) implies a different emphasis. The term household refers more particularly to activities that entail use and allocation of jointly-managed resources. The term family (gezin) carries the connotation of persons related to each other by blood or marriage, who because of this are bound by emotional ties and moral obligations. The term family household comprises both and when in this volume the terms of either household or family are used, they apply to the family household. A second theme that runs through this volume is that of consumption patterns and is captured by the word lifestyles in the title. Giddens (2000: 246, 333) relates the concept of lifestyle to the Weberian notion of class and predicts an increasing diversification of lifestyles in western societies. We define lifestyle as a set of integrated consumption practices that give form to or express a certain cultural identity and social position, and see these practices as embedded in the domestic context. The consumer is not just an isolated individual but a Changing families and their lifestyles 

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member of a domestic unit (though sometimes comprising only one person) of which the social position and cultural identity are expressed in consumer behaviour that is based on an actual or aspired lifestyle. At the same time, the level of resources a household can command also sets limits on its expenditures and a household’s composition and phase in the life course (cf. Pennartz and Niehof, 1999) to a large extent determine the relative importance of different kinds of consumer goods and the way time, including leisure time, is spent. Consumers are also part of social networks and peer groups, and the lifestyle orientations prevailing in those intersect with the predominant lifestyle of the domestic group of which they are a member. Lifestyle choices as expressed in consumer behaviour are layered and reflect the different commitments, affiliations and aspirations of individuals. In this way, lifestyle is connected to the purchase of consumer goods, as well as to leisure, domestic production and hygiene and health behaviour. The papers in this book are aligned according to several sub-themes. These are: formation and dissolution of families, stratification and inequality, consumer and household behaviour, leisure time, and hygiene, health and society. In the following sections the contributions will be briefly discussed according to the sub-theme under which they were subsumed. 1. Formation and dissolution of families In the space of time between the formation and the dissolution of a family household, different forms of family households emerge. Up till the 1970s in the Netherlands (and in other industrialized societies) the development of the family household – starting from its formation up till its dissolution – was fairly predictable, following the more or less standardized ‘modernized family life cycle’ (Murphy and Staples, 1979). Since then, a process of de-standardization has set in (Cheal, 1991), both in terms of socio-cultural diversity and the ways in which families are formed and dissolve. For Dutch family life at the end of the 20th century, it was concluded that continuity of traditional family values and role division as well as a ‘modern’ tendency towards an egalitarian family could be observed (Van der Avort et al., 1996). The research in the Dutch villages Arkel and Kedichem yielded a socio-cultural classification of family households into the modern-Western family, the transitional family, and the post-modern family (Te Kloeze et al., 1996). The classification links family type to the extent to which certain norms and values – e.g. those pertaining to gender equality and religion – are adhered to, as well as social characteristics and phase in the family life course. It was also applied to family leisure-spending patterns (Te Kloeze and De Hoog, 1999). The contributions in this section together deal with multiple family forms, family formation, and the consequences of family dissolution by divorce. The first contribution to the theme, by Geetha Garib, Teresa Garcia and Jaap Dronkers, investigates the effects of different family forms on children’s educational performance. The paper addresses the achievement gap between school-age children living with a single mother, mother and male guardian, mother and father, or both parents plus other adult 16 

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family. Nineteen countries in Europe, North-America and the Pacific-Rim were included in the comparison, to see whether there are cross-cultural differences in the achievement gap. The countries covered have different welfare regimes (Esping-Anderson, 1990), hence different family policies. One of the conclusions of the authors is that family policies indeed make a difference to the educational performance of children, especially in the case of children of single mothers, which corroborates the argument by De Hoog (2000) about the importance of good family policies. The paper by Frans van Poppel, Peter Ekamper and Hanna van Solinge addresses the issue of family formation, more specifically partner choice, and applies it to marriages in the agrarian sector. Partner choice has been a classic theme in Dutch family sociology (cf. De Hoog, 1982, 1991). By using a data set that includes more than one million marriages conducted in five Dutch provinces during 1881-1922, Van Poppel et al. take up the question raised by De Hoog (1988) of whether or not there is support for the thesis of Hofstee (1962) about the demise of the agrarian-artisanal marriage pattern in the Netherlands. In their analysis they include the aspects of level of celibacy, age at marriage, age difference between bride and groom, remarriage, and the geographical distance between the marriage partners. While confirming the general trend observed by Hofstee, they conclude that the farming population held on to the ‘agrarian-artisanal marriage pattern’ much longer than the other social classes did. Another important theme in family sociology, namely that of divorce, is the subject of the paper by Ed Spruijt. The paper addresses the relationship between divorce and class, but the key question in the paper concerns the influence of the type of divorce and the living arrangement after divorce on the well-being of the children, mothers and fathers involved. During the period under study, in January 1998, a new law was implemented that aimed at more equal treatment of fathers and mothers and better care of the interests of children. Spruijt reviews research on its consequences for the well-being of the post-1998 ‘divorce children’. At the end of the paper the importance of mediation and counselling is emphasized, as was done by De Hoog and de Jongh (2005) in a recent article. 2. Stratification and inequality Stratification of society and the explanations thereof have been central themes in sociology ever since Marx and Weber entered the scientific discourse. The fact that not every person has the same life chances, but that those chances are unequally distributed over races, classes, gender, etcetera, has been intriguing sociologists over the ages in their quest for underlying mechanisms and probable policy issues that may diminish inequalities. Where neo-Marxists and neo-Weberians in sociology have concentrated on solving the issue of unequal chances, Bourdieu stepped in to explain why certain differences between groups are human creations. A means for distinction, as it were. His view on the allocation Changing families and their lifestyles 

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of resources and life chances has been at the basis of a lot of research into lifestyles and class distinctions. Rather than raising issues on how to repair gaps between those with many resources and those with less, he has pointed the way to an explanation of why differences will continue to exist, simply because they are a means for class distinction, which will always be sought out by people. Stratification, and the several forms of inequality stemming from it, is one of the themes of this volume. That inequalities are not merely a national issue within countries but also worldwide, is nicely illustrated by the contribution of Wim Heijman. Apart from his contribution, the research in this book mainly concentrates on stratification within Dutch society. Stratification may occur based on financial position, social position, level of care, social capital, and so on and so forth (see, for instance, Van Ophem and De Hoog, 1997). The diversity of the research field of stratification and inequality is illustrated by the several contributions on this theme in this book alone. In his contribution, Ynte van Dam continues the line of research as instigated by Bourdieu. He gives his view on ‘status goods’ in a new era of youth culture. The old means of distinction, as used by the upper class in earlier years, is not prevailing. A whole new line of cultural goods has arisen, which he captures under the term of ‘bling-bling’. His contribution is a beautiful illustration of how not only upper classes aim for distinction. The so-called lower classes have also found their ways of doing so. In the paper by Heijman a whole different line of research into stratification is illustrated. His contribution focuses on the global distribution of income, and whether this is a suitable indicator for the distribution of welfare. A model of the Average Global Consumer was developed, showing that income is indeed a suitable indicator for welfare for six composite goods. Furthermore, this led to a global socio-economic benchmark system to indicate whether a country is under- or over-performing with respect to the supply of these composite goods. By illustrating global stratification, this contribution fits the theme quite nicely. A subsequent, very interesting view on inequality is given in the paper on diversity among elderly. This contribution by Katrien Luijkx and Carolien de Blok shows that sometimes a stratum is seen as uniform where it is not. In this chapter a new view is given on the group of ‘elderly’. Most policy on housing, welfare and care has perceived the elderly as being one category. It is shown that the elderly are, however, a very diverse group with varying needs and preferences in the aforementioned domains of housing, welfare, and care. Thus diversity is shown within a perceived stratum, which makes this contribution very worthwhile and directly relevant for policymakers. The contribution by Hester Moerbeek shows that, although equal opportunities for education have been created in the Netherlands, this has not lead to equal chances for obtaining occupational status. Although the influence of social background was hypothesized to disappear or at least largely diminish, the family of origin still is an important factor in the labour market. The effect has however been sought in the wrong direction. Until now family 18 

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background was measured using the father’s education and occupational status. Moerbeek shows that the effect of social background on status can be translated into inequalities in families’ social capital, first attained by the parents, and later on by people themselves. The last contribution on this theme is given by Kees Verhaar and Yvonne van Westering. They point at a group of Dutch that are lagging behind in a socio-economic sense, namely the Frysians. They raise the issue of social reproduction in relation to Frysian culture. It is proposed that norms and values relating to this culture imply the acceptance of the lower socio-economic performance of Fryslân and thus of the Frisians – resulting in the transfer of this level of economic performance as ‘normal’ in the education of the Frisian youth. Their contribution is in line with neo-Marxist and neo-Weberian research, looking for solutions for inequalities within societies. 3. Consumer and household behaviour In her contribution Anke Niehof looks at the ‘hidden persuaders’, values and gender codes in students’ selections of ads and commercials. She used analyses of advertisements and commercials conducted by 220 Wageningen University students as a requirement for the course Lifestyles and Consumption Patterns during the period 2002-2006. Her analysis focuses on messages conveyed by the advertised goods and services and the gender codes that are implied. She identifies both conventional gender codes, such as masculine toughness and feminine beauty, and deviating gender codes and images, e.g. male beauty and the mother in the driver’s seat of the car on a family outing. In their paper, Johan van Ophem and Gerrit Antonides focus on the effects of partner attributes and family type on economic family decision-making processes and household financial management. The data they analyse are the fruits of close research co-operation of the authors with the NIBUD (Netherlands Institute for Household Budgeting). The results indicate that, in accordance with the literature, females tend to be more risk averse than males. It appeared that married people were more risk averse than cohabiting people, implying marriage as a rather safe choice. Households where both partners are economical show more prudence in their financial behaviour than those in which partners are spending freely. This result is confirmed by the analysis of family type and financial behaviour. Looking at the relationship between family type – traditional, modern/egalitarian or individualized – and household financial management, they find that a household of the individualized family type is less inclined to behave in a financially prudent way. Anton Schuurman addresses in his contribution the issue of the search for new role divisions between the state and the market, new public/private arrangements, and new roles for citizens and consumers. With the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the answer seemed to be: more market. The reason for this answer was already prepared after the 1970s by liberal and conservative ideologues and the development of consumer society in the twentieth Changing families and their lifestyles 

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century. Increasingly people were addressed as consumers rather than as citizens. In the view of Schuurman, this belief in the market is too naïve. Schuurman provides historical background to the discourse on the search for new public/private arrangements. In her contribution Lisa Price puts a wild sea shore vegetable, Salicornia europaea L, in the limelight. She firstly describes the botanical and environmental aspects of the plant and goes on to examine the literature on its nutritional value. The topic fits into the trend for a growing interest in saltwater agriculture and the current cultivation of Salicornia europaea L and its promotion for the market. At the end of the paper she examines the growing gastronomic and gourmet interest in the plant by looking at a selection of internet sites that include discussions by chefs, web-based culinary news articles, and recipes to prepare in the at-home kitchen. 4. Leisure time Since the process of industrialisation, society has been presented with new issues that did not previously exist. When the home was still the main working place, men would work on their land or in their companies, whilst women kept house and took care of the children. After industrialisation, home life and working life became increasingly separated. Together with this process of the evolution of a labour market, new issues of time allocation arose. People, men first, started working for bosses and the new concept of the working week with a pre-set number of working hours was born. Besides hours spent at work, hours of the day remained that people could use for entertainment and relaxation. Hence, leisure time was there to be filled. Given certain constraints, people are free to spend the hours of a day that remain after work as they wish. And where people have freedom, choices have to be made. Given the constraints that people have to earn money for a living (which gives room for sayings like: ‘I work for a living, rather than live for my work’) and that a day only has 24 hours, time is allocated to hobby’s, vacation, play, sports, etcetera. And, again, where people have choices, sociologists will become interested in which choices they make and why. It is on this very interesting theme of leisure time that part of this book concentrates. The fact that this theme is very diverse of nature is nicely illustrated by the diversity of the three contributions related to it. Leisure time is partly about choices made about time allocation (see, for instance, De Hoog, Soeters and Te Kloeze, 1996). It is also about actual choices for pastimes. Therefore there is a contribution about the (more or less serious) hobby of horseback riding. Another contribution focuses on camping and a subculture arising from that. A third contribution is on time-space decisions made within households. In her contribution, Gerda Casimir reports on her research on horse ownership and its impact on activities in the domestic setting. She states that riding horses, and moreover owning horses, is more than a hobby or a sport: it is a way of life. She investigates to what extent the ownership of leisure horses influences daily life. Attention is paid to general developments in horse-riding and to gender aspects of equestrian sports. The outcomes of 20 

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her survey show an impact of horse ownership on other purchases and activities, ranging from times of meals to holiday destinations, from cars and houses to tack and machines, thus showing that owning horses can indeed safely be called a way of life. In his paper, Jan Willem te Kloeze presents us with his view on leisure-time paths of Dutch families. His contribution discusses time-space theory in general, focusing on family and household situations, gender, and their relationship with time-space behaviour including leisure. Furthermore, he discusses some methods in time-space research. All this in answering the question on how partners from families behave in time and space, and whether there are differences related to their origin (urban – rural, low versus high status). By using Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis, this chapter also contributes to the methodological discussion on how to analyse time-space paths. The last contribution to this theme is given by Jaap Lengkeek. He describes a theoretical and empirical investigation of primitivism in nature camping. He states that the desire to go back to nature resembles a quest for paradise lost. Outdoor recreation in the countryside may highlight nostalgia for a place where time passes slowly and where cosmic time defines the rhythm of day and night as well as the rhythm of the seasons. In order to understand and interpret the experiences of the Dutch Tourist Camping Club the theoretical approach goes back to a phenomenological tradition, a fundamental understanding of tourist experiences and even to the pilgrimage metaphor. The main research questions are: how did nature campers come to enter the world of nature camping? What are the perceptions of this particular kind of nature camping? In what respect do they experience their camping differently from everyday life? In answering these questions, this chapter provides view on leisure time different from the two previous ones, thus adding to the scope of research into leisure time in this book. 5. Hygiene, health and society Hygiene is not just the battle against microbes nor is health merely the absence of disease. Choices and behaviour that affect hygiene and health are made in a social context and are influenced by cultural definitions of hygiene and of what is supposed to be healthy or unhealthy. Apart from being informed by education, hygiene and health behaviour are also influenced by perceived causalities and folk models of etiology, so-called ‘emic’ views. The latter may cause behaviour that is intended to produce positive health effects to have no effect on health whatsoever or even have negative effects (Niehof, 2004). The reverse can also happen. Women’s cleaning behaviour in the house to have the house look nice and make the bathroom tiles shine, has an aesthetic purpose but a positive outcome in terms of hygiene (cf. Niehof and Voncken, 1999). Since the classic book by Mary Douglas (1988), cleanliness is seen as a socio-cultural construct as much as an objectively measurable variable. The health and hygiene behaviour of individuals is related to lifestyle and is embedded in the domestic context. Curtis (1998) argues that public health interventions should be designed from the Changing families and their lifestyles 

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perspective of the household and should take into account what people know, do, and want, and what additional support they need to improve their health. Spaargaren and Van Vliet (2000) take this argument a bit further by stating that for interventions and new technologies to be acceptable to households and be followed up they should be socio-culturally compatible (lifestyle), take into account households’ time and space constraints, as well as comply with prevailing standards of comfort, cleanliness, and convenience. The three papers in this section of the book together touch on several aspects of the discussion above. In her paper on health and lifestyles Maria Koelen discusses the phenomenon that people are blamed for their bad health on account of their unhealthy lifestyle. She questions the narrow view of health behaviour as just individual behaviour and lifestyle as an individual choice and looks into the relevant interactions and the (involuntary) influence of environmental factors. The second paper in this section, by Paul Terpstra, looks at household behaviour from the perspective of its sustainability, more specifically at laundering and dishwashing behaviour. The results of research on the hygienic effects of different cleaning styles are reviewed. For laundering behaviour a comparison is made between two northern European countries (Norway and the Netherlands) and two southern European countries (Spain and Greece). The differences found in the levels of contamination by micro-organisms can partly be explained by differences in laundering practices but – at the same time – leave a lot of questions unanswered. For some of these the answers lie beyond the immediate context of people’s actual laundering behaviour, such as selection of the temperature and the type of detergent used. Spain appears to be a particularly interesting case in this respect. In the third paper Lenneke Vaandrager poses the topical question of why people run. If they run because they think running is healthy, the question is whether it indeed is – bearing in mind the possible gap between intended health behaviour and actual heath effects (see above). Vaandrager quotes Midas Dekkers (2006) as saying that the strong belief in the health advantages of exercise is built on quicksand. But people may also run for other reasons. As Vaandrager shows, running can be motivated by social and personal factors (lifestyle) and may have effects far beyond those related to health effects. The phenomenon of running has to be placed in the context of societies where the ideal person should have a slim, muscular, and healthy body (cf. De Hoog, 2007), in spite of all the temptations of consumer society. References Casimir, G.J., 2003. 50 jaar Huishoudwetenschappen: Verslag van een studiedag op 12 maart 2003. Wageningen: KLV Kring Consumentenstudies. Chant, S., 1997. Women-headed Households: Diversity and Dynamics in the Developing World. Houndmills: Macmillan Press.

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Cheal, D., 1991. Family and the State of Theory. New York: Harvester/Wheatsheaf. Curtis, V., 1998. The Dangers of Dirt: Household Hygiene and Health. PhD Thesis Wageningen University. De Hoog, K., 1982. Partnerselectie bij Huwelijkssluiting in Nederland. PhD Thesis Wageningen [Agricultural] University. De Hoog, K., 1988. De boer en de huwelijksmarkt. Tijdschrift voor Huishoudkunde 9(2): 33-7. De Hoog, K., 1991. Relatiemarkt en partnerkeuze. In: E. Spruijt (ed.), Psychologie van het gezin, pp. 81-97. Utrecht: Stichting Teleac. De Hoog, K., A. Soeters and J.W. Te Kloeze, 1996. Integreren door middel van vrije tijd? Vrijetijdsbesteding en integratie van Turkse gezinnen in een Arnhemse wijk. Vrijetijdstudies 14(4): 19-33. De Hoog, K., 2000. Het belang van een expliciet gezinsbeleid. Bevolking en Gezin 29: 141-56. De Hoog, K., 2007. Het gezin in de fuik: overgewicht en het moderne gezinsleven. In: H. Dagevos and G. Munnichs (eds), De Obesogene Samenleving, pp. 77-84. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. De Hoog, K. and W. De Jongh, 2005. Mediation en het ouderschapsplan. Tijdschrift voor Familie en Jeugdrecht 27: 98-103. Dekkers, M., 2006. Lichamelijke Oefening. Amsterdam: Contact. Douglas, M., 1988. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. London: Ark. [First published 1966.] Esping-Anderson, 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Giddens, A., 2000 [1997]. Sociology. [Third Edition.] Cambridge: Polity Press. Hofstee, E.W., 1962. De groei van de Nederlandse bevolking. In: A.N.J. den Hollander (ed.), Drift en Koers. Een Halve Eeuw Sociale Verandering in Nederland, pp. 13-84. Assen: Van Gorcum. Murphy, P.E. and W.A. Staples, 1979. A modernized family life cycle. Journal of Consumer Research 6: 12-22. Niehof, A., 2004. A micro-ecological approach to home care for AIDS patients. Medische Antropologie 16(2): 245-65. Niehof, A. and N. Voncken, 1999. Hygiene in the Netherlands. An inquiry into ideas and habits of people regarding hygiene. H & C Working Paper no. 9901, Wageningen University. Pennartz, P. and A. Niehof, 1999. The Domestic Domain: Chances, Choices and Strategies of Family Households. Aldershot etc.: Ashgate. Spaargaren, G. and B. Van Vliet, 2000. Lifestyles, consumption and the environment. The ecological modernisation of domestic consumption. Environmental Politics 9(1): 50-76. Te Kloeze, J.W., K. De Hoog, M. Van Bergen and M. Duivenvoorden, 1996. Tussen Vrijheid en Gebondenheid: Het Postmoderne Gezin Ontdekt. Leuven, Apeldoorn: Garant. Te Kloeze, J.W. and K. De Hoog, 1999. Between freedom and commitment: The postmodern family discovered: A sociological study of typologies and leisure domains in the Netherlands. Loisir et Société / Society and Leisure 22(1): 171-86. Van der Avort, A., P. Cuyvers and K. De Hoog, 1996. Het Nederlandse Gezinsleven aan het Einde van de Twintigste Eeuw. Den Haag: Nederlandse Gezinsraad. Van Ophem, J.A.C. and K. De Hoog, 1997. Nuclear families and the changing income procurement role of married women. Associations, Journal of Legal and Social Theory 1(2): 119-35.

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Formation and dissolution of families

Are the effects of different family forms on children’s educational performance related to the demographic characteristics and family policies of modern societies? Geetha Garib, Teresa Martin Garcia and Jaap Dronkers1 Abstract We have investigated the gap in the math and reading achievements of 15-year-old pupils who live with a single mother, with a mother and a male guardian, or with father, mother and other family adult versus those pupils who live with two parents in 19 countries across Europe, North-America and the Pacific-Rim. Reminiscent of an earlier more restricted study (Pong et al., 2003) we have found significant differences in the gaps in math and reading achievements between the groups in these countries, controlling for a broad range of characteristics of parents and pupils. Following a multilevel analysis in which we included country characteristics on family policy and on demography, we have found single motherhood to be less detrimental where family policy (especially maternity leave) decreases the achievement gap between pupils from single-mother and two-parent families. However, this single-mother and two-parent achievement gap is greater in countries where the percentage of single-parent families is larger. We conclude, just as Pong et al. (2003), that national family policies combined with a less laissez-faire policy towards the formation of single-parent families can diminish the negative academic outcomes of singlemotherhood. 1. Introduction Only very recently has research started to investigate the educational consequences of single motherhood cross-nationally. This comparative research is essential if we are to understand the relative importance of public policy, which may mitigate or exacerbate the challenges associated with living with a single mother, and the relative importance of demographic factors, which may influence the characteristics of single mothers. In this study, we investigate how the relationship between four different family forms (both parents, single mother; recomposed; extended) and children’s academic achievement varies according to social security systems and demographic characteristics of the 19 countries across Europe, North America and the Pacific Rim from the PISA data. We specifically test whether the achievement gap between children living with a single mother, a mother and a stepfather or both parents and another family member and those residing with both parents is smaller in those countries that make greater investments in family policy and that have lower divorce-ratios. 1 This

is the product of a multilevel seminar given at the European University Institute in 2002 by the third author. The first version was presented at the second conference of the European network for empirical and comparative research on the sociological aspects of divorce, Tilburg (Netherlands), November 13-16, 2003.

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We address three related questions in this study. Firstly, how varied is the gap in academic achievement between children who live in the four family forms cross-nationally? Secondly, do academic differences between children from these four family forms persist after family resources and characteristics are taken into account? Thirdly, and most importantly, does the achievement gap between children from the four family form vary by demographic characteristics and national family policies? Our study is the successor to an analogous study by Pong et al. (2003), who investigated the same question with less rich data from 11 countries. Our study extends this earlier research in four directions: 19 instead of 11 countries; more independent variables to control for parental resources; not only math and science outcomes, but also reading; and four family forms instead of two. Until recently, students of divorce assumed that there were no significant differences between countries regarding the size of differences in well-being between children from various family forms. A recent example is Pryor and Rodgers (2001: 59, 61, 64, 233), who compare outcomes of children from separated and intact families of studies in the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand. Despite their restricted sample of four countries, they repeat their conclusion (no significant differences between countries in the amount of differences between children from separated and intact families) time and again. Pong et al. (2003) analyse 11 countries and found significant differences between the educational achievements of children from different family forms. However, to obtain more reliable estimates one would like to have more countries. In this study we analyse 19 different countries across Europe, North America and the Pacific-Rim. Pong et al (2003) had only four parental background variables (number of books; number of possessions; immigrant status; household size) in their dataset (TIMSS, 1995) to control for differences in social background between the family forms. Our dataset PISA 2000 has much more parental background and school-related variables. Thus we have more reliable estimates of differences between family forms, which cannot be explained by differences in the social background. Pong et al. (2003) had only two, closely related educational outcomes as dependent variables (math and sciences score). The PISA data has also reading score as an indicator of educational achievement. The larger range of indicators to measure differences between family forms can improve the validity of the results. Pong et al. (2003) compared only the differences between two family forms (two parents, single mother). Our dataset allows for the inclusion of two more family forms. Unfortunately, just like Pong et al. (2003), our dataset does not contain any information on the causes of the current family-form, neither of their duration. Particularly in the case of single-motherhood this is problematic. Single-motherhood may be due to divorce or 28 

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separation, to the death of a husband, or to non-marital childbearing and childrearing without the presence of a male. As said, our data do not allow us to differentiate between these causes of single-motherhood, but all single-mother families in this study share a common characteristic. There is a biological mother in the family whom the focal child identifies as a biological mother. Furthermore, our data does not allow us to differentiate between two-parent families and cohabiting unions in which both the biological parents of the focal child are present. The lumping of these two types of two-parent families may be reasonable in many European countries where cohabitation is common and where cohabiting parents behave like married couples. 2. Relevant literature We will not repeat the literature on the relationship between living in a single-mother household and educational outcomes. Pong et al. (2003) summarize this literature. New relevance, which would change the outcome of that summary, has not been published since. The conclusions of Pong et al. (2003) were the following. Single motherhood is associated with lower math and science achievement among young children. With only two exceptions (Austria, Iceland), the single- and two-parent family achievement gap is found within each country, as well as for all countries combined, for both math and science subjects. The largest math and science performance gap among all countries is found in the U.S. and in New Zealand. Family resources, although they are crudely measured with four variables, did not account for this significant achievement gap. The achievement gap between singleand two-parent families is narrowed where there are family policies aimed at equalizing economic resources between single-parent and other families. This relationship is generally weak, although it is particularly strong in the case of policies of family/child allowances and parental leave. This finding confirms their observation that countries having more generous family policies show smaller or no achievement gap by family structure. For example, Pong et al found no achievement gap in Austria, which has a history of a social protection system with relatively large universal family allowances. The U.S. has never provided any family or child allowances. To some extent the investment in national family policies explains why Austria ranks at the top but why the U.S. and New Zealand rank last in the academic resilience of children from single-parent homes. However, the achievement gap is greater in countries where single-parent families are more common. The latter result is consistent with the family conflict hypothesis (Amato and Keith, 1991). This hypothesis assumes that the unwillingness of parents to maintain their relationship is larger in countries with a higher level of divorce and thus single mothers. In these countries parents will split up with a lower level of family conflict and their children will benefit less from the divorce (less serious family conflict) but they will suffer only the negative consequences (greater psychological stress).

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3. Conceptual framework As we have relied heavily on the conceptual framework of Pong et al. (2003), outlined in Figure 1, we will briefly summarize it here. They hypothesize that different policy environments can influence the relationship between single motherhood and children’s academic achievement by changing a family’s disposable income and parental time inputs. According to Becker’s theory of household production (Becker, 1981), children’s education is a form of consumer good that is produced by parents using two types of household inputs: money income and parental time. Consistent with this economic framework, Coleman (1988) distinguished three family background factors that influence children’s education: financial capital, human capital, and social capital. As a form of financial capital, family income was positively related to children’s educational attainment and achievement (Hill and Duncan, 1987; Schneider and Coleman, 1993). A large amount of literature on social stratification has in many countries established the connection between parents’ education (human capital) and their children’s educational attainment (see, for example, Shavit and Blossfield, 1993). However, Coleman (1988) theorized that parents’ human capital could not be transmitted to children without the support of social capital. Social capital, according to Coleman, consists of the relationship between children and adults that enhances children’s education. Building social capital requires parents to communicate and interact with their children frequently, as well as to forge relationships and networks with other adults in school and in the community (Schneider and Coleman, 1993). Consequently, parents who spend more time with their children could forge greater social capital, thereby enhancing their children’s school success. Parental inputs of time, especially from the mother, have been shown to be positively associated with children’s educational achievement (Leibowitz, 1974).

Family-form situation

Child outcomes

Income (Financial capital) Family policy

Time inputs (Social capital)

Academic achievement outcomes

Demographic context

Figure 1. The relationship between family policy, demographic contexts, family situation, and child achievement outcomes.

30 

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Effects of different family forms on children’s educational performance

Countries with supportive family policies offer a range of generous provisions, such as child and family allowances, child benefits and family transfers, tax benefits to lone parents, and maternity-leave benefits. In these countries, single mothers have greater economic resources for their children’s education than do their counterparts in nations with weaker family policies. Single mothers also receive more free time from work to care for their infants or young children, which may promote children’s cognitive development. Based on the conceptual frameworks offered by household production and social capital theories, we expect that children residing in single-parent families in countries with stronger family policies are less likely to suffer from educational disadvantage than would be the case in countries with weaker family policies. National family policies vary across countries with different demographic characteristics. In fact, the demography of a nation and its family policy are likely to be reciprocally related. On the one hand, generous family policies may encourage cohabitation and non-marital childbearing and eventually produce greater proportions of single-parent families when cohabiting unions dissolve. Alternatively, where single mothers are politically organised, they demand greater resources from the government. In both cases, the proportion of single-parent families may be positively associated with the generosity of the nation’s family policies towards single mothers. On the other hand, the growth in single-parent families could reduce the tolerance and sympathy towards single mothers, and subsequently trigger policy stringency. In this situation, the prevalence of single motherhood may be negatively associated with the generosity of family policies. Regardless of the direction of the association, we need to take into account a country’s concentration of single motherhood as we examine the role of family policy, because the national proportions of single-parent families may influence children’s school achievement. Two alternative explanations can be given for the relationship between national proportions of single-parent families and the national achievement disadvantage of children living in single-parent homes. Recent empirical research suggests that, as divorce becomes prevalent, the nature of marital dissolution will change. When divorces were rare, only the extremely dissatisfied would seek a divorce, typically families with high parental conflict. When divorces became prevalent, many more moderately dissatisfied individuals would also divorce their spouses. Compared to conflict-ridden marriages ending in divorce, families with little parental conflict that end in divorce may be more damaging to children’s psychological wellbeing. As a possible consequence, in nations where divorce rates are high, children from single-parent homes only have the negative consequences of the parental divorce (greater psychological stress) and fewer of the positive ones (less serious parental divorce) than do their counterparts in countries where divorces are relatively rare, who have both the negative and positive consequences of parental divorce. Goode (1962) already developed a comparable argument about cross-national differences in the characteristics of divorcees and non-divorcees. In societies with high barriers against Changing families and their lifestyles 

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Geetha Garib, Teresa Martin Garcia and Jaap Dronkers

divorce (juridical, religious and financial) only persons from the higher classes have enough resources to overcome these barriers, and thus in these societies members of the higher classes divorce more often than members of the lower classes. In societies with no barriers against divorce persons with the highest probability of family problems (child-rearing, unemployment, housing) and with the fewest resources (financial, cognitive, social) to solve these problems will more likely divorce. Persons from the lower classes have a higher probability of having family problems and have fewer resources to solve them. There are indications that Goode’s argument is still valid: the relationship between female education and divorce or separation is positive in countries with low divorce rates, while this relation is negative in countries with high divorce rates (Härkönen and Dronkers, 2006). Thus, to the extent that single motherhood results from divorce, the correlation between a country’s percentage of single-parent families and the academic achievement disadvantage of children from single-parent homes is likely to be positive. 4. Selection of countries for comparison In our comparative study, we attempt to control for cultural influence by selecting countries sharing similar Western cultural traditions and social institutions. We selected 19 industrialized countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom and US. The basis of selection was to have enough variation between the various types of welfare states (Esping-Anderson, 1990), in order to test the effect of various welfare regimes. The inclusion of Anglo-Saxon and continental-European nations was necessary given their different culture relating to sexual relations and gender differences. Finally, inclusion of protestant and catholic countries was necessary given the different values and norms regarding marriage and divorce, but also the role of these churches in building different welfare-state regimes. We excluded all Eastern European countries with more than one missing demographical or family-policy indicator. Divorce and separation levels in the Eastern European societies underwent important changes during the 1990’s due to the far-reaching political transformations, and including them by using more recent indicators might lead to flawed estimations. 5. Method 5.1 Data Our analysis is based on the PISA 2000 survey organized by the OECD, under the project title The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment. This research aimed at providing internationally comparable measurement on the performance of 15-year-old students. The database comprises data collected in 2000 in 32 countries. Information on these aggregated measures is available from the Manual for the PISA 2000 Database (OECD, 32 

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2000a) as well as from the PISA 2000 Technical Report (2000b), including their reliability and internal consistency. The strength of the PISA 2000 data is its cross-national comparability. The OECD/CERI has developed a scheme to compare the outcomes of various educational systems by making use of the experiences of earlier efforts to cross-nationally compare educational results (like TIMSS, which was used by Pong et al., 2003). By using a multilateral approach to develop this scheme, a one-sided measurement has been avoided and its results are widely recognized throughout the OECD countries. A weakness of the PISA 2000 data is the cross-sectional nature of the collected data. It is a one-moment picture of the 15-year-old students: we don’t know anything about their further development, nor about their earlier education experiences and outcomes. 5.2 Variables 5.2.1 Academic achievement For this analysis, we decided to use two of the three possible dependent variables on students’ performance. The survey contained measures on students’ reading, mathematics and science abilities; we will use the reading and the maths scales as dependent variables in the analysis in order to have one measure which is of a more cultural character, and one measure which is of a more cognitive character. Both performance measures were constructed by applying weighted maximum likelihood estimates (see Warm, 1985) and were translated into scales with a mean of 500 and a standard deviation of 100. We will include the measurement error term variables in our multilevel analysis to control for the possible measurement error of the performance variables. 5.2.2 Family form The student is asked to indicate who usually lives at home with him/her. There are eight possibilities and for each of these the student has to indicate whether this applies to him/ her: mother, other female guardian (e.g., stepmother or foster mother), father, other male guardian (e.g., stepfather or foster father), brother(s), sister(s), grandparent(s), others. Four combinations were large enough in the various countries to treat them as a distinctive family form: father and mother only; father, mother and other family adult; mother and male guardian; single mother. We prefer to not only analyse the coefficients of singlemotherhood, but also those of mother and male guardian (as the most common form of the recomposed family, mostly after a divorce) and of father, mother and other family adult. By including these other family forms in our analysis, we hope to avoid a biased picture of single-motherhood. Again, we do not know the causes of the current family forms. Singlemotherhood or mother and male guardian may be due to divorce or separation, to the death of a husband, or to non-marital childbearing.

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5.3 Sociological and demographic characteristics of students and parents Most of the independent variables used to predict students’ achievement are combined indices, developed by PISA. These were standardized in such a way as to have a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1 at the international level of all countries. The first set of independent variables involves students’ as well as their parents’ social and demographic characteristics. We will differentiate between males and females in the analysis. Despite a slight variation, we will control for school grade and age (measured in months in the data). In keeping with established traditions of social mobility and status attainment research, we will include father’s and mother’s occupation and education as indicators of social origin. Occupation is measured in the data by the international socio-economic index (ISEI) (Ganzeboom et al., 1992), while education is measured with the ISCED scale (OECD, 1999). Further information on family background is number of siblings. The PISA survey provides information on how frequently parents discuss political and social issues, books, films, and television programs with their offspring. PISA has combined these individual items into an index labeled Parents’ academic interest. Similarly, students were asked to report on how frequently parents discuss school issues with them, eat together with them around the table or spend time talking to them at all. PISA combines these variables in an index labeled Parents’ social interest. The survey included questions on visiting museums, art galleries, going to the theatre, classical music concerts, or ballet, which are combined into the scale Students’ cultural activities. The PISA index on Family cultural possession is based on having classical literature, books of poetry, and works of art at home. As a direct measure of parental income is quite unreliable given that it is the students in the school who report on it, a Family wealth index has been constructed based on the presence of dishwasher, television, cellular phone, motorcar, computer, and a link to the Internet at home. Students’ educational circumstances at home are measured by the index Home educational resources, and considers whether or not the student has a desk, a quiet place for study at home, and if the family has a dictionary, textbooks, and calculators. Finally, it also matters whether parents work with students on their schoolwork and help them to do their homework. The frequency of these events, as reported by the students, is measured by the Family educational support index. 5.4 Behavioral and attitudinal characteristics of students and parents The behavioral and attitudinal characteristics of students and parents related to education and school is the next set of independent variables. Students were asked to report how much time they spend doing their homework for languages, mathematics and science, combined into the index for Time spent on homework. Students were asked to report on how much interest teachers show in their learning progress, how frequently teachers let them express their own opinion in school or how frequently teachers help them to understand school materials. The PISA Teacher support index is based on these items. Further questions were asked about how well students get along with teachers, how much teachers are interested in students, how much they listen to what students have to say, and how fairly they treat 34 

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students. PISA combined these questions in the Teacher-student relationship index. The School disciplinary climate index is based on students’ responses to the questions about whether the teacher has to wait until students sit down quietly at the beginning of the class, if students do not start to work when the class begins, if students do not listen to what the teacher says, and if there is noise or disorder in the class. Another aspect to be considered is how much the teacher wants students to work hard, how much he/she tells them they can work better, how much he/she dislikes if students do not work well. Students’ responses to these questions are combined in the Achievement pressure index. An overall indicator of the student-school relationship emerges from the questions on how much the student feels an outsider in the school or feels awkward in the place, how easily he/she can make friends there, how much he/she feels liked by the other students, or how lonely he/she feels. The PISA index entitled Sense of belonging in the school provides combined information on this. 5.5 Indicators of family policy and demography The second data source consists of the country-specific family policy and demographic indicators. These include important maternal and parental leave policies, policies of child and family allowances, and tax benefits to single mothers. Demographic indicators include the prevalence of single motherhood, divorce, and teenage motherhood. Because this research analyses 19 nationally representative samples of young children surveyed in 2000, the policies most relevant to these children would be those found between the late-1980s and mid-1990s. Thus, we focus on national family policies from this period. This data is collected from books and websites (see for more information the added appendix from Pong et al. (2003). 5.6 Analytical strategy We build a three-level random-effects HLM model (Bryk and Raudenbush 1992). The unit of analysis at the second level is the student, and the unit of analysis in the third-level model is the nation within which the student is nested: Achievementijk = βjk0 + βjk1(family-form)jk + βjk2(other)jk + e0ijk3(error-term)jk

(1)

βjk0 = γ00 + γ01(family policy)k + γ02(demographic context)k + Ujk0,

(2)

βjk1 = γ10 + γ11(family policy)k + γ12(demographic context)k + Vjk1

(3)

Unlike the fixed-effects model where all coefficients are specified as fixed, here some coefficients are specified as random. We assume that the parameter residuals Ujk0 and Vjk1 are unrelated to the γs. Ujk1 may not be specified, if there is no estimated parameter variance of βjk1. Our primary interest is to estimate γ11 and γ12, which are predictors of βjk1 - the achievement gap between children from single-parent families and their counterparts from Changing families and their lifestyles 

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two-parent homes. We examine the covariates of various family policies and the demographic context of single motherhood and report the coefficients of γ11 and γ12. We have 19 cases at the third or country level. With this number we are above the minimum number for running a random coefficient model (Snijders and Bosker, 1999: 43-4). At the second or student level we have either reading or mathematics weighted likelihood estimates as the dependent variable, and the standard deviation of the error of this estimate. The variance at the first or lowest level is fixed at 1.00. This results in a measurement model of the second level of the students (see Hox, 2002). It gives a more reliable estimation of the true score of the students, because the model takes the measured error into account. This procedure results in a three-level model (student; country) with a measurement model at the lowest level. 6. Results 6.1 Descriptive analysis In Table 1 we present the average scores on reading and math of the pupils from the four family forms for each country separately. On the whole the average scores of pupils living with both parents only are the highest, while the average scores of pupils living with both parents and a grandparent are the lowest. The average scores of pupils living with a single mother or living with a mother and a male guardian are between these two extremes and the difference between the scores of pupils from these two family forms is not very large. Although the differences between the scores of pupils from the different families are significant and substantive, they are only one third of the standard deviation of the reading and math scores (father, mother & family adult) and one sixth of the standard deviation for pupils with a single mother or a mother with a guardian father. This means that the differences between the scores of pupils from different family forms are interesting, but that their importance vis-à-vis other sociological factors should not be exaggerated. The deviances between the scores of pupils with father and mother and the scores for the three other family forms for each country separately give the cross-national variation. Pupils of mother and male guardian families from Italy have relatively high scores on both reading and math, while pupils from the same family form from Belgium, France, New Zealand and the US score relatively low on both achievement tests. Pupils of single-mother families from France, the Netherlands, the UK and the US score also relatively low on both tests, compared to pupils of the same family form from other countries. These differences suggest that there are indeed cross-national differences in the relationship between family forms and the educational achievement of children. However, these deviations of Table 1 do not prove cross-national differences in this relationship. Table 2 shows that clear differences also exist in the sociological and demographic 36 

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Table 1. Dependent variables: Means of reading and math scores by family-form and country, the standard deviation in parentheses and deviance from scores of pupils with those of pupils with father and mother only.

504.7 (98.7)

Belgium

527.2 (106.8)

Canada

535.1 (97.3)

Denmark

509.0 (97.4)

Finland

553.7 (88.9)

France

553.7 (88.9)

Germany

505.2 (107.7)

Greece

482.3 (97.7)

Ireland

533.4 (92.7)

Changing families and their lifestyles 

519.3 (107.1) -15.8 498.0 (91.0) -6.7 500.8 (111.9) -26.4 519.7 (94.8) -15.4 484.1 (108.7) -24.9 535.8 (100.7) -12.7 488.0 (99.7) -65.7 489.6 (114.5) -15.6 447.6 (104.1) -34.7 510.9 (93.0) -22.5

Father and mother only

499.3 (112.5) -35.8 498.8 (103.0) -5.9 470.6 (123.2) -56.6 492.3 (103.0) -42.8 466.8 (105.4) -68.3 559.0 (84.6) 5.3 459.4 (105.9) -94.3 487.2 (106.2) -18.0 463.0 (97.1) -18.7 517.7 (102.4) -15.7

535.6 (90.9) 511.6 (95.0) 533.7 (101.1) 531.9 (95.2) 523.9 (83.4) 539.2 (82.1) 539.2 (82.1) 506.9 (96.9) 458.2 (101.5) 508.5 (83.6)

Father, mother and other family adult Single mother

Austria

506.4 (97.9) -28.7 498.3 (90.3) -6.4 485.8 (109.2) -41.4 510.8 (91.7) -24.3 489.1 (107.4) -19.9 548.5 (80.2) -5.2 495.2 (86.7) -58.5 486.7 (103.1) -18.5 474.2 (78.1) -8.1 516.9 (96.7) -16.5

Mother and male guardian

535.1 (102.6)

Father, mother and other family adult Single mother

Australia

Math score

Mother and male guardian

Father and mother only

Reading score

510.2 (87.4) -25.4 497.8 (89.4) -13.8 495.0 (99.3) -38.7 509.8 (85.4) -22.1 499.4 (89.7) -24.5 521.6 (73.5) -17.6 499.2 (103.7) -40.0 489.0 (94.2) -17.9 420.4 (94.1) -37.8 499.5 (79.7) -9.0

510.3 (112.8) -25.3 506.0 (94.7) -5.6 495.3 (109.5) -38.4 501.9 (89.5) -30.0 493.2 (88.9) -30.7 540.9 (81.1) 1.7 481.1 (102.5) -58.1 494.8 (104.7) -12.1 441.4 (106.7) -16.8 490.8 (88.6) -17.7

517.5 (97.5) -18.1 499.1 (88.1) -12.5 507.4 (105.4) -25.9 513.7 (86.0) -18.2 502.1 (94.9) -21.8 522.6 (86.1) -16.6 501.1 (90.6) -38.1 490.2 (97.8) -16.7 447.6 (109.6) -10.6 483.1 (89.8) -25.4

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Table 1. Contimued.

550.1 (87.5)

New Zealand

547.5 (101.4)

Norway

515.6 (103.7)

Portugal

482.1 (94.6)

Spain

503.6 (86.6)

Sweden

525.0 (92.9)

UK

536.5 (102.6)

US

534.8 (98.1)

Total

526.8 (98.0)

N

39,289

38 

483.3 (93.1) -16.3 517.7 (103.0) -32.4 519.7 (110.7) -27.8 489.6 (102.5) -26.0 475.5 (88.2) -6.6 490.6 (85.4) -13.6 500.4 (96.0) -24.6 499.3 (99.9) -37.2 488.9 (93.4) -44.9 509.3 (98.1) -17.5 6,923

Father and mother only

480.1 (94.5) -19.4 506.0 (101.8) -44.1 470.7 (111.0) -76.8 482.9 (110.4) -42.7 461.4 (102.5) -10.7 490.8 (91.3) -13.4 486.9 (103.1) -38.1 480.9 (117.9) -55.6 474.1 (98.6) -60.7 489.9 (101.5) -36.9 6,482

468.6 (92.4) 573.6 (83.3) 551.4 (93.2) 509.3 (91.8) 468.4 (89.8) 489.7 (89.4) 517.9 (92.1) 537.6 (90.0) 519.8 (97.9) 522.2 (92.5) 39,289

Father, mother and other family adult Single mother

The Netherlands

505.5 (83.2) 6.0 534.3 (79.8) -15.8 518.4 (99.6) -29.1 494.8 (96.0) -20.6 477.5 (103.4) -4.6 490.9 (95.5) -13.3 498.5 (84.4) -26.5 524.8 (95.6) -11.7 497.6 (97.2) -37.2 509.3 (93.7) -17.5 3,699

Mother and male guardian

499.5 (91.9)

Father, mother and other family adult Single mother

Italy

Math score

Mother and male guardian

Father and mother only

Reading score

476.3 (88.7) 7.7 553.7 (74.3) -19.9 521.2 (83.2) -30.2 475.1 (94.6) -34.2 453.1 (97.8) -15.3 476.3 (105.8) -13.4 494.2 (81.5) -23.7 523.8 (84.3) -13.8 483.4 (90.8) -36.4 505.3 (88.5) -16.9 3,699

458.0 (92.2) -10.6 530.8 (113.2) -42.8 492.7 (97.4) -58.7 496.8 (91.3) -12.5 457.2 (94.4) -11.2 475.7 (88.1) -14.0 491.7 (107.9) -26.2 496.0 (97.2) -41.6 475.1 (89.4) -44.7 489.2 (96.2) -33.0 6,482

455.9 (94.1) -12.7 527.1 (118.2) -46.5 525.2 (98.5) -26.2 482.5 (88.4) -26.8 451.3 (92.8) -17.1 468.3 (98.3) -21.4 498.4 (98.6) -19.5 506.5 (94.9) -31.1 475.7 (90.5) -44.1 503.4 (93.8) -18.8 6,923

Changing families and their lifestyles



Effects of different family forms on children’s educational performance

Table 2. The characteristics of the pupils and their parents in the various family forms: means and standard deviations. Father and mother only Sex

1.5 (.5) School grade 9.8 (.7) Number of siblings 1.8 (1.2) Father‘s or mother’s ISEI 45.2 (17.2) Mother’s education 4.6 (1.4) Parents‘ academic interest .03 (1.0) Parents‘ social interest -.0 (1.0) Pupils cultural activities .0 index (1.0) Family cultural possession -.1 index (1.0) Family wealth index .3 (.8) Family educational support .0 index (1.0) Home educational .1 resources index (.9) Time spent on homework .1 (1.0) Teacher support index .1 (1.0) Teacher-student .1 relationship index (1.0) Disciplinary climate .1 (1.0) Achievement pressure .1 index (.9) Sense of belonging in the .1 school (1.0)

Changing families and their lifestyles 

Mother and male guardian

Father, mother and Single mother other family adult

1.5 (.5) 9.7 (.8) 2.5 (1.6) 42.6 (16.0) 4.6 (1.3) -.07 (1.0) -.2 (1.0) -.1 (1.0) -.2 (1.0) .3 (.8) -.2 (.9) -.1 (1.0) -.1 (1.0) .2 (1.0) .0 (1.0) .1 (1.0) .1 (1.0) .1 (1.1)

1.6 (.5) 9.7 (.7) 1.8 (1.3) 42.2 (16.2) 4.2 (1.5) .02 (1.0) .0 (1.0) .0 (1.0) -.0 (1.0) .3 (.9) -.0 (1.0) .1 (1.0) .0 (1.0) .1 (1.0) .0 (1.0) .1 (1.0) .1 (1.0) .0 (1.0)

1.5 (.5) 9.7 (.8) 1.9 (1.4) 44.1 (16.9) 4.5 (1.4) -.04 (1.0) -.2 (1.0) -.0 (1.0) -.1 (1.0) -.2 (.8) -.2 (.9) -.2 (1.1) -.1 (1.0) .1 (1.0) -.0 (1.0) -.1 (1.0) .1 (1.0) -.0 (1.0)

39

Geetha Garib, Teresa Martin Garcia and Jaap Dronkers

characteristics of these four family forms. Parents from father and mother families tend to have a higher occupational status score, higher academic and social interest, a higher cultural activity and possession level, greater family wealth, stronger educational support, and more educational resources. On the whole single-mother families have the lowest scores on these resources, although sometimes the lowest position is for the father, mother and other familyadult family form. Therefore the differences in achievement scores, as shown by Table 1, can be (partly) explained by these resource differences between the four family forms and thus Table 1 might give an exaggerated picture of the differences in educational achievement of pupils from the four family forms. Therefore, Table 1 cannot prove cross-national differences in the relationship between family form and educational achievement, because these crossnational differences may be partly explained by the different sociological characteristics of the four family forms between the countries. In Table 3 we present both the demographical characteristics and the key indicators of the family policies of the countries in the study. The precise coding and sources for these indicators are given in Pong et al. (2003). In a few cases one characteristic or indicator of a country was not available. We estimated the value of that missing characteristic or indicator, using all other observed values of that country and all other countries. The estimated values are given in Table 3 between parentheses. No country has more than one missing characteristic or indicator. 6.2 Results from multi-level analysis Our multilevel analyses, as shown in Table 4, have four steps, both for reading and math score as a dependent variable. The first model is a regression with three family forms (mother and male guardian; single mother; father, mother and other family adult) as dichotomous variables and the father and mother family form as a reference category. The coefficients of these three dichotomous variables give the difference between the score of pupils from that family form and that of pupils with father and mother. A negative coefficient means that the score of the pupils of that family form is lower than that of pupils with father and mother. Given the results from Table 1, which are analogous to those of model 1, it will be no surprise that these three coefficients are negative. These coefficients are significant, because they are larger that twice their standard deviations. Model 2 adds the sociological and demographic characteristics of parents and students to the regression. Adding these characteristics, which all have significant coefficients, decreases the strength of the three family-form variables considerably. Therefore, a part of the lower score on reading and math of pupils from single mother, mother and male guardian or father, mother and other family adult is caused by their less favourable economic and social conditions. But the still significant coefficients of model 2 also show that pupils of these three family forms still score lower on reading and math, even if they share the same economic and social conditions as pupils with father and mother. 40 

Changing families and their lifestyles

Greece

Germany

France

Finland

Denmark

Canada

Belgium

Austria

Australia

Changing families and their lifestyles 

Sources: see Pong et al. (2003)

Ireland 26.7 423 0 6 0.48 20 80 66

34.4 914 7.4 16 2.35 16 100 96

19.8 603 2.1 25 2.65 14 0 116

35.5 684 9.1 21 2.54 38 100 139

20.8 (272) 4.9 13 1.24 14 100 22

23.8 (135) 0.3 7 0.8 16 100 31

39.6 808 7.2 18 2.53 65 75 29

27.6 855 6.3 21 2.97 18 45 131

20.1 232 0 21 4.57 12 0 73

0.3 0.25 0.1 0.08 1.98 1.53 0.37 0.54 0.01 0.06 0.08 0.57 (0.20) 1.31 0.16 0.04 2.57 0.48 0.28 (0.68) 0.45 0.19 0.19 0.55 0.8 0.21 0.04 0.04 0.08 0.12 0.09 (0.00) 0.46 0.1 0.05 1.31 0.07 0

25.2 217 3 11 0 14 70 174

Italy

19.5 77 3.2 11 0.74 16 50 13

Netherlands

27.5 528 4.9 19 2.04 14 100 59

New Zealand

31.9 1305 7.1 12 2.01 16 84 6

Norway

33.8 383 6.2 16 2.7 44 80 260

Portugal

33.9 1012 5.2 19 2.63 28 90 136

Spain

30.6 25.5 318 10.4 2.4 11 20 3.45 2.7 15 15 80 55 144 (97)

Sweden

29.9 1012 11.3 15 2.11 16 100 30

UK

17.7 511 3.4 18 4.34 52 0 237

USA

Social expansions per GDP Family transfers per child Children allowances % lone-parent families Crude divorce rates 1994 Maternity leave Maternity leave benefits Relative child benefit loneparent & 2 kids Family services 1992 Maternity & parental leave 1992

Country

Table 3. Family policies and demographic characteristics by country (between parenthesis estimations).

 Effects of different family forms on children’s educational performance

41

Geetha Garib, Teresa Martin Garcia and Jaap Dronkers

Table 4. The unstandardized regression coefficients of the four family-form variables on the two dependent variables reading and math score Model 1), after controlling for social and economic characteristics of parents and students (model 2), intermediary variables (model 3) and significant interaction variables between family form & family policies and demographic characteristics and related main effects of family policies and demographic characteristics (model 4). Standard deviations between parenthesis. Reading score Model Family form Mother and father only (ref.) Mother and male guardian Single mother

1

2

Math score 3

4

1

2

3

4

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

1.00

-17.8 (1.5) -16.4 (1.2) Father and mother and -27.2 grandparent (1.2) Social and economic characteristics Sex

-4.7 (1.3) -8.1 (1.1) -17.6 (1.1)

-7.0 (1.3) -10.2 (1.0) -16.5 (1.0)

-5.7 (2.4) -8.7 (1.8) -16.4 (2.1)

-19.6 (1.3) -16.1 (1.0) -17.9 (1.1)

-8.1 (1.2) -7.8 (1.0) -13.1 (1.0)

-10.0 (1.2) -9.9 (.9) -12.3 (1.0)

-10.2 (1.2) -1.2 (3.2) -24.3 (2.5)

School grade Age in months Number of siblings Father‘s or mother’s ISEI Mother’s education Family wealth index Family cultural possession index Home educational resources index

42 

-24.7 -21.9 -21.9 (.7) (.6) (.6) 45.2 40.1 40.1 (.7) (.6) (.6) -.7 -.7 -.7 (.1) (.09) (.09) -5.5 -4.5 -4.5 (.3) (.2) (.2) .8 .7 .7 (.02) (.02) (.02) 6.6 6.2 6.2 (.3) (.3) (.3) -1.5 .1 .1 (.4) (.4) (.4) 11.4 6.9 6.9 (.4) (.4) (.4) 9.0 7.6 7.6 (.4) (.4) (.4)

13.4 15.0 15.0 (.6) (.6) (.6) 37.4 33.3 33.3 (.6) (.6) (.6) -.8 -.9 -.9 (.1) (.1) (.1) -3.4 -2.7 -2.7 (.3) (.2) (.2) .6 .6 .6 (.02) (.02) (.02) 5.6 5.3 5.3 (.3) (.3) (.3) 1.0 2.3 2.3 (.4) (.4) (.4) 6.6 3.8 3.8 (.3) (.3) (.3) 8.2 7.8 7.8 (.4) (.3) (.3)

Changing families and their lifestyles



Effects of different family forms on children’s educational performance

Table 4. Continued. Reading score Model

1

2

Math score 3

4

1

2

3

4

Behavioral and attitudinal characteristics Parents‘ academic interest Parents‘ social interest

10.8 10.8 7.3 7.3 (.4) (.4) (.4) (.4) 1.7 1.7 -.6 -.6 (.4) (.4) (.4) (.4) Pupils cultural 6.6 6.6 5.5 5.5 activities index (.3) (.3) (.3) (.3) Family educational -18.3 -18.3 -14.4 -14.4 support index (.3) (.3) (.3) (.3) Time spent on 8.6 8.6 6.3 6.3 homework (.3) (.3) (.3) (.3) Teacher support index -1.7 -1.7 -3.5 -3.5 (.4) (.4) (.4) (.4) Teacher-student 4.7 4.7 5.0 5.0 relationship index (.4) (.4) (.4) (.4) Disciplinary climate -3.7 -3.7 -2.1 -2.1 (.3) (.3) (.3) (.3) Achievement pressure -4.2 -4.2 -3.7 -3.7 index (.3) (.3) (.3) (.3) Sense of belonging in -.4 -.4 -1.6 -1.6 the school (.3) (.3) (.3) (.3) Significant interactions family form & family policies and demographic characteristics % lone-parent -.7 -.5 families* Single (.2) (.2) mother Maternity leave* .2 .2 Father, mother and (.03) (.03) other family adult Maternity leave* .1 Single mother (.03) Family policies and demographic characteristics % lone-parent families 1.4 3.2 (1.3) (1.3) Maternity leave .1 .4 (.2) (.2) -2*loglikelihood (IGLS) 670,382 656,156 651,529 651,491 656,982 646,956 643,629 643,591

Changing families and their lifestyles 

43

Geetha Garib, Teresa Martin Garcia and Jaap Dronkers

In Model 3 we add behavioural and attitudinal characteristics of parents and pupils to the regression. One might interpret these characteristics as intermediary variables between the social and economic conditions of families, the different family forms and the educational achievement. As one can see, these characteristics are significant in explaining variation in educational achievement, but they do not decrease the negative coefficients of the three family forms. On the contrary, adding these behavioural and attitudinal characteristics strengthens the negative effects of the family forms ‘mother and male guardian’ and ‘single mother’. This suggests that these two family forms on average score higher on these positive behavioural and attitudinal characteristics than in the comparable father and mother familyform, and that this higher level of positive behavioural and attitudinal characteristics partly compensate the negative consequences for the educational achievement of pupils living in these two family forms. Model 3 is our final model for the individual variables. First we tested whether there is a significant variance in the coefficient of the three family forms at the country level. The multi-level programme allows us to measure the significance of the random slope of the three family-form variables of Model 3. The slopes of the ‘father, mother and other family adult’ variable and the ‘single-mother’ variable differ significantly in the reading equation between the countries, although the former far more then the latter.2 In the math equation only the slope of the ‘father, mother and other family-adult’ variable varies significantly.3 There is thus enough variation in the effect of the various family forms to test whether family policy and demographic context affect them. Our next step is to add, one by one to the regression of Model 3, the demographical characteristics and the family policy indicators at the third country level, both as a main effect (γ01(family policy)k) or γ02(demographic context)k) and as interaction variable with family form (γ11(family policy)k) or γ12(demographic context)k).We added the main effect and the corresponding interaction variable one by one, because adding the main effect and interaction variables of all demographical characteristics and the family policy indicators would need more degrees of freedom than we have at the country level. The coefficients of the interaction variables of these 20 multi-level regressions are given in Table 5. We don’t give the coefficients of the corresponding main effects, because they are not the focus of our study. There are only a limited number of significant interaction variables. The largest number of significant interaction variables is for the ‘single-mother’ variable. The interaction variables ‘single mother & maternity leave’, ‘single mother & % lone-parent families’, ‘single mother & crude divorce rates’, ‘single mother & relative child benefit lone-parent’, and ‘single-mother & family transfer per child’ are significant for the reading equation. The 2 Variance of 121.9 with a standard deviation of 50.0 for ’father, mother & other family adult’ and a variance of

32.6 with a standard deviation of 17.6 for ’single mother’.

3 Variance of 45.7 with a standard deviation of 22.2 for ’father, mother & other family adult’ and a variance of

10.9 with a standard deviation of 8.9 for ’single mother’.

44 

Changing families and their lifestyles



Effects of different family forms on children’s educational performance

Table 5. The unstandardized coefficients of the interaction variables between family form & family policies and demographic characteristics added to the relevant model 3. Standard deviations between parentheses.

Maternity leave Maternity leave benefits Relative child benefit lone-parent & 2 kids Family services 1992 Maternity & parental leave 1992

Single mother

Crude divorce rates 1994

Father, mother and other family adult

% Lone-parent families

Mother and male guardian

Child allowances

Single mother

Family transfers per child

Father, mother and other family adult

Social expenditure per GDP

Math score

Mother and male guardian

Reading score

.05 (.2) -.003 (.004) -.2 (.4) -.6 (.2) -2.5 (1.5) .06 (.04) -.05 (.09) -.009

.2 (.2) -.004 (.003) .5 (.3) -1.3 (.2) -6.2 (.9) .2 (.03) -.002 (.1) -.07

-.2 (.2) -.006 (.003) -.1 (.3) -.7 (.2) -3.5 (.9) .1 (.03) -.06 (.07) -.02

-.04 (.2) -.002 (.003) -.2 (.4) -.4 (.3) -2.1 (1.5) .06 (.04) -.1 (.1) -.02

.2 (.2) -.002 (.003) -.6 (.3) -.8 (.2) -3.8 (.9) .2 (.03) .1 (.1) -.04

.03 (.2) -.002 (.003) -.1 (.3) -.6 (.2) -2.0 (.9) .07 (.03) .04 (.06) .001

(.02) -.7 (1.9) -2.05 (4.1)

(.01) .4 (2.0) .8 (4.3)

(.01) -2.4 (1.4) .1 (3.1)

(.02) -.6 (1.7) -1.5 (3.8)

(.02) 2.0 (1.8) 5.1 (4.0)

(.01) -.4 (1.3) 3.7 (2.9)

same holds for the math equation, except for the last two. If an interaction variable is negative, this means that the negative effect of single mother increases: this is the case with all interaction variables, except the first. For instance, this means that an increase of 1% of lone-parent families in a population decreases the reading scores of pupils with a single mother by 0.7. A few significant interaction variables are found with the variable ‘mother and male guardian’: ‘mother and male guardian & social expenditure’, and ‘mother and male Changing families and their lifestyles 

45

Geetha Garib, Teresa Martin Garcia and Jaap Dronkers

guardian & % lone-parent families’ for the reading equation, but for the math equation the latter is insignificant and the former has the opposite sign. Only the interaction variable ‘mother and male guardian & % lone-parent families’ is significant in the reading equation, but this is not true for the math equation. Model 4 of Table 4 is our final model. We added the variables ‘% lone-parent families’, ‘maternity leave’, ‘divorce crude rates’, ‘maternity leave’ and ‘relative child benefit lone parent’ as main effects and the corresponding significant interaction variables with the three family forms to the two equations. We deleted the insignificant interaction variables and those main effects which no longer had a significant corresponding interaction variable. The result of this procedure is Model 4 of Table 4. The interaction variable ‘% lone-parent families & single mother’ is significant for both the reading and math equation, and its sign means that the negative effect of single-motherhood on the educational achievement of her children increases with the increase of the percentage of lone-parent families in a population. Also the interaction variable ‘maternity leave & father, mother and other family adult’ is significant for both the reading and math equation, and its sign indicates that the negative effect of the family-form father, mother and other family adult becomes smaller with more weeks maternity leave. A comparable effect is also found for the interaction variable ‘maternity leave & single mother’, but only for the reading equation. The main effects of maternity leave and % lone-parent families are not significant in the reading equation, but are significant in the math equation. 7. Conclusion and discussion The first conclusion we can draw from this study is that the relationship between familyform and educational achievement is not equal in all the 19 countries, and is still not equal after controlling for social background of parents and pupils and their behavior and attitudes towards school. This is an important outcome because it confirms the former result of Pong et al. (2003), also if one uses a larger number of countries (19 in stead of 11), a larger variety of variables to control for the social and cultural background of parents and pupils and a different outcome indicator (not only math and science, but also reading). In particular the family forms ‘father, mother and other family adult’ and ‘single mother’ have no equal effects in these 19 countries. This conclusion runs clearly against earlier results (Pryor and Rodgers, 2001) claiming that there are no significant differences between countries in the magnitude of differences between children from separated and intact families. The main cause of this difference is the restriction of most divorce research to a few Anglo-Saxon countries, which vary too little in their family policy and demographic characteristics in order to have significant differences.

46 

Changing families and their lifestyles



Effects of different family forms on children’s educational performance

We can explain these differences by taking into account the percentage of lone-parent families and the generosity of maternity leave in these societies4. One percent more loneparent families in a society decreases the reading score of pupils with a single mother by 0.7 points and the math score by 0.5. The range of 15 percent lone-parent families between the lowest (Italy: 6) and the highest country (US) thus produces a difference of 10.5 points for reading and 7.5 points for math for Italian pupils with single mothers compared to the single-mother pupils in the US with the same sociological and demographic characteristics. The same holds for maternity leave. One week more maternity-leave in a society increases the reading scores of pupils living with father, mother and other family adult by 0.2 points and the reading score of pupils with single mothers by 0.1 point. The range of 40 weeks between Australia and the USA thus produces a higher score of eight points for Australian pupils with father, mother and other family adult and four points for pupils with Australian single mothers in Australia compared to pupils in the US with the same sociological and demographic characteristics and living in the same family form. The high percentage of lone-parent families and the low level of maternity leave in the US thus partly explains the low average score of US pupils in the cross-national comparison of educational outcomes. Pong et al. (2003) report the same demographical context and family-policy indicator as relevant for explaining cross-national differences in effects of single-motherhood on the educational achievement of her children. It is also interesting that only maternity leave has a significant effect on the coefficient of single-motherhood and the family form ‘father, mother and other family adult’, but not the other more traditional family- and social policy indicators, like social expenditure, family transfers, child allowances, child benefits, etc. Maternity leave can be interpreted as an indication of public generosity for working and single mothers to stay with their children, if that is necessary. Are these other more traditional family and social policy instruments only helpful for the traditional nuclear family with one or 1.5 breadwinner? Are the children of single mothers most helped if their mothers have sufficient time available for them? Finally, the most important result of this study is the one showing that family policy has a significant effect on children’s educational achievement and thus on the standing of that society in the world. Social policy can make a real difference, both for children and for society as a whole.

4 Maternity leave can be interpreted as an indication of public generosity for working and single-mothers to stay

with their children, if that is necessary.

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References Amato, P.R. and B. Keith, 1991. Parental Divorce and Adult Well-being: A Meta-analysis. Journal of Marriage and Family 53: 43-58. Baker, M., 1995. Canadian family policies: Cross-national comparisons. Toronto: University of Toronto. Becker, G., 1981. A Treatise on the Family. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Bradshaw, J., S. Kennedy, M. Kilkey, S. Hutton, A. Corden, T. Eardley, H. Holmes and J. Neale, 1996. The employment of lone parents: A comparison of policy in 20 countries. York, UK: Family Policy Studies Centre. Bryk, A.S. and S.W. Raudenbush, 1992. Hierarchical Linear Models: Application and Data Analysis. Newbury Park: Sage. Coleman, J.S., 1988. Social capital in the creation of human capital. American Journal of Sociology 94: 95-120. Esping-Andersen, G., 1990. The three worlds of welfare capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Cornia, G.A. and S. Danziger, 1997. Child poverty and deprivation. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Ganzeboom, H.B.G, P. De Graaf, D.J. Treiman and J. De Leeuw, 1992. A standard international socioeconomic index of occupational status. Social Science Research 21: 1-56. Gauthier, A.H., 1996. The state and the family. A comparative analysis of family policies in industrialized countries. Oxford: Clarendom Press. Goode, W.J., 1962. Marital satisfaction and instability: A cross-cultural class analysis of divorce rates. In: R. Bendix and S.M. Lipset (eds), Class, Status, and Power, pp. 377-87. New York: The Free Press. Härkönen, J. and J. Dronkers, 2006. Stability and Change in the Educational Gradient of Divorce. A Comparison of Seventeen Countries. European Sociological Review 22: 501-7. Hill, S.H. and G.J. Duncan, 1987. Parental family income and the socioeconomic attainment of children. Social Science Research 16: 39-73. Hox, J., 2002. Multivariate Analysis. Techniques and Applications. Mahwah (NJ), London: Lawrence Erlbaum. Leibowitz, A., 1974. Home investment in children. Journal of Political Economy 83: 111-31. Lesthaeghe, R., 2000. Europe’s demographic issues: Fertility, household formation, and replacement migration. Paper presented at the Joint conference of the British Society for Population Studies and the Nederlandse Vereniging voor Demografie, the University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands OECD, 1999. Classifying educational programmes. Manual for ISCED97 implementation for OECD countries. Paris: OECD. OECD, 2000a. Manual for the PISA 2000 Database. Paris: OECD. Available at: http://www.pisa. oecd.org/. OECD, 2000b. PISA 2000 Technical Report. Paris: OECD. Available at: http://www.pisa.oecd. org/ Pong, S., J. Dronkers and G. Hampden-Thompson, 2003. Family Policies and Children’s School Achievement in Single- Versus Two-Parent Families. Journal of Marriage and Family 65: 681-99.

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Pryor, J. and B. Rodgers, 2001. Children in Changing Families. Life after Parental Separation. Oxford: Blackwell. Schneider, B. and J.S. Coleman, 1993. Parents, Their Children, and Schools. Boulder: Westview Press. Shavit, Y. and H.P. Blossfeld, 1993. Persistent Inequality: A Comparative Analysis of Educational Stratification in Thirteen Countries. Boulder: Westview Press. Snijders, T.A.B. and R.J. Bosker, 1999. Multilevel Analysis. An Introduction to Basic and Advanced Multilevel Modelling. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage. United Nations, 1996. Demographic yearbook. New York: United Nations. United Nations, 2000. Demographic yearbook. New York: United Nations. Warm, T.A., 1985. Weighted Maximum Likelihood Estimation of Ability in Item Response Theory with Tests Finite Length. Oklahoma City: US Coast Guard Institute.

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Appendix from Pong et al., 2003 Country-level variables Demographic variables % Lone-parent families

Crude divorce rates

Description

Source

Lone-parent families as a percentage of all families in the early 1990s

Bradshaw et al. (1996), Table 1.2. Figure for Canada comes from Baker (1995) United Nations (1996), Table 14 United Nations (2000)

Divorce per 1,000 average population, 1994

% Births to mothers Births to mothers under 20 as a percentage under 20 of all births in 1993-1998 Family policy variables Family / Child allowances Cash benefits for a family with two children over the period of 1986-1990, measured as the percentage of average male manufacturing wage in 1990. Universal child benefits Monthly values of non-means-tested child to lone parents benefits paid to a lone parent with 2 children aged 7 and 8, relative to average male earnings, in Sterling purchasing power parities, 1994. Benefits in tax & security Differences in tax and social security per to lone parents month paid by lone parents as compared with the payments by married couples, in Sterling purchasing power parities, 1994, for parents with average earnings and with two children aged 7 and 8. Family transfers per child Family transfers in cash per child under 15 years of age in 1984. Social Expenditure per Government social expenditure as GDP percentage of GDP, 1990 Maternity leave benefits Benefits as a percentage of female worker salary, 1996.

50 

Gauthier (1996), Table 10.1, p. 166

Bradshaw et al. (1996), Table 5.1. Figure for Canada comes from Phipps (1999), p.57 Bradshaw et al. (1996), Table 5.4

Cornia and Danziger, Table 4.3 Cornia and Danziger, Table 4.1 Lesthaeghe (2000)

Changing families and their lifestyles

Farmer looking for a wife: marital behaviour of the farming population in nineteenth-century Netherlands Frans van Poppel, Peter Ekamper and Hanna van Solinge Abstract In the past few years, the position of Dutch farmers on the marriage market has received a lot of attention in the media. Using large-scale micro-data on more than 1 million marriages in five Dutch provinces, we examine hitherto hardly-studied aspects of the marriage pattern of the agricultural population in the Netherlands in the nineteenth and early twentieth century: the ages at which marriages were contracted, the age differences between spouses, the frequency of remarriage, and the geographic origin of spouses. We compare marriage patterns of those who earn their living in agriculture, with that of the rest of the population. With this article we will try to shed more light on an issue that has been raised before in an article by De Hoog (1988), namely whether or not there is support for Hofstee’s (Hofstee, 1962) conclusion that the agrarian-artisanal marriage pattern has disappeared from the Netherlands. 1. Introduction During the second half of the nineteenth century the age at marriage in the Netherlands declined by some 1.0-1.5 years. At the same time the proportion of males and females contracting a marriage increased from around 85 to more than 90 percent. These changes might look futile; nonetheless, they were considered to be a fundamental change in the marriage pattern and a central aspect of the first demographic transition. It was the Wageningen sociologist E.W. Hofstee who formulated an influential theory on these changes in the Dutch marriage pattern. In a series of articles he argued that in an agrarian and artisanal economy, marriage had to be delayed until a business, a farm, a workshop, a cottage or at least a dwelling became available. In most cases, this occurred only at the father’s death. Late marriage and high proportions of never-married men and women were the result. A shift away from this restrictive nuptiality pattern – the so-called agrarian-artisanal stage – occurred as the result of the ‘proletarisation’ of a large section of the rural population. During the Industrial Revolution employment outside the family-related artisanal workshops or agricultural enterprises increased very fast, the result being that an ever larger section of the population became both economically independent and capable of establishing a household at an earlier age. The weakening of the bond between employers and employees made it meaningless to postpone marriage until a permanent status had been attained. As a consequence of this process of proletarisation, agricultural and industrial workers broke loose from the traditional marriage pattern and it became increasingly common for them to marry young. Celibacy rates decreased as well in this so-called ‘proletarian phase’ (Hofstee, 1954; Hofstee, 1981). In a later stage, in which marital fertility was brought under Changing families and their lifestyles 

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Frans van Poppel, Peter Ekamper and Hanna van Solinge

control, the corrective function of the old marriage pattern became obsolete and a more natural tendency to marry earlier emerged. According to Hofstee (1962), from 1890 on the agrarian-artisanal pattern disappeared, even among farmers, due to the wider use of old (extended nursing, coitus interruptus, abortion, abstinence, douching) and more modern methods of contraception (the pessarium occlusivum, condoms, jellies, safe periods, and sterilization), and the increasing job opportunities outside agriculture. Key elements in Hofstee’s theory are the frequency with which and the ages at which marriages among farmers were contracted. The empirical basis of Hofstee’s work, however, was rather limited. Given the –at that time– limited availability of micro-level data, Hofstee had to rely on very crude macro indicators, which offered only limited possibilities for the examination of differential marriage behaviour for farmers, rural workers, artisans or other social classes. Hofstee’s work was mainly descriptive, and the underlying sociological aspects of marriage as one of the key institutions in society remained largely untouched. We argue that insight into how and when couples were formed is essential for understanding matrimonial life. Demographic factors such as age difference between husband and wife, the degree to which marital dissolution is followed by remarriage and the degree to which spouses are selected from nearby or more far-off regions are not only relevant because they have demographic consequences, these characteristics may also determine the type of relationships that are established in the household: the organization of family labour, the distribution of roles within the household, the power and sexual relationship between men and women, etc. In this contribution we will address some of the underlying sociological aspects of marriage. Using large scale micro-data from the GENLIAS-project5, we will examine hitherto hardlystudied aspects of the marriage pattern of the agricultural population of the Netherlands in the nineteenth and early twentieth century in relation to that of two other social class groups: farm labourers and the non-farming population. In a mainly descriptive and exploratory way, four characteristics of that marriage pattern will be studied: the ages at which marriages were contracted, the age differences between spouses, the frequency of remarriage, and the geographic origin of spouses. With this article we will try to shed more light on an issue that has been raised before in an article by De Hoog (1988), i.e. whether or not the agrarian-artisan marriage pattern has disappeared from the Netherlands. And if so, when that took place? The organization of this contribution is as follows. Section 2 provides an overview of the research literature on marriage patterns and marital behaviour in historical populations. The main focus in this section is on the differences between those earning their living in agriculture and the rest of the population. The data and measures that are used will be 5

For more information see: http://www.genlias.nl/en/page0.jsp

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discussed in section 3. Section 4 presents the results. The final section evaluates the findings in the light of the leading research question: was Hofstee right to conclude that the agrarianartisan marriage pattern had disappeared from the Netherlands since 1860-1870? 2. M  arriage patterns and behaviour of historical populations: an overview of the literature From the various occupational censuses that were held in the nineteenth and early twentieth century we know that definitive celibacy rates among farmers, labourers in agriculture and the rest of the population varied considerably. Between 89.5 and 91.6 percent of the farmers born in the period 1829-1915 had once been married (Figure 1). Among labourers in agriculture on the other hand quite a large proportion never married. The proportion ever married even decreased over time; from 84.1 percent in birth cohort 1829-38 to 77.6 percent in birth cohort 1871-80. For the population as a whole, between 88.2 and 89.4 percent of males born between 1829 and 1880 had once contracted a marriage. For the birth cohort 1906-15 this was even 93.3 percent (Frinking and Van Poppel, 1979). 2.1 Age at marriage The age at which people contracted their marriage was of great social significance. At least until the beginning of World War II, marriage was considered to be the event which signified the final farewell to youth, more so than leaving school, entering the workforce or leaving the 100 90 80

Percentage

70 60 Farmers Farm labourers Total population

50 40 30 20 10 0 1829-38

1839-48

1849-58

1861-70

1871-80

1881-90 1891-1900 1906-15

Birth cohort Values for 1881-90 and 1891-1900 have been interpolated

Figure 1. Percentage ever-married males by social class of husband and birth cohort.

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family of origin (Modell et al., 1976). The age at marriage was the outcome of a calculation of costs and benefits by the couple, their close relatives, and friends. Marriage was not only desired for the emotional benefits of family life or access to legitimate sexual intercourse, but also for material benefits, guaranteed social security and support in old age. In marriage individuals could satisfy their psychological, sexual and social needs but they knew that if marriage occurred at the wrong time or to the wrong person, there would be serious consequences in terms of socio-economic position and personal happiness (Macfarlane, 1986). To establish a new household a couple had to have saved enough and had to have the skills necessary to run a household. Acquiring the resources and skills necessary for marriage was a protracted process for both potential partners, but the length of time involved varied over time and between different social groups (Wrigley et al., 1997). How did this work out for the farmers and workers in agriculture? Farmers were expected to marry when they were settled in some business or farm which enabled them to support a family. Often one had to wait until the death of the father or mother before being able to take over a family holding or could only buy one at a later age. Control of the farm could also pass to a new couple when the parents were still alive. In that case, the heir agreed to provide for his parents and, if present, his unmarried siblings. As a consequence, men were only able and ready to marry at a rather late age. The main socio-economic resource a woman brought into marriage related to her capacity to perform domestic labour. Physical resources, such as energy and good health, that were vital for being able to help with harvesting, giving birth to and rearing children, were highest at relatively young ages. On the other hand, experience, which went hand in hand with age, was valued high among farmers. This may have dampened the preferences for young brides to some extent. Contrary to farmers, agricultural labourers could already have established the means to manage their own household at a relatively young age. Their age profile of income - rapidly increasing during adolescence and continually decreasing after the first stage of adulthood - made them comparatively more attractive at a younger age (Oppenheimer, 1988; Tilly, 1984). Like other wage earners, they lacked possessions and prospects to acquire these and thus were not forced to postpone getting married. In judging the consequences of the decision whether or not to marry and in balancing the costs and advantages of marriage, the wider economic situation played an important role. In periods of lowered real wages and with uncertain prospects for employment marriage might be postponed or cancelled. A continued period of increased wages and opportunities for labour might lead to a shortening of the period normally necessary to accumulate the savings for marriage and thus to lower ages at marriage (Macfarlane, 1986).

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2.2 Age differences The respective ages of the bride and groom were an important concern in nineteenth century society. Popular proverbs and sayings like ‘Young with old is like hot with cold’, ‘A young wife is an old man’s coffin’ and ‘Young women are the horses on which old men ride to hell’ reflected the low degree of tolerance of these ‘May-December’ marriages among the population at large (De Cock, 1911). In the nineteenth century, particularly in rural areas, rough music (charivari) was quite common as a sign of protest against marriages between older men and much younger women or old women and much younger men (Meertens, 1961). Marriage between couples who were ill-matched in age was seen as a reversal of the natural order, whereas couples in which the husband was much older were praised because of the allegedly higher fertility of those unions (Segalen, 1983). Historians have viewed the level of age heterogamy between spouses as an important indicator of the nature of the relationship between men and women. Large age differences were assumed to lower the standard of marital sexuality and to cause a lack of synchrony in the lifecycles of spouses (Mitterauer and Sieder, 1982). Large age differences were said to reinforce the husband’s ability to demand submission from his younger bride during marriage and were considered indicative of a lower status of women (Bras and Todd, 1981; Hochstadt, 1982; Ware, 1981). Sieder (1978) emphasized that large age differences between spouses also had consequences for their daily relations and style of communication. The experience of belonging to the same age cohort contributed to commonality in daily experiences and conversation between the couple and to romantic love as a basis for partner choice (Shorter, 1975). Large age differences in favour of the male also implied large age differences between father and child, and were likely to strengthen his parental authority over the children. Several authors have argued that age differences between spouses were particularly outspoken among farmers. Schlumbohm (1991), found in nineteenth-century Germany larger age differences among propertied peasant couples than among the land-poor or landless ones. Bonneuil (1992) on the other hand concluded from a sample of French marriages during the nineteenth century that large age differences between spouses were much less common among farmers or agricultural labourers. 2.3 Remarriage In the nineteenth century, mortality was still very high and many marriages were terminated after a very short duration by the death of one of the spouses. This was a disaster for the household. Remarriage was regarded as a ‘first line of defence, entered into in order to safeguard the continued existence of the surviving members of the household’ (Sogner and Dupâquier, 1981). Whether or not a marriage was the first one for both partners or whether one of the spouses had been married before could have a strong effect on the relationship between the couple, their children and the wider family (Van Poppel, 1992). Remarriages following the loss of a spouse resulted in a complex family structure in which children were Changing families and their lifestyles 

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co-residing with stepparents and stepsiblings and were affiliated with three different families. According to Segalen (1983) these new alliances implied a different kind of relationship from that prevailing in a first marriage; remarrying men understood that their wife was indispensable to them to look after the farm and to care for the (step)children. One might assume that in such a situation husbands would impose their authority over their wives to a lesser degree. Remarriage was the rule in rural society, especially for men. The system of production hinged around the co-operating couple. The division of labour on the farm was based upon a complementarity of sex roles. Both husband and wife had their own parts to play in the production unit of the farming household and a widow or widower could not continue without the aid of a partner of the opposite sex. A widower’s situation was perhaps more difficult than that of a widow as the male sex role was more rigid than the female (Gaunt and Lofgren, 1981). Grigg (1977) argued that urban residents did not feel the same pressure to remarry as farmers as it was not necessary there to have a couple at the head of every household. 2.4 Spatial distance between marriage partners Information on the geographical proximity of marriage partners has been widely used to study the geographical range of social and economic activities of people and as a measure for the spatial distribution of the knowledge of people and places around the home base (Coleman and Haskey, 1986). Sociologists have used time trends in marriage horizons as an index of the modernization of Western societies. The fundamental economic, social and cultural changes in Western Europe during the nineteenth and early part of the twentieth century were supposed to result in a broadening of people’s horizons resulting in a decline in people’s preference for members of their own community. In nineteenth-century society, it was physically very difficult for individuals to maintain a courtship over a distance of more than a few kilometres from their own village: connections were rather bad and transport opportunities very limited. Five kilometres - an hour’s walk for a young countryman - was perhaps the greatest distance that the average man was prepared to walk to and fro at fairly frequent intervals (Renard, 1984; Rosenthal, 1985). Historical studies on the relationship between social class and the geographic origin of the marriage partners reveal large differences in ‘marriage fields’ between agricultural and non-agricultural communities: marriage among the agricultural population was geographically much more tightly circumscribed than in the rest of the population. Ogden (1980) pointed to the fact that those ‘in industrial, commercial or service occupations had greater opportunities and need to travel both locally and further a-field and, except on relatively rare social occasions, or trips to the local market, the peasant tended to be rooted to the soil’. Given the strong tendency to marry within a particular occupational or social group, the opportunity to do so was naturally restricted by size of these groups in the nineteenth-century village. So, limited availability of marriage partners within one’s own community may also have led to the search for a partner over longer distances. 56 

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Agricultural labourers were also more tied to their area. They were constrained by low wages and the operation of local and regional labour markets. Compared with the agricultural population, the other social classes are assumed to have been more mobile. The upper and middle class possessed the time and money to travel far and often, and had more knowledge of further-off areas, giving them an advantage in getting in touch with areas further away from their place of birth, and thus selecting their marriage partners from a much wider area. They disposed of wider means of communication and participated in a geographically more extensive political, economical and friendship network. Skilled and unskilled manual workers outside agriculture might have been stimulated by the operation of regional labour markets to search for a partner further away than the agricultural population. 3. Methods 3.1 Data This study is based on data collected directly from Dutch marriage certificates. These certificates provide information on age at marriage, marital status and occupation of the spouses are they are available for the entire period from the beginning of the Civil Registration (1811-1812) up to 1922, the final year for which the marriage certificates were publicly accessible. The data have been collected within the framework of the socalled GENLIAS-project. With the help of a large number of volunteers, the information on the marriage certificates has been entered into a database. Data entry was restricted to information essential for reconstructing a family tree, such as the date and place of marriage, the names and ages of the bride and groom, the names of the bride’s and the groom’s parents, the places of birth of the bride and groom, the marital status of bride and groom, and the occupation of bride and groom. For this study, we used the complete information for five of the eleven Dutch provinces: Gelderland, Groningen, Limburg, Overijssel and Zeeland. The data represent 35 percent of all marriages contracted in the Netherlands in the period 1812-1922, and might be considered to provide a fairly accurate description of Dutch marriages in that time period. As Table 1 shows, the total sample was fairly evenly distributed over the selected provinces. Couples living in rural areas at the time of marriage dominate the sample.6 Farmers made up 19 percent and workers in agriculture 24 percent of the sample; a large majority of the grooms belonged to the skilled and unskilled workers outside agriculture (45%). The percentage of farmers was relatively high (21-27 percent) in Limburg, Overijssel, and Gelderland. In Groningen and Zeeland the percentage of farmers was around 10 percent. Much of this difference was a result of the scale of farming. Limburg, Overijssel and Gelderland were regions where small-scale farming dominated at the time. In connection with this 6 In most cases, the place where the marriage was contracted was the woman’s place of residence. Marriages had

to be contracted in the place of residence of one of the spouses.

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Table 1. Descriptive statistics. Number Status groom Farmers Farm labourers Non-agricultural population Period of marriage 1812-19 1820-29 1830-39 1840-49 1850-59 1860-69 1870-79 1880-89 1890-99 1900-09 1910-22 Region Limburg Zeeland Overijssel Gelderland Groningen Place of residence Rural Urban First marriage/Remarriage for males First marriage Remarriage Age at marriage for males 14-19 20-24 25-29 30-34 35-39 40-49 50+ Total sample

Percentage of sample for each variable:

191,328 233,306 613,120

18.4 22.5 59.1

42,435 57,079 63,191 70,483 82,616 92,288 99,072 94,759 109,695 125,714 200,064

4.1 5.5 6.1 6.8 8.0 8.9 9.5 9.1 10.6 12.1 19.3

171,730 157,214 218,618 288,720 201,472

16.5 15.1 21.1 27.8 19.4

360,891 676,863

34.8 65.2

898,076 139,678

86.5 13.5

10,399 249,768 366,166 196,398 93,975 81,055 39,993 1,037,754

1.0 24.1 35.3 18.9 9.1 7.8 3.9

Source: GENLIAS and ISIS database.

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development, it is understandable that provinces that had large-scale farming were also the provinces where large numbers of (unskilled) farm workers found employment. The regions selected in this study have a highly diverse socio-economic structure, and manifest large differences in family structure and family relations. There is a vast body of literature on the differences in economic structure between the economic heartland, that is the (urban) part of the provinces of South and North Holland, the highly productive agricultural coastal provinces (Zeeland and Groningen) and the eastern and southern Netherlands, in our case the provinces of Limburg, and Overijssel (e.g., Bieleman, 1992; De Vries and Van der Woude, 1997; Van Zanden, 1985). In general, the provinces of Holland, Groningen and Zeeland had far more intensive contacts with the outside world through the well-developed transportation network, the seaports, and their highly market-oriented agricultural activities. In addition, the level of literacy differed considerably across the various provinces. In Groningen and Zeeland, the economy was almost entirely dependent on agriculture, with large-scale and productive farms producing specialized primary products. The economy of Zeeland started to change after 1900 when industrialization took place. Some decades earlier, the Groningen peat districts had become an area of important industrial development; industrial activities here were based mainly on agricultural products. In the eastern and southern provinces, agriculture was for a long period the most important activity. Yet, farms in the provinces of Overijssel, Gelderland and Limburg were much smaller, the infrastructure less well developed and the productivity of land and labour in these inland regions was almost half that of the coastal provinces of Holland, Groningen and Zeeland. From the end of the nineteenth century, coal mining became an important economic activity in Limburg and in the capital city of Maastricht large-scale industries developed for the first time in the Netherlands. In the province of Overijssel, from 1860-1870 on, cotton-spinning, together with bleaching works and machine manufacturing became very prominent in the Twente district. 3.2 Measures for age, age differences and geographic origin of spouses Our discussion of the age at marriage is based on two quantitative measures. In the first place the typical (or mean) age at which this transition occurred. Life events – such as marriage – are subject to age norms. Age norms defining and sanctioning the proper age to marry actually encompass a range of behaviour, allowing some freedom of choice. The extent to which the age at marriage is considered a strict norm and deviations from that norm are allowed, is reflected by the fluctuation in the age at marriage around the mean age at transition. To study this we calculated the standard deviations in the age at marriage.

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Many statistics are available to measure age differences between spouses. A commonly used indicator of the degree of age similarity is the difference between the mean ages at marriage of men and women. In this study, age differences are calculated at the couple level by subtracting the age at first marriage of women by that of men. We will make a distinction between couples with more or less the same age (age difference in elapsed years between minus and plus one), couples with an age difference between two and four elapsed years (men older or women older), couples with an age difference between five and nine elapsed years (men older or women older), and couples differing ten or more years in age (idem). For the study of trends in remarriage over time, and across the different social classes, we rely on a simple ratio of remarriages to all marriages. This measure has some weaknesses. Differences in migration, in mortality, and in the frequency of and the age at first marriage can all lead to changes in the proportion of widows and widowers in the population, and thus to changes in the proportional importance of remarriage, whereas the individual probabilities of remarriage could be left unaffected (Watkins, 1983). To study the geographical horizon of spouses from the various social classes we will use a simple distance measure. To do that we determined the exact location of the places of birth of bride and groom as mentioned in the marriage certificate and assigned geographic coordinates according to the Netherlands National Coordinate System – Rijksdriehoeksmeting –, the Netherlands’ geodetic or surveying reference system (De Bruijne et al., 2005). In a second step, the distance (in kilometres in a straight line) between the two locations was calculated. Distances have been grouped into categories. The first category refers to contacts with neighbouring villages (walking distance, up to about 5 km, the own community included, in two hours back and forth), a second zone relates to contacts with communities directly contiguous to the first zone (a radius of 5-20 km, the supposed maximum walking and later on, cycling distance), enabling regular face-to-face contact to be maintained, the third one includes interaction up to about 40 km, and the fourth one includes contacts above 40 km. The chosen scales of interaction have been used by other authors as well (Millard, 1982; Morel, 1972). We only present here information on the two most extreme categories: marriages between brides and grooms of which the places of birth were no more than five kilometres separated from each other, and marriages in which more than 40 kilometres separated bride and groom at the time of birth. It is the concentration of marriages in these two classes that most strongly expresses the degree to which a particular group is directed towards the strictly local community and the more distant world respectively. 3.3 Social class The marriage certificate contains information on the occupation of the groom and this allows us to study how class differences matter for the chosen indicators of the marriage pattern. The occupational titles are self-reported titles and were given by the men and women themselves at the time the certificate was drawn up. A comparative study requires a classification system 60 

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that allows the classification of occupations in a system that is applicable for the whole period and for both sexes. Such a system has to accommodate historical occupations such as lamplighters and barrel-makers as well as modern ones such as electronic engineers. We used a recently developed coding scheme called the Historical International Standard Classification of Occupations (HISCO), which translates occupational descriptions covering a long historical time, various languages and countries in a common code, compatible with the International Labor Organisation’s International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO68) scheme (Van Leeuwen et al., 2002). These historical occupational titles were subsequently classified into a social class scheme recently proposed by Van Leeuwen and Maas (2005). The original twelve classes7 have been condensed to three. To gain a clear view of the position of those working in agriculture, we will compare the marriage behaviour of farmers and of (unskilled and lower-skilled) farm labourers with that of the non-farming population as a whole. This does not imply that differences within this last group are absent; by combining the non-agricultural groups we are able to focus on the contrast that is for our purposes the most relevant one. 4. Results 4.1 Age at marriage In studying age at marriage and age differences between spouses, we used only information on marriages in which either the husband or his wife had not been married before. Figures 2 and 3 provide information on the age at which the transition to married life took place among males and females from the three social classes. During the whole 110-year period, farmers had by far the highest age at marriage. First marriages among males in this group were, on average, contracted when the husbands-to-be had almost reached or were well past their 30th birthday. Farm labourers married on average three to four years earlier, between ages 26 and 28. The non-farming population started married life circa three years earlier than the farmers. A second observation relates to changes in the age at marriage over time. First of all, during the period 1830-1860, an increase in the age at marriage was visible and it was not until 1860 that the age at marriage reached former lower levels again. This trend was visible in all social classes. The increase was, however, rather small (between 0.5 and 1.0 years). A much more fundamental change took place after 1860-1870; from then on farmers, farm labourers and the non-farming population started to marry at ever younger ages. In the

7 Higher managers, higher professionals, lower managers, lower professionals and clerical and sales personnel,

lower clerical and sales personnel, foremen, skilled workers, farmers, lower-skilled workers, lower-skilled farm workers, unskilled workers and finally unskilled farm workers.

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33.0 32.0 31.0 In years

30.0 29.0 28.0 27.0 26.0 25.0 24.0

Non-farming Farm labourer Farmer

23.0

1812-1919 1910-22 1830-39 1850-59 1870-79 1890-99 1820-29 1840-49 1860-69 1880-89 1900-09 Period

Figure 2. Mean age at first marriage for males, by social class and period of marriage.

33.0 32.0 31.0

In years

30.0

Non-farming Farm labourer Farmer

29.0 28.0 27.0 26.0 25.0 24.0 23.0 1812-1919 1910-22 1830-39 1850-59 1870-79 1890-99 1820-29 1840-49 1860-69 1880-89 1900-09 Period

Figure 3. Mean age at first marriage for females, by social class of husband and period of marriage.

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1910s, farm labourers married two years earlier than in the first decades of the nineteenth century, farmers and the non-farming population 1.5 years earlier When women’s ages at marriage were classified according to their husband’s social class, less pronounced differences were visible. Until around 1860, women from all social classes married at about the same age. After 1860, however, a strong decrease in ages at marriage can be observed. There was however an important difference in the situation among men. Whereas ages at marriage for women marrying a farmer decreased after 1860 by around one year, the marriage age among farm labourers’ wives declined by almost three years, that among wives married to non-farming husbands by two years. As a consequence, in the more recent periods social class differences in women’s ages at marriage were larger than before. There were large differences between farmers (and between other social classes as well) in ages at marriage depending on the region in which they were residing (see Figure 4). The time trends were more or less the same, but the ages at marriage varied and the speed with which the ages changed differed considerably. Farmers in Zeeland married some two to three years earlier than those in Gelderland and Limburg and these differences remained more or less constant over time. Farmers in Groningen and Overijssel married in the first half of the nineteenth century around one year later than those in Zeeland but afterwards contracted marriages at about the same age. For labourers in agriculture (figure not shown) almost the same provincial differences are observed: farm labourers in Zeeland and Groningen married on average three

34.0 33.0 32.0

In years

31.0 30.0 29.0 28.0 27.0 26.0 25.0

Gelderland Groningen Limburg Overijssel Zeeland

24.0 1812-1919 1910-22 1830-39 1850-59 1870-79 1890-99 1820-29 1840-49 1860-69 1880-89 1900-09 Period

Figure 4. Mean age at first marriage for males among farmers, by period of marriage and province.

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to four years earlier than those in Limburg and Gelderland. The non-agricultural population showed the same regional pattern as the farmers and farm labourers. The decrease in the age at marriage has mainly been related to the process of economic and social transformation that in the Netherlands started from the second half of the 1860s onwards and of which the growth of the national income, industrialisation, proletarisation and urbanisation were the key aspects. Industrialisation caused a strong growth in the number of permanent jobs which provided relative security of employment and a stable income. For the labouring classes, the increase in real wages made it easier to support a family and to start a life on their own and a drop in age at marriage was the result (Van den Brink, 1936). The growing role of the state as provider of services, and the declining importance of inheritance and employment within family businesses also stimulated earlier marriage. The decision to marry reflected not only pressures and incentives of an economic nature. The formation of an industrial urban working population also brought about a cultural transformation. Young people from the working class became more independent and self-confident, had a weaker bond with their parents and greater autonomy, allowing them to escape from the sexual restrictions laid down by their parents. They were free to strive for individual instead of familial goals (Shorter, 1975). Matthijs (2003) has argued that the changed social position and gender identity of women, together with the fact that they were pushed back into the private living environment played a key role in the decline in age at marriage. Over the course of the nineteenth century women were increasingly excluded from the public world (decreased employment outside the home, a more genderspecific division of tasks) and in response to this they developed a separate female status scale within their private world, which revolved around a good marriage, a clean home, etc. From then on, women had to look for social appreciation and individual recognition within these environments. Matthijs’s hypothesis is that low-status groups saw marriage as a means of social emancipation; a form of imitation of highly esteemed private behaviour which was typical of the middle and high-status groups. Marrying early was for them a way to gain access to the world and the private role behaviour of the higher-status groups. This emotionalisation of interpersonal relationships and the domesticisation and development of affective partner relationships were only possible because the economy permitted them. Although farmers were affected by these developments as well, their age at marriage remained relatively high. They remained dependent on the acquisition of a farm, an event that was postponed more and more by the decrease in mortality and increasing ages of death of their parents. They were hardly attached by the trend of domesticisation of women as becomes clear when comparing the labour force participation of farmer’s wives at the time of marriage with that of other social groups. Farmer’s wives hardly had the chance to retreat into the private world (Van Poppel et al., 2006). The standard deviation provides an indication of the extent to which marriages were concentrated in a restricted age interval. Data are given for males only (Figure 5). The lowest standard deviation was found among farm labourers, the highest among farmers. 64 

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This is remarkable given the strong internal heterogeneity among the group of non-farming husbands. It has been suggested that the high degree of variation in the age at marriage in agricultural communities was related to the fact that the age at which a farmer’s son could marry depended on the moment at which the farm was passed on to him. The father’s state of health was a significant factor in the timing of this transaction, as was the health of his wife and her willingness to surrender her position. The family circumstances of the bride also played a role. Under these complicated conditions one could hardly speak of a ‘normal age’ at marriage among farmers (Mitterauer, 1992). Among females, the standard deviation was much lower but here too a decrease over time was visible, indicating a much lesser degree of variation in ages at marriage. Over time there was a clear decrease in variation in age at marriage. This has been related to a weakening of economic fluctuations, and decreasing exigencies brought on by morbidity and mortality and by the economic uncertainties which characterized family life. Sudden deaths, accidents, periods of unemployment, and sickness made it necessary for a long time for families to be able to call on members over a period of many years, thereby enforcing them to postpone marriage. After the third quarter of the nineteenth century the creation of non-familial responses to meet the material exigencies of life, social benefits, unemployment insurance, pensions and the like, rendered life more predictable and the role of the family as 10.0 9.0 8.0 7.0 6.0 5.0 4.0

Non-farming Farm labourer Farmer

3.0 2.0 1.0 0.0 1812-1919 1910-22 1830-39 1850-59 1870-79 1890-99 1820-29 1840-49 1860-69 1880-89 1900-09 Period

Figure 5. Standard deviation of the age at first marriage for males, by social class and period of marriage.

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Frans van Poppel, Peter Ekamper and Hanna van Solinge

a safety net less important. As a result, marriage became less dependent on the fluctuations brought about by the unpredictable misfortunes of the economy and the family (Modell et al., 1976). 4.2 Age differences between spouses A first idea of age differences between spouses can be given by subtracting the average age at first marriage of women from that of men. Couples of which the husband was a farmer were in all provinces characterized by large age differences; in all provinces, excepted Limburg, these differences could be between 4 and 5 years. Over time a decrease in age disparities is visible in all provinces. More detailed information on age differences is given in Figure 6. This figure presents the percentage of all first marriages (first marriages of husband and wife) in which the spouses had almost the same age (age difference less than two years) and the percentage of wifemuch-younger marriages (age differences 5 years or more). Again, farmers stood out; in this group a smaller proportion of marriages were characterized by age-homogeneity and a much higher proportion by extreme age differences. In around 45 percent of all first marriages contracted by farmers men were more than five years older than their wives; for 50.0 45.0 40.0

Percentage

35.0 30.0 25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0 5.0

< 2 yrs. non-farming < 2 yrs. farm labourer < 2 yrs. farmer > 5 yrs. non-farming > 5 yrs. farm labourer > 5 yrs. farmer

0.0 1812-1919 1910-22 1830-39 1850-59 1870-79 1890-99 1820-29 1840-49 1860-69 1880-89 1900-09 Period

Figure 6. Age differences between spouses at first marriage by period of marriage and social class.

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labourers in agriculture and for other social groups that percentage was in the order of 30-35 percent. In particular after 1880 age-homogeneous marriages became more numerous and ‘May-December’ marriages much less frequent. However, even in the most recent period farmers’ couples were characterized by much larger age differences than other couples, both in terms of the ‘mean age difference’ as in terms of the proportion of marriages within the large age-difference categories. The increase in preferences for spouses of about the same age has been related to the creation of a specific youth culture with its own lifestyle that strengthened the cultural barriers between age cohorts and thus increased the preference for a partner of about the same age. The decreasing authority of age seniors and their cultural resources, the increasing rejection of the notion that a husband should have a moral and spiritual superiority over his wife have played a role as well. Also the structural opportunities of young unmarried people to meet potential partners of about their own age have increased since the last quarter of the nineteenth century due to the process of educational expansion and the formation of clubs and other informal organizations of age peers. Rising levels of income, reduction of the number of working hours and working days, and the growth of all kinds of entertainment increased the opportunities of the sexes to meet each other in a leisurely atmosphere, characterized by experimentation and mingling of the sexes. New public institutions like dancing halls and cinemas were oriented towards couples rather than crowds and admission to these leisure-time meeting-places was practically reserved to members of the same age group. 4.3 Remarriage Figure 7 shows what percentage remarriages were of the total number of marriages contracted by males from the various social classes. A clear social gradient can be observed; in all periods second and third (and higher order) marriages made up a much higher proportion of all contracted marriages among farmers than among the two other social groups. In all groups the percentage of remarriages has more than halved in the period studied. This decrease took place in particular from the 1870s on, the period in which adult mortality started to decline. Strong regional differences in the proportion of remarriages can be observed, especially among farmers. In Zeeland around 25 percent of all marriages by farmers were contracted by men and women who had been married earlier, in Gelderland only 7 percent. These differences were not only related to differences in ages at first marriage, but also to differences in the risk of marital dissolution due to death. Zeeland was the province characterized by much higher mortality than any other included province and by rather low ages at marriage. The decrease in the proportion of remarriages over time was the result of a series of processes that affected all social classes: the fall in mortality, leading to higher ages at widowhood, and thus to decreased chances of remarriage; the decline in the supply of marriageable people as a result of decreased celibacy rates; the decline in the number of families depending on Changing families and their lifestyles 

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Frans van Poppel, Peter Ekamper and Hanna van Solinge

25.0

In years

20.0

15.0

10.0

5.0

Farm labourer Farmer Non-farming

0.0 1812-1919 1910-22 1830-39 1850-59 1870-79 1890-99 1820-29 1840-49 1860-69 1880-89 1900-09 Period

Figure 7. Percentage non-first marriages for males, by social class and period of marriage.

family production, leading to a shift in the necessity to fill the vacant position of the deceased husband or wife; the growing importance of emotional considerations in choosing to remarry, in particular a romanticisation and idealisation of the deceased partner, with whom one had lived for a longer and longer period; the setting up of widows’ pension funds, retirement schemes and public assistance, making remarriage less necessary, changes in inheritance laws, improving the legal position of the surviving spouse and sexual liberalization, making (re)marriage no longer a prerequisite for sexual relations. 4.4 Geographical changes in partner choice Figure 8 presents geometric mean distances between the place of birth of the groom and the birth place of the bride, by period of marriage, and social class of the groom for four provinces.8 The two groups that had their basis in farming found their bride at a very small distance. Until well into the nineteenth century, farmers on average were born only around five kilometres away from their brides and farm labourers only a little bit further (between 7 and 8 kilometres). The non-farming population found their brides over a much wider distance (around 20 kilometres). Distances in this group increased strongly after 1890, reaching 30 km in the 1920-22 period. For farmers the increase was very limited. 8 Data for Gelderland were not available.

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Farmer looking for a wife 35.0 30.0

Kms

25.0 20.0 15.0 10.0

Farmers Farm labourers Non-farming

5.0 0.0 1812-1919 1910-22 1830-39 1850-59 1870-79 1890-99 1820-29 1840-49 1860-69 1880-89 1900-09 Period

Figure 8. Mean average distance in km between birthplace of bride and groom by social class of groom and period of marriage.

The local orientation of farmers and farm labourers is also visible when we look at distance categories (Figure 9). Between 50 and 60 percent of all farmers married a wife that was born less than five kilometres away from their own place of birth; for farm labourers that percentage was between 45 and 50 percent. Over time, the local orientation of the farmers became less strong but that of farm labourers even increased. Only after 1910 did the horizon of farmers and farm labourers widen a little bit. For farmers and farm workers marrying someone who was born more than 40 km away was very rare and usually concerned less than five percent of all marriages. Men working outside agriculture had a much lesser local orientation (with hardly 40 percent of the couples born less than five kilometres from each other) and a greatly increasing quantity of all couples married someone who was coming from a further distance (more than 40 km away). This percentage increased from 16-17 percent to more than 27 percent in the 1920s. There are clear differences visible in the horizon of people that contracted a marriage in the various provinces (Table 2). Until the last decades of the nineteenth century the horizon of people in Limburg and Zeeland stretched less far than those of people in Groningen and Overijssel; on average the difference was around 2.5 to 3 kilometres between the former and the latter provinces. After the first decades of the twentieth century Limburg grooms Changing families and their lifestyles 

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Frans van Poppel, Peter Ekamper and Hanna van Solinge

70 60

Percentage

50 40 30 20

< 5 km. non-farming < 5 km. farm labourer > 40 km. farmer

< 5 km. farmer > 40 km. non-farming > 40 km. farm labourer

10 0 1812-1919 1910-22 1830-39 1850-59 1870-79 1890-99 1820-29 1840-49 1860-69 1880-89 1900-09 Period

Figure 9. Percentage of all marriages, with a distance of less than 5 or more then 40 km between places of birth of bride and groom, by social class of groom and period of marriage.

found their brides further away than grooms in any other province. The horizon of farmers, however, stretched out less far than those of farmers in the other provinces throughout the whole period. The widening of the geographical horizon of Dutch couples in the late-nineteenth century had first of all to do with the enormous improvement in transportation. New and improved roads and canals, new means of transport such as the train, the bicycle, the tram and the motorcar made it easier to get around. New methods of communication, telegraph, telephone, postal services- brought a wider range of potential spouses within reach. Income increased, giving larger numbers of people access to these faster travel means (Pooley and Turnbull, 1998). It was also significant that the Netherlands became in cultural respects more and more of a unity. Distinctive local accents, phrases and vocabulary decreased in importance, changing the degree to which members of the national community could communicate with each other. Local dresses, customs and habits disappeared and in that way the visibility of the fact that a person came from outside the community decreased. National newspapers and political and economic integration caused an ever-growing connectedness, emotionally as well as cognitively, between regions and their inhabitants, stimulating cultural homogenization. Identification with the national state created a sense of membership of 70 

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Table 2. Geometric mean distances (in km) between the birthplace of the groom and the place of birth of the bride, by period of marriage, and social class of the groom in Groningen, Limburg, Overijssel, and Zeeland. Period

1812-1819 1820-1829 1830-1839 1840-1849 1850-1859 1860-1869 1870-1879 1880-1889 1890-1899 1900-1909 1910-1919 1920-1922

Groningen

Limburg

farmers

farm nonlabourers farming

all

5.5 6.5 6.3 6.6 7.0 7.0 8.3 8.2 9.1 10.0 10.8 14.6

11.8 8.9 8.1 7.5 7.3 8.0 8.2 7.8 8.1 7.0 7.1 7.6

18.2 15.1 13.7 13.0 14.1 15.6 15.7 14.2 14.8 15.4 16.4 18.2

24.1 20.2 18.2 17.3 19.3 21.4 21.1 18.8 19.5 21.0 22.5 24.7

Overijssel farmers 1812-1819 1820-1829 1830-1839 1840-1849 1850-1859 1860-1869 1870-1879 1880-1889 1890-1899 1900-1909 1910-1919 1920-1922

7.4 6.3 5.2 6.0 6.2 6.2 6.0 5.8 5.9 6.2 8.3 8.2

farmers

3.8 3.9 3.7 3.3 3.6 3.7 4.0 4.0 4.5 4.9 6.1 6.8

farm nonlabourers farming

all

5.0 6.3 5.3 5.9 6.3 6.0 5.5 5.9 7.9 8.4 14.4 18.8

15.5 17.7 16.9 19.2 18.2 18.1 16.7 15.3 16.6 18.9 27.1 34.5

10.0 12.1 11.4 12.8 12.6 12.4 11.6 11.2 12.5 14.4 21.6 29.3

farm labourers 7.2 6.3 6.2 5.4 4.3 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.8 6.5 6.4

nonfarming 18.9 18.2 23.7 20.2 19.9 20.0 19.8 19.8 21.3 22.8 30.1 31.2

all

Zeeland farm labourers 10.7 10.1 12.7 13.0 11.6 11.4 11.8 11.5 11.3 12.4 13.2 13.1

nonfarming 22.0 20.5 20.4 19.8 20.2 20.4 18.8 19.5 22.1 26.7 30.0 27.3

Changing families and their lifestyles 

all

farmers

14.6 14.6 14.9 14.9 14.8 14.8 14.0 14.6 16.7 20.9 24.0 22.7

6.2 4.9 5.4 5.3 5.3 5.4 5.7 5.4 6.0 6.6 10.2 10.6

12.6 11.6 14.3 12.2 11.5 11.5 11.8 12.2 13.4 14.7 20.2 21.8

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a national community thereby decreasing the role of regional identities and facilitating interaction (Knippenberg and De Pater, 1988). The opportunities to meet potential spouses from other than the own region increased (Watkins, 1991). The expansion of the modern economy broke down local economic boundaries and incorporated labour and capital in larger exchange networks. National labour market integration increased the possibility of direct interaction among people from different communities. Local sporting clubs, political parties, and labour unions became part of tightly organized national networks. Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, educational expansion at the secondary and university level brought with it social intercourse between youngsters from a wide variety of areas. The increase in wages, and the reduction in working hours, made it possible to extend the sphere of contact. General conscription led to regular displacement of individuals and to contacts with locals from a variety of regions (De Vos, 1984; Hofstee, 1962). Although the mechanization of agriculture reduced the degree to which agricultural labourers and farmers were restricted in their movements and the stronger orientation towards production for the market increased the need to get in touch with the outside world, the social differences in the geographical horizon increased nonetheless. This had to do with a combination of factors, such as the lagging-behind of the communication and transport systems in rural areas, stronger cultural isolation, lower incomes, and a lessintegrated labour market. 5. Conclusion and discussion Starting form the mid-nineteenth century, Dutch society experienced a process of economic and social transformation of which the growth of the national income, industrialisation, proletarisation and urbanisation were the key aspects. These fundamental changes have affected personal life in a variety of ways. In this contribution we concentrated on one aspect of personal life, namely marriage. We studied whether and to what extent marriage behaviour changed in the nineteenth and early-twentieth century. We examined the marriage patterns of the agricultural population of the Netherlands in relation to that of other social classes. Using large scale micro-data from the GENLIAS project on more than 1 million marriages contracted in the period between 1881 and 1922, we studied four key characteristics of that marriage pattern: the ages at which marriages were contracted, the age differences between spouses, the frequency of remarriage, and the geographic origin of spouses. The results of this study affirm the general trend in the Dutch marriage pattern as observed by Hofstee (1962). In the course of the nineteenth century more people entered marriage, and they did so on average at an earlier age. This was the case among farmers, farm workers, as well as the non-farming population. Among the farming population, however, the pace of these changes was markedly slower. The data suggest that the farming population in the Netherlands held on to the ‘agrarian-artisanal marriage pattern’ much longer than the other social classes did. In the period under study, farmers had by far the highest age at marriage: 72 

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they entered marriage on average around their 30th birthday; their brides were on average 4 years younger. Although age-homogeneous marriages became more common, marriages with large age differences between spouses remained more characteristic for the farming population. Further, the marriage market of the farming population remained much more locally orientated than that of the non-farming population. Whereas the marriage horizon of the latter group changed dramatically in the course of the nineteenth century, farmers remained very much focused on their own community. The majority of brides and grooms were born within a circle of 5-6 kilometres. Putting these findings together, we do find only limited support for Hofstee’s conclusion (1962) that the agrarian-artisanal marriage pattern disappeared in the Netherlands. Traces of this marriage pattern remained visible among the farming population in the Netherlands throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century. According to De Hoog (1988), this traditional marriage pattern did survive even until the 1980s. The norm that marriage had to be postponed until the farmer’s son had acquired his own property, the preference for a marriage partner with an equal (i.e. farming) background, combined with the strong orientation towards the local marriage market have put a restriction on the marriage opportunities of farmer sons in particular. The relative isolation of the countryside, the distressing perspectives for the agrarian sector in the Netherlands and the marginalization of the farming class in the past decades have intensified this unfavourable position at the marriage market. Meanwhile, agrarian youngsters are pushing back frontiers. Developments in the new media have opened up new horizons. Internet dating has enlarged the marriage market enormously, even across the borders. As a result marriages to Polish or Ukrainian brides are not uncommon nowadays in agrarian circles. More recently, the difficult marriage position of single farmers has received a lot of public attention. The Dutch TV show ‘Farmer looking for a wife’ has made the partner selection process of single farmers a subject of public entertainment. Although these developments will presumably not cause fundamental shifts in the marriage patterns of the agrarian population as a whole, they do mark significant changes in orientation in the generally closed rural communities. References Bieleman, J., 1992. Geschiedenis van de landbouw in Nederland 1500-1950. Meppel: Boom. Bonneuil, N., 1992. Démographie de la nuptialité au XIXe siècle. In J. Dupâquier and D. Kessler (eds.), La société française au XIXe siècle, Tradition, transition, transformations, pp. 83-120. Paris: Fayard. Bras, H. l., and E. Todd, 1981. L’invention de la France. Paris: Collection Pluriel. Coleman, D. A., and J.C. Haskey, 1986. Marital distance and its geographical orientation in England and Wales, 1979. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series 11(3): 337-55. De Bruijne, A., J. Van Buren, A. Kösters and H. Van der Marel, 2005. De geodetische referentiestelsels van Nederland. Definitie en vastlegging van ETRS89, RD en NAP en hun onderlinge relaties. Delft: Nederlandse Commissie voor Geodesie (Netherlands Geodetic Commission).

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De Cock, A., 1911. Spreekwoorden en zegswijzen over de vrouwen, de liefde en het huwelijk. Gent: Ad. Hoste. De Hoog, K., 1988. De boer en de huwelijksmarkt. Tijdschrift voor Huishoudkunde 9(2): 33-7. De Vos, L., 1984. De smeltkroes. De Belgische krijgsmacht als natievormende factor, 1830-1885. Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis- Revue Belge d’histoire Contemporaine 15: 421-60. De Vries, J., and A. Van der Woude, 1997. The First Modern Economy: Success, Failure, and Perseverance of the Dutch Economy, 1500–1815. New York: New York. Frinking, G.A.B. and F.W.A. Van Poppel, 1979. Een sociaal-demografische analyse van de huwelijkssluiting in Nederland [A sociodemographic analysis of nuptiality in the Netherlands] (Monografieën volkstelling 1971). ‘s-Gravenhage: Staatsuitgeverij. Gaunt, D. and O. Lofgren, 1981. Remarriage in the Nordic countries: the cultural and socio-economic background. In: J. Dupâquier, E. Helin, P. Laslett, M. Livi-Bacci and S. Sogner (eds.), Marriage and remarriage in populations of the past (pp. 49-60). London: Academic Press. Grigg, S., 1977. Toward a theory of remarriage: A case study of Newburyport at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Journal of Interdisciplinary History 8(2): 183-220. Hochstadt, S., 1982. Appendix: Demography and feminism. In P. Robertson (ed.), An experience of women. Pattern and change in nineteenth-century Europe, pp. 541-60. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Hofstee, E.W., 1954. Regionale verscheidenheid in de ontwikkeling van het aantal geboorten in Nederland in de 2e helft van de 19e eeuw, Academiedagen, Vol. 7: pp. 59-106. Amsterdam: KNAW. Hofstee, E.W., 1962. De groei van de Nederlandse bevolking. In: A.N.J. Den Hollander (ed.), Drift en Koers. Een halve eeuw sociale verandering in Nederland, pp. 13-84. Assen: Van Gorcum. Hofstee, E.W., 1981. Korte demografische geschiedenis van Nederland van 1800 tot heden. Haarlem: Fibula-Van Dishoeck. Knippenberg, H., and B. De Pater, 1988. De eenwording van Nederland. Schaalvergroting en integratie sinds 1800. Nijmegen: SUN. Macfarlane, A., 1986. Marriage and Love in England. Modes of Reproduction 1300-1840. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Matthijs, K., 2003. Demographic and sociological indicators of privatisation of marriage in the 19th century in Flanders European Journal of Population 19: 375-412. Meertens, P.J., 1961. Ketelmuziek in de Nederlanden. Neerlands Volksleven 12: 78-87. Millard, J., 1982. A new approach to the study of marriage horizons. Local Population Studies 28: 10-31. Mitterauer, M., 1992. A history of youth. Oxford: Blackwell. Mitterauer, M. and R. Sieder, 1982. The European Family. Patriarchy to partnership from the middle ages to the present. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Modell, J., F. Furstenberg and T. Hershberg, 1976. Social change and transitions to adulthood in historical perspective. Journal of Family History 1(1): 7-33. Morel, A., 1972. L’espace social d’un village picard. Etudes Rurales 45: 62-80.

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Ogden, P., 1980. Migration, marriage and the collapse of traditional peasant society in France. In: P. White and R. Woods (eds), The Ggeographical Impact of Migration, pp. 152-79. London etc.: Longman. Oppenheimer, V.K., 1988. A theory of marriage timing. American Journal of Sociology 94(3): 563-91. Pooley, C., and J. Turnbull, 1998. Migration and mobility in Britain since the 18th century. London: University College London Press. Renard, J.P., 1984. De l’intérêt du dépouillement d’actes de mariage dans le cadre général de l’étude des limites et frontières. Espace Populations Sociétés 1: 125-30. Rosenthal, C. J., 1985. Kinkeeping in the familial division of labor. Journal of Marriage and the Family 47(4): 965-974. Schlumbohm, J., 1991. Social differences in age at marriage: examples from rural Germany during the XVIIIth and XIXth centuries. In: S.B. d. Démographie (ed.), Historiens et Populations. Liber Amicorum Etienne Hélin, pp. 593-607. Louvain-la-Neuve: Academia. Segalen, M., 1983. Love and power in the peasant family. Rural France in the nineteenth century. Chicago/Oxford: The University of Chicago Press/ Basil Blackwell. Shorter, E., 1975. The making of the modern family. New York: Basic Books. Sieder, R., 1978. Strukturprobleme der Ländlichen Familie im 19. Jahrhundert. Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte 41: 173-217. Sogner, S., and J. Dupâquier, 1981. Introduction. In: J. Dupâquier, E. Helin, P. Laslett, M. Livi-Bacci and S. Sogner (eds), Marriage and remarriage in populations of the past, pp. 27-34. London: Academic Press. Tilly, C., 1984. Demographic origins of the European Proletariat. In: D. Levine (ed.), Proletarianization and family history, pp. 1-85. Orlando: Academic Press. Van den Brink, T., 1936. Het huwen, De bevolking van Amsterdam. Deel IV: Statistische studie over huwelijk, echtscheiding, geboorte, sterfte, vestiging en vertrek (naar aanleiding van de cijfers, voorkomende in Deel I dezer serie, Statistische Mededeeling no. 97), Vol. 103, pp. 1-38. Amsterdam. Van Leeuwen, M.H.D. and I. Maas, 2005. HISCLASS A historical social class scheme based on HISCO.Unpublished manuscript. Van Leeuwen, M. H. D., I. Maas and A. Miles, 2002. HISCO: Historical International Standard Classification of Occupations. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Van Poppel, F., 1992. Trouwen in Nederland. Een historisch-demografische analyse van de 19e en vroeg-20ste eeuw. Wageningen: AAG-bijdragen 33. Van Poppel, F., H. Van Dalen and E. Walhout, 2006. Diffusion of a social norm: Tracing the emergence of the housewife in the Netherlands, 1812-1922. Amsterdam etc.: Tinbergen Institute. Van Zanden, J.L., 1985. De economische ontwikkeling van de Nederlandse landbouw in de negentiende eeuw, 1800-1914. (AAG Bijdragen 25). Wageningen: WUR. Ware, H., 1981. Women, demography and development. (Demography teaching notes No. 3). Canberra: Australian National University. Watkins, S.C., 1983. Book review of ‘Marriage and Remarriage in Populations of the Past’, J. Dupâquier, E. Hélin, P. Laslett, M. Livi Bacci, and S. Sogner (eds.) Population Studies 37: 139-140.

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Watkins, S.C., 1991. From provinces into nations. Demographic Integration in Western Europe, 1870-1960. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Wrigley, E.A., R.S. Davies, J.E. Oeppen and R.S. Schofield, 1997. English Population History from family reconstitution 1580-1837. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Families, divorce and social class: the position of children, mothers, and fathers Ed Spruijt Abstract Is it true that parents with a low educational level are characterized by higher divorce rates than parents with a high educational level? And how is the wellbeing of children, mothers, and fathers after divorce? In this article these questions will be addressed by use of research among 1659 youngsters between 12-16 years of age. Where children live after divorce, with their mother, their father or with both consecutively in joint physical custody, is also studied. Does the living arrangement affect the wellbeing of the persons involved? Furthermore, divorce legislation and recent changes receive attention. What is the legal position of the three parties mentioned, children, fathers, and mothers after divorce? For all parties involved, but especially for children, preventive programmes regarding divorce appear to be useful. These programmes should especially be made available in schools where there are many children with divorced parents, like the Dutch VMBO (low vocational education), which brings us back to social class. 1. Introduction A long time ago, Kees de Hoog and Ed Spruijt wrote a paper about families and social class. This was when we were both studying sociology in Utrecht under the stimulating supervision of Kruijt and Groenman. This was in the pre-electronic age. Hence, unfortunately no copy of this paper was saved for posterity. Since then, Kees de Hoog have specialized further in family sociology and I have mostly studied divorce. This article offers a nice occasion to combine family and divorce once more. What is more straightforward than doing this from the ‘old-fashioned’ viewpoint of social class, or – in more contemporary terms – social inequality. After our studies Kees de Hoog and I met again during courses like the one from ‘Teleac’ on ‘Psychology of the family’ in 1991 (De Hoog, 1991), and at congresses and study days, such as in 1999 at the Dutch congress on ‘Families in Flux: consequences for fathers, mothers, and children’ [Gezinnen in Beweging: consequenties voor vaders, moeders en kinderen]. Back then already Kees de Hoog was pleading for explicit family policies (De Hoog, 2000). Finally, in 2007, he gets his way, with Rouvoet being the first Dutch Minister for Youth and Family. Those fathers, mothers and children also had our attention when we were involved in drawing up the Manifesto on the ‘Integrity of parenthood’, in 2004. Together with Wim Orbons and a group of other scientists, Kees de Hoog pleaded for equality in parenthood, especially for more attention and rights for fathers after divorce (De Hoog and Orbons,

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Ed Spruijt

2004). I decided not to sign the manifesto because I found that the balance was too much in favour of the fathers’ interests rather than that of the children. Nevertheless, the manifesto is a nice starting point for a contribution to this memorable volume. The topic of this paper is whether there is a relationship between divorce and social class and what the position of fathers, mothers, and children in this is. This question entails the following sub-questions to be answered: • Is legislation regarding divorce aimed mainly at children, and/or at mothers and fathers? • Is there a connection between social class and divorce? • Which family types evolve after divorce and does this matter to the parties involved? • What advice can be given, based on scientific research, to the new minister for youth and families? 2. Divorce (after marriage or cohabitation) figures in the Netherlands The Netherlands with its divorce figures occupies a more or less median position in Europe. Per 1000 inhabitants there are 2.1 divorces every year. The Czech Republic is top of the list with 3.1, Belgium, Estonia and Latvia score 3.0, and at the bottom we find Italy and Spain with less than 1.0 formal divorces. In the years 2001-2005 there were about 37,000 divorces every year. About 5000 of those were so-called flash divorces (fast divorces without a judge involved), which have been possible since 2001 (Figure 1). The average age of men at divorce increased between 2001 and 2005 from 42.1 to 43.7 years and that of women from 39.2 to 40.7. Besides divorce as the official dissolution of a marriage there are also increasing numbers of dissolved cohabitations. The number of cohabitations (unmarried couples) has vastly increased in recent years. In 2005 the CBS (the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics) estimated that 18 percent of all couples were not married. The number of married couples was over 3.4

38

× 1,000

36 34 32 30 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005* Flash annulments Divorces

Figure 1. Divorce rates in the Netherlands between 1995 and 2005 (CBS, 2006).

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Families, divorce and social class

million in 2005 and the number of unmarried couples 750,000 (Van der Meulen and De Graaf, 2006). With this increase in the total number of unmarried couples the number of separations within this type of relationships is also growing. The CBS estimates that there are about 60,000 informal divorces yearly, involving in particular people younger than 30 years of age (Steenhof and Harmsen, 2002). 3. Number of children of divorce In about 60 percent of all divorces, including flash divorces, there are minors involved. Most of the times the number of minors involved is two. In total about 34,000 minors a year have to deal with the (official) divorce of their parents and about 5,000 with flash divorce (CBS, 2006). The CBS estimates that there are also around 18,000 minors involved in a divorce of their not-officially married parents (De Graaf, 2005). The total number of under-aged children involved in a formal or informal parental divorce can now be estimated at 57,000 a year (34,000+5,000+18,000). From the family perspective a number of children of legal age who still live at home can also be added to these numbers (estimated number per year is 13,000). This leads to a total of 70,000 children of divorce every year, who (still) live at home (Spruijt, 2007). 4. Legislation regarding divorce The starting point that after divorce both parents should have regular contact with their children was underlined with new legislation at the turn of the century. On January 1st 1998 the most common situation, where only the mother had parental authority while the father only had the right of contact, information and consultation, came to an end. In everyday language this was called custody (for the mother) and guardianship (for the father). Since January 1st 1998 shared legal parental custody is in principle the default after divorce. According to numbers from the CBS (De Graaf, 2006) shared legal parental custody stays intact after over 90 percent of divorces. In case a judicial court grants custody to only one of the parents, this is to the mother in at least three quarters of the cases. Since January 1st 2001 there has been the possibility to transform a marriage into a registered partnership. Registered partnership can, when both parties agree, be dissolved without involving a judge. The agreement has to be signed by both parties and a lawyer or notary, and after that registered with the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages. Theoretically the procedure can be carried out fast (within a few days), which is the reason why it is called a flash divorce. The number of flash divorces has remained relatively stable over the last two years and amounts to about 5,000 a year. On average one under-aged child is involved. Flash divorce, and more generally the administrative divorce without judicial involvement, holds the attention of the public. The proposition for a law by former Minister of Justice Donner is still awaiting treatment by the Dutch government since the elections of November Changing families and their lifestyles 

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22nd in 2006 (Antokolskaia, 2006). The most important points of discussion regarding changes in legislation concern the administrative divorce, reinforcement of the position of the non-resident parent, stimulation of mediation and, of course, the position of the children involved. The answer to the question ‘Is legislation regarding divorce aimed mainly at children, and/or at mothers and fathers?’ thus is that gradually the position of fathers and children is being reinforced. 5. Consequences of the law of January first, 1998 The changes in the law of 1998 were mainly based on the starting points of ‘more equality between parents and better care for children’s interests’. What can the research tell us about this? Based on about 2000 divorced parents and stepparents that were recruited through websites, Distelbrink and De Jongh (2006) conclude that since 1998 parents fight their battle about parental authority less frequently in front of a judge. But does this decline also apply to other, more minor points of disagreement? In the report ‘Children of divorce’ [Scheidingskinderen] a number of data on this is presented (Spruijt, 2007). In the first place it turns out that since 1998 there have been more regulated visitation agreements and that mothers, fathers and children better comply to these. Furthermore, children on average stay with their fathers more often; after divorces before 1998 this was on average 1.2 nights a week, after divorces since 1998 on average two nights a week. Related to this, children and their fathers after divorce since 1998 also have more frequent contact with each other. The conclusion thus has to be that children of parents who divorced after the law of January first, 1998, have significantly more contact with their fathers, as compared to children whose parents got divorced before 1998 (Spruijt, 2007). The next question then has to be whether this development makes children and their parents feel also better? This, however, is not the case. Children and mothers, on average, feel a bit worse; these differences are significant. There is no difference for fathers: how they feel about the situation does not depend on whether they got divorced before or after January 1st 1998. That children and mothers on average feel a bit worse may be attributed to the fact that the divorces after 1998 are by definition more recent and that children and mothers thus still have to come to terms with the divorce. From analyses, however, it appears that the number of years since the divorce in general has no impact on the well-being of children. Only the question whether the divorce took place before or after January 1st 1998, appears to be relevant (Spruijt, 2007). In short, contact between fathers and children has increased since the change in legislation in 1998. But this does not mean that children have fewer problems or feel better, on the contrary, they feel less good. How can this possibly be explained? From further analysis it appears that there is a clear connection between divorce before or after January 1st 1998, and the amount of conflicts between the parents. Not only has the contact between child and father significantly increased since 1998, but so has the number of rows between the 80 

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parents, and that has a negative influence on the children. The increased rows may very well be attributable to problems concerning parental authority. Children still live with one of their parents (mostly the mother) most of the time, but both parents have legal custody. This joint legal custody after divorce is new and complicated and, as it turns out, not easy in practice. Thus, it seems to be the right time for a next step: more (preventive) attention to parents and children for good practice in joint legal custody and more contact between children and fathers (and, more specifically, doing so with fewer rows) (Spruijt, 2007). 6. The research project Youth and Families 2006 In 2006, a research project entitled Youth and Families [ Jongeren en Gezinnen] was conducted at Utrecht University, among young people from 12 to 16 years of age. In this research the main question was what the effects of parental conflicts are on the wellbeing of children from both non-divorced and divorced families. In total, 1659 adolescents from 20 schools in 17 cities from all over the Netherlands contributed. The written questionnaires were filled in classically around May 1st 2006. There were no schools involved from Amsterdam, Rotterdam or The Hague, which makes this research representative for the Netherlands minus the three big cities. The research group of 1659 youngsters consists of 48.2 percent girls and 51.8 percent boys. The average age is 13.7 years, range 12-16. The percentage native youth is 86.6, the percentage non-native 13.4. To make the research group as representative for Dutch schoolgoing youth as possible, an extra number of VMBO schools (lower vocational education) was included in the study. Nationwide about 55 percent of the students attend the VMBO (www.minocw.nl). The distribution of youth by school type in the research is as follows: VMBO-(low) vocational: 23 percent; VMBO-(low) administrative: 21 percent; HAVO (secondary school): 22 percent; VWO/Gymnasium (pre-university education/grammar school): 34 percent. Thus VMBO-students are under-represented (added up to 44% against 55% nationwide), which is possibly related to the missing three big cities. Thirty-eight percent of the youth comes from first grade, 37 percent from second grade, and 25 percent from third grade. The distribution according to size of place of residence is as follows: country/villages: 40 percent; towns: 30 percent; (larger) cities: 30 percent. As to religion 55 percent claims to have no religion, 21 percent are Catholics, 12 percent are Protestants, 8 percent are Muslims and 4 percent have another religion. Finally, it has to be pointed out that 17 percent of the parents of the children of divorce have not been married but were cohabitating (Spruijt, 2007). 7. Divorce and social class In the lost paper mentioned in the introduction De Hoog and Spruijt operationalized social class by asking for education, profession and income. By now a vast body of literature about social class and social inequality has been published. Often, in the research about divorce, Changing families and their lifestyles 

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only education is used as an indicator for social background (Fischer, 2004). In the research Youth and Families 2006 the educational level of fathers and mothers was also requested. The results are presented in Table 1. The average educational level of fathers is no longer much higher than that of mothers. Mothers are slightly more likely to be MAVO-educated (secondary school) and fathers are slightly more likely to have a scientific training. Harkonen and Dronkers (2006) pose, following William J. Goode, that the relationship between divorce and education shifts when a country is more developed and richer. They conclude that in prosperous countries women with a higher education get divorced less frequently. Do these findings hold for the Netherlands? It turns out that mothers and fathers who are both higher educated get divorced significantly less. Overall the percentage of divorced parents in the low educational classes is about 20 percent and in higher educational classes about 11 percent. When both parents are lower educated (lower vocational) the percentage of divorced parents is even 25 percent. It was also checked whether the difference in educational level between father and mother correlates with the chance of divorce. It appears that divorce rates do not or hardly differ when the mother is higher educated or when both have an equal level of education. Divorce rates, however, are clearly lower when the father is higher educated than mother. There is still a strong relationship between the educational level of parents and the educational level of children. The correlation coefficient between educational level of parents and the school type of young people, for instance, is 0.42. Therefore, it will not come as a surprise that there is a strong relationship between school type and percentage of children of divorce, as can be seen in Table 2. It is clear that children of divorced parents mostly go to the VMBO (lower vocational). How, on average, are children, fathers and mothers doing after divorce, when broken down by educational level? We have measured general well-being of young people, mothers and parents using the Cantril scale (Cantril, 1965). Table 3 depicts the numbers. Table 1. Educational level of fathers and mothers in percentages.

Low Vocational (l. o. / l. b.o.) Low/middle Vocational (m.a.v.o.) Middle Vocational (m.b.o.) Middle and High Vocational (h.a.v.o. / v.w.o.) Academic (h.b.o.) Scientific (w.o.)

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Fathers

Mothers

15 20 19 18 14 14 100=1659

12 26 19 21 14 8 100=1659

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Table 2. Educational level youth and percentages of divorced parents. % divorced parents Low vocational (v.m.b.o.- beroeps) Low administrative (v.m.b.o.- theoretisch) Middle vocational (h.a.v.o.) High vocational (vwo) Grammar (gymnasium) Mean

24 20 17 14 3 18

Table 3. General wellbeing of children, mothers and fathers by family type and parental educational level. Intact families Parental educational low middle level:

high

total

low

middle

high

total

Children Mothers Fathers

7.9 7.6 7.7

7.8 7.7 7.7

7.3 7.3 7.1

7.5 7.5 6.8

7.1 6.9 7.1

7.4 7.4 6.9

7.7 7.6 7.6

7.8 7.7 7.7

Divorced families

The differences between the means of the intact and divorced families are significant. Youngsters, mothers and especially fathers feel less good in the divorced situation (look at the ‘total’ columns). The different scores for educational levels hardly differ in the intact families and a bit more within the divorced families. But it is not true that young people, mothers and fathers with a low educational level from the divorced families feel worse than family members with a middle and high educational level (see Table 3, 5th column compared with columns 6 and 7). The relatively bad score of fathers regardless of the educational level in the divorced families may be related to the living situation after divorce. Most children stay and live with their mother and it is thus usually the fathers who see their children less. In the research Youth and Families we have also made a distinction between mother-families after divorce, joint physical custody-families (the youth on average spends three nights with the one and four nights with the other parent) and father-families. Table 4 depicts the numbers. The high number of joint physical custody families, especially with boys, is striking. In 2001, 80 percent of the children still appeared to live with the mother after divorce and over 10 percent with the father and in about 4 percent of the cases there was joint physical custody Changing families and their lifestyles 

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Table 4. Living situation of children after divorce in percentages.

Single-mother families Single-father families Joint physical custody

Boys

Girls

Boys and girls

71 08 21 100

78 10 12 100

75 09 16 100=289

(De Graaf, 2001). The research Youth and Families 2006 and other recent research (De Graaf, 2005) shows that joint physical custody is becoming more popular: about 15 percent of the children lives in such a situation after a divorce, according to the most recent findings. The percentage of father-families continues to be quite constant at around 10 percent. This raises the question of how the involved parties feel in the different family situations? The numbers are clear and interesting but have to be interpreted with care. Joint physical custody seems to be best for all parties, but that of course also has to do with the fact that in the case of joint physical custody parents have generally experienced fewer discordant divorces than other parents. The relatively low scores for general wellbeing of youth and mothers in the father-families may be related to the fact that youngsters with problems more often live with their father and that mothers are (overly) concerned about this. Table 5. General wellbeing of children, mothers and fathers by family type after divorce.

Children Mothers Fathers

Single-mother families Joint physical custody

Single-father families

7.5 7.5 6.8

6.7 6.3 7.1

7.6 7.7 7.1

8. Involving children in the divorce process The divorce of parents has a major impact on children. Therefore the rights, duties and interests of children in divorce and visitation trials (and thus also in legislation) have become central points in recent years. Still it appears that it is hard to get enough attention focused on the child. Parents make decisions for the child and determine what is in the best interests of their child. In reality children are never (under 12 years of age) or hardly ever (above 12 years of age) asked for their opinion, let alone for their advice regarding divorce and 84 

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visitation rights. The research for Youth and Families 2006, for instance, asked who the children had spoken to about their parents’ divorce. The percentages for the children’s judge, a lawyer, a mediator and someone from the Child Welfare Council are all around 10 percent (Spruijt, 2007). It also asked when the children first heard about the divorce: 45 percent only right before the divorce, and 19 percent even only during the divorce. Therefore, children mostly have a marginal position in the divorce process of their parents. There are clearly two visions on the role of the child in divorce. In one the child is seen as the victim of divorce, since the child is still dependent and in need of protection by adults. This vision plays in the background of a lot of research. The other vision draws on the research in development psychology, which shows that children achieve increasing autonomy during their life. This entails them forming judgements on increasingly more matters and being better capable of making decisions and carrying them out without direct assistance from others (Smart et al., 2001; Singendonk and Meesters, 2002). Parents ought to involve their children in their divorce at an earlier stage than they often do at present. Children clearly indicate this, as is shown in research by Van der Gun and De Jong (2005). Children should know what is going on, in order for them to be able to give their opinion. Good and open communication between family members is of the utmost importance. From research it appears that parents and children who reflect on the divorce would have wanted to talk more with each other about it. Talking about the changes after divorce is difficult, but important to come to terms with. By taking the age and development level of children into account and paying attention to their own perceptions it becomes easier to talk with children. Delfos (2001), in her book ‘Are you listening to me?’ describes the skills required for the conversation with children according to the child’s development level. In the conversations the emphasis should be on listening to the children. When they are still young, the conversation can be guided by play. Children of Kindergarten age cannot focus their attention on the conversation for long and sometimes find it easier to express themselves in a game. Also for children under eight it is wise to combine playing and talking. Parents who take their children seriously will reckon with the wishes of their children when taking decisions. In the visitation agreement, the different development stages of children should be taken into account. For example, it turns out that young children, as compared to older ones, gain more benefit from frequent, short visits to the parent who doesn’t take care of them daily. To summarize, children should have a more central place in the divorce process. This is possible by involving them in conversations at an early stage and by creating the space to listen to their perception of and vision on the divorce. 9. Play and talk group CIDS (Children In Divorce Situation) In the Netherlands, Nelly Snels and Maaike de Kort (www.klassenwerk.com) have developed the play and talk group CIDS for children of divorce. The children’s group is part of the care plan CIDS that encompasses children’s groups, parents’ groups, information meetings Changing families and their lifestyles 

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and training sessions for CIDS coaches. In children’s groups, children (between the ages of 8 and 12) meet eight times at school to discuss several themes, from reminiscing to letting go the former family situation (Spruijt, et al., 2005). The effects of taking part in such a programme had not previously been studied in the Netherlands. Do kids benefit from it at all? Aren’t children talking each other into feeling more grief ? What do fathers think of it? For a first investigation of the effects of CIDS, 90 children, 90 fathers and 90 mothers were sent a letter with the request to fill out a questionnaire. About 65 kids had joined CIDS by then and 25 children were still on the waiting list (2004). So this considers a population research of the first class of CIDS children. Further and more extensive research is necessary. About 54 (60%) children’s information was returned. CIDS on average receives an 8.5 (on a scale from 1 to 10) from the children, mothers and fathers. Relatively least positive (7.6) are the fathers of younger children. The children who attended CIDS are on average doing better than the children on the waiting list: they understand their parents’ divorce better, their relationship with both mother and father is improving, the frequency of contact with the father (usually the absent parent) is on the increase. CIDS seems to have an even better effect on girls than for boys, and is suitable for both younger (8 and 9 year olds) and older (10, 11, and 12 year olds) children. Although the effect of joining a play and talk group for children after divorce should not be overestimated, according to the report the CIDS children clearly score better on a number of points. This research also shows that it is justified to emphasize the use of mediation and conferring with each other about the children before the divorce: the children do better if the parents have chosen one lawyer/mediator together. The frequency of contact with the absent parents appears to be important and different. Younger children require shorter but more frequent visits, older children longer but less frequent. The philosophy behind the research is that children benefit from information at an early stage and the recognition of their position regarding the parental divorce, that children benefit from prevention programmes, and that stimulation of mediation deserves support. 10. Conclusions It is remarkable that, in spite of the fact that divorce rates in the Netherlands and comparable countries have been relatively high for years, divorce does not seem to be fully accepted by either society or legislature. Facilities and legislation regarding divorce, especially as seen from the viewpoint of the child, can hardly be called adult. Maybe we rely too much on the fact that most divorces are carried out without too many major problems. Still the Child Welfare Council [Raad voor de Kinderbescherming], for instance, has to take action in almost 4,000 cases every year to advise legal courts about custody and/or visitation rights. In the area of facilities the Netherlands is lagging behind with many other countries. We can learn a lot from the arrangements abroad, for example, more attention for counselling and 86 

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programmes for children, and from the research into the effects of these arrangements. Also, the fact that there is a clear relationship between educational level and divorce should be an extra incentive for preventive measures for children from lower social backgrounds. From the societal as well as the judicial viewpoint it is important that action is taken in time, and that is sooner than now, or that people are helped to take action themselves. The legal obligation to have a number of counselling sessions, besides drawing up a parenting plan, would be an important signal to imply that children are truly important in a divorce process. In cases where it appears that parents are in too much conflict with each other – with the consensus thought in mind – mediation should be obligatory and accessible. Only after mediation should going to trial be an option. All of this is necessary in order to ensure continuance of joint parental custody widely in reality. The fact that families with a lower educational level are dissolved more often means that extra attention is needed for families from lower social backgrounds. 11. Recommendations Divorce is a process that starts long before the actual separation and sometimes lasts for years. Society and legislature do not sufficiently take this process-like nature of divorce into account yet. A lot of the negative effects for mothers, but especially and more so for fathers, could be prevented if there were enough and better legal and other measures for both the period before and after the divorce. Some of these measures are also mentioned in the Manifesto ‘Integrity of Parenthood’ [Integriteit van het Ouderschap] (De Hoog and Orbons, 2004). Conceivable measures include: 1. More explicit consideration of children: education, children’s programmes (e.g. in schools). The position of children during the whole period of divorce tends to be marginal. Children should, however, be informed about and prepared for their parents’ divorce. Their development level should, nevertheless, be taken into account as well. Children in particular appear to benefit from courses for themselves and their parents. These courses need, for that reason, to be accessible and widely available and free from financial constraints. 2. Tax rewards and visitation regulations. Essential for the healthy and balanced development of children is the experience that their parents can contain their conflicts and that the execution of an age-specific visitation regulation is guaranteed. Incentives work better than punishments and are a well-known way to influence behaviour. Well-functioning visitation agreements should be rewarded. When both parents declare once a year that the visitation agreement is functioning, a tax reduction could be awarded to both parties. This may seem an expensive measure but it will still yield a profit since it will prevent many problems for children (and their parents). 3. Stimulating travelling by parents instead of travelling by children. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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In case of joint physical custody and visitation regulations, it is quite common for children move from one house to the other. It is not logical to put this burden exclusively on the children’s shoulders. Parents could also (temporarily) exchange places of residence. In case of a visitation agreement, for instance, agree that one night per week is dad’s night. The non-resident parent can stay with the children for one night and the resident parent has one night off, including possible new partners. 4. Focussed attention on children of divorce from lower social backgrounds. The fact that parents with a lower educational level divorce more often than other parents, and that most children of divorce are more likely to attend VMBO schools (low vocational), means that urgent attention should be given to prevention programmes for children in the lower school types and in less prosperous neighbourhoods. It is high time for a nationwide supply of care arrangements for children and young adolescents of conflicting parents, especially for children from lower social backgrounds. References Antokolskaia, M.V. (ed.), 2006. Herziening van het Echtscheidingsrecht. Administratieve Echtscheiding, Mediation, Voortgezet Ouderschap. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij SWP. Cantril, H., 1965. The Pattern of Human Concerns. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutger University Press. De Graaf, A., 2001. Ervaringen van kinderen met het ouderlijk gezin. Maandstatistiek van de Bevolking 49 (4), 12-15. CBS, Voorburg/Heerlen. De Graaf, A., 2005. Scheiden: motieven, verhuisgedrag en aard van de contacten. Voorburg: CBS Bevolkingstrends 53, 39-47. De Graaf, A., 2006. Aantal echtscheidingen neemt weer toe. Webmagazine (9-1-2006), CBS. De Hoog, K., 1991. Relatiemarkt en partnerkeuze. In: E. Spruijt (ed.), Psychologie van het Gezin, pp. 81-97. Utrecht: Stichting Teleac. De Hoog, K., 2000. Het belang van een expliciet gezinsbeleid. Bevolking en Gezin 29: 141-56. De Hoog, K. and W. Orbons, 2004. Manifest ‘Integriteit van het ouderschap’. www.conseo.nl. Delfos, M.F., 2001. Luister je wel naar mij? Gespreksvoering met kinderen tussen vier en twaalf jaar. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij SWP. Distelbrink, M. and W. de Jongh, 2006. Ouders en Scheiding. Juridische Aspecten van Scheiding en Stiefouderschap. Den Haag: NGR. Fischer, T., 2005. Parental divorce, Conflict and Resources. Dissertation, Radboud University Nijmegen. Harkonen, J., and J. Dronkers, 2006. Stability and change in the educational gradient of divorce. A comparison of seventeen countries. European Sociological Review 22, 501-7. Singendonk, K. and G. Meesters, 2002. Kind en Echtscheiding. Een Ontwikkelingspsychologisch Perspectief. Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger B.V. Smart, C., A. Wade and B. Neale, 2001. Object van bezorgdheid? Kinderen en echtscheiding. In: C. v. Nijnatten and S. Sevenhuijsen (eds.), pp. 11-31. Dubbelleven. Nieuwe Perspectieven voor Kinderen na Echtscheiding. Amsterdam: Thela Thesis. Spruijt, E., 2007. Scheidingskinderen. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij SWP.

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Spruijt, E., J. Bredewold, A. Breunese, C. Chenevert, D. Feringa, A. Hardenberg, R. Harterink, Y. Hemminga, E. Hindriks, L. Hoenderdos, F. Okkerse, C. Thomas, T. Wong and S. Spruijt, 2005. Effecten van het volgen van KIES: Kinderen in Echtscheiding Situatie. Utrecht, Kinder- en Jeugdstudies (www.klassenwerk.com). Steenhof, L. and C. Harmsen, 2002. ‘Per jaar tweehonderdduizend nieuwe ex-en.’ Voorburg/Heerlen: CBS, Maandstatistiek van de bevolking. Van der Gun, F.J. and L. de Jong, 2005. Echtscheiding: Kiezen voor het Kind. Amsterdam: Uitgeverij SWP. Van der Meulen, A. and A. de Graaf, 2006. Samenwoonrelaties stabieler. Bevolkingstrends, 1e kwartaal 2006. Heerlen/Voorburg: Central Bureau of Statistics.

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Stratification and inequality

Status symbols, distinction and difference: a contribution to the sociology of household consumption Ynte K. van Dam Abstract Status symbols are usually associated with higher social classes or with upward social mobility. Goffman (1951) notices that ‘class symbols’ as he calls them serve to influence other people’s perception of one’s position in the desired direction. And the implicit assumption has always been that the desired direction is socially upwards. Trickling down has always been more popular than trickling up. As a result of the combined forces of increasing affluence and mass production most consumer products have become available to most people, and status tends to become impression management. This empirical study was set up to identify the role of consumer goods in the impression management of different status groups. Contrary to expectation this study identifies a collection of positive status symbols that is distinctive for the lower social classes. 1. Introduction According to Bourdieu (1984) both economic capital and cultural capital are, in combination, a potential basis for a hierarchical notion of status. The most dominant classes in a modern society are those endowed with high economic capital and high cultural capital. The lowest classes in society are those having little economic and little cultural capital. Moreover, we see more or less a kind of status struggle between the owners of high economic capital and less cultural capital and the owners of high cultural capital and less economic capital. Both classes try to make their capital the dominant mode of a hierarchical societal organisation. The resulting conflict is reflected in a struggle between cultural and economic status symbols. However, the modern consumption society offers a myriad of potential status symbols to all groups in society, allowing the expression of feelings of superiority that are increasingly unrelated to the monotonically increasing notion of cultural and economic capital in Bourdieu’s sense. The post-modern process of fragmentation allows anybody to feel superior to everyone else. This social function of status symbols as markers of superiority has been rapidly increasing since Veblen’s ‘theory of the leisure class’ (1899). Rather than emulating the leisure class various social groups have built their own status symbols, segregating their micro-cosmos from the whole of society. In this paper I show that the lowest classes in society have obtained their own status symbols, which are unrelated to the cultural or economic status symbols of the dominant classes. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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It is suggested that deeper understanding of these lower class status symbols will result in enhanced understanding of factors that might contribute to changing the lifestyles of families that are low in cultural and economic capital. 2. Historical notions on status and symbols In order to be a status symbol something has to be scarce and desirable (Blumberg, 1974). Throughout history this has lead to a bewildering array of status symbols, ranging from running tap water in Roman private houses ( Jones and Robinson, 2005) to bottled water in modern Western households (Lalumandier and Ayers, 2000). What most – if not all – historical examples of status symbols have in common is economic scarcity. Be it parasols in ancient Athens, higher education and medical laboratories in developing countries, or personal computers and management courses for Western managers, all of these are - or once were - scarcely available and accessible only to those with wealth or relations: economic or social capital. This implies of course that a status symbol by definition is a social marker that symbolises high status. Despite the apparent value-neutrality of the concept a status symbol only indicates the status superiority of the one flaunting the symbol. The status symbol does not separate the ‘haves’ from the ‘have-nots’, but the happy few from the common crowd, or at least is used to pretend to the common crowd that one belongs to the happy few: ‘…Class symbols serve not so much to represent or misrepresent one’s position, but rather to influence in a desired direction other persons’ judgment of it’ (Goffman, 1951). One consequence of the affluence and de-individualisation of Western societies is that most products have become available to most consumers, one way or another. Three processes play a role here. Products are increasingly affordable, because of the historically high discretionary income of consumers and the lower real prices of products or the existence of low-price me-too copies. Products are increasingly accessible, because of wide distribution including discounters and because of the increased mobility of the consumer. As an example fullyrigged golf bags, including clubs and balls being are now available at discount supermarkets. And consumers are increasingly anonymous. Zimbardo (1969) suggests that being in a large group cloaks the individual in anonymity. This process of de-individualisation leads to a loss of identity and a reduced concern for social evaluation. Most experiments and further studies in this field have shown that the combination of de-individualisation and group identity easily lead to degenerate social behaviour and violence. In modern mass society however the unstructured masses on the streets and in the shops cause de-individualisation without providing clear group identity, implying individuals are reduced to anonymous consumers who are not held answerable for their consumption as their behaviour is not under normal social control and there is no social check on use or user (cf. Brown, 1988). In modern urban life one’s status does not depend upon achievements, occupation, or ‘the degree of honour conferred upon an individual by his or her community’. And consequently the uniform status symbols of only a century ago have disappeared from the streets. Even 94 

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nowadays university professors are still generally acclaimed to have a high status position in society. In modern urban life however a professor, though highly esteemed within the university, upon leaving the university grounds is just another anonymous pedestrian. Status nowadays may be more dependent upon the ready display of one’s appearance and personality in public, and the willingness and ability to make a favourable impression in direct interaction. The sheer mass of fleeting contacts that is part of modern urban life makes it impossible to judge personalities – even of those people that we do interact with on a regular basis. At least to most men it would make this impossible. It is possible that women are better equipped for this game (Pease and Pease, 2003). And with status being dependent on appearance, status management becomes mere impression management. 3. Class and caste Status symbols have always been regarded as upper class distinction markers that are emulated by lower classes. The quintessential description of this mechanism is the trickle down effect (Simmel, 1957; Spencer, 1898). Blumberg (1974) notices that many examples of American counterculture in fact have trickled up, rather than down. It is however unclear whether this upstream trickling is due to higher classes aspiring to a lower-class lifestyle – as Blumberg seems to suggest, or due to commercial enterprises turning anti-establishment into profitable business – as Klein (2000) seems to suggest. Both trickle down and trickle up clearly imply a directionality of status symbols. Taking the trickle-down process as a starting point, it has been argued that there is a uniform tendency of lower / subordinate / inferior classes to aspire to higher / superordinate / superior symbols. In order to upgrade one’s status one should try and copy the costumes, customs, goods and appliances of the higher classes. This would imply that once upper class status symbols are generally acknowledged, they should be aspired to by all that do not actually possess them. Middle class status symbols are likely to be despised by the higher classes and desired by the lower classes, and so on. Until we arrive at the lowest classes, who aspire to what the higher classes already possess. If we consider a society that is divided into five successive status levels, with level A be the highest and level E the lowest, then the trickle-down theory suggests that ‘A’ status symbols are generally possessed by group A, and desired or emulated by the other four groups. ‘B’ status symbols are possessed by group B, and desired or emulated by groups C up to E, and so on. At the bottom of this scale ‘E’ symbols are possessed by group E, and neither desired nor emulated by any of the other groups. And once sufficient numbers of the lower classes obtain the status symbol, it loses its power and becomes unattractive to the higher classes (Hart et al., 2003). Furthermore, assuming a fixed time interval of fashion changes, the theory of fashion suggests that ‘B’ status symbols of time t, are the ‘A’ status symbols of time t-1, ‘C’ status symbols of time t are the ‘B’ symbols of t-1, and the ‘A’ symbols of t-2, and so on. Dutch evidence is found for example in Munters (1977) who shows that in 58 items for men and women social climbing is less frequent and Changing families and their lifestyles 

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less strong than trickling down. Closer inspection of his results also reveals that most items that are prevalent among lower classes are negative items, like not taking holidays and not hiring someone to decorate the house, reinforcing the image of lower classes being the ‘havenots’. Smoking is among the few ‘positive’ items that characterises lower social classes. Status symbols, like lifestyles since the 1970’s, have been studied from an utterly upper middle class [or call it bourgeois] point of view, dividing the world in one ‘us’ and several ‘them’ groups. Given the job description of University professors, and given the deplorable state of educational salaries, the ‘us’ group traditionally contains people with an overdose of intellectual and cultural aspirations and limited access to economic means. This group can be characterised as having the taste but lacking the money. The ‘them’ groups are then separated into a group with ‘more money than taste’ – or nouveau riche, a group with both money and taste – or ‘old money’, and a group with neither money nor taste – the eternal emulators that are the lower classes. 4. Distinction and status According to Bourdieu (1984) the efficacy of economic capital as one of the major principles of domination in capitalist society is challenged by those groups within the dominant social class who are comparatively poorer in economic capital, but who are rich in cultural or symbolic capital, like artists, academics, and professionals. Those groups strive to enhance their own specific form of capital as a rival principle of domination and social ordering. The main axis of these struggles is within the dominant class, between those who lack economic capital, against those wealthy bourgeois who, relatively speaking lack culture. Professionals of various kinds promote their own status by trying to shift the dominant principle of domination towards cultural means, distinguishing themselves from the uncultured wealthy by emphasising taste for the refined and off-beat. Cultural capital is transferred within families by exposure and upbringing, while the educational system offers a way to acquire culture as well. As the ‘scholastic’ culture can never duplicate the ease and depth of acquiring cultural capital by mere exposure, the social division by cultural capital tends to be more class related than the division by economic capital. This implies that there is a second axis of struggle, between those who are raised with cultural capital and those who are not, centred around the issue of which specific form of cultural capital is a principle of domination. Still, according to Bourdieu these struggles all take place within the dominant classes. Dominant actors are predicted to pursue a conservation strategy, aimed at reinforcing the existing hierarchy, by reinforcing the existing distribution and valuation of symbolic and economic capital. Dominated actors are predicted to pursue a subversion strategy, aimed at transforming the system of authority and the valuation of different capitals (Emirbayer and Williams, 2005). However, both dominant and dominated actors also share commitments and investments in the overall field, while the working

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classes call to order anyone of their number who gets above themselves and threatens class solidarity (Blunden, 2004). The concept of habitus in Bourdieu’s theoretical framework points at contextual rational action. From the material conditions of daily life the individual learns what is possible, appropriate and expected (Fram, 2004). Thus the ‘habitus’ is the ‘internalised form of the class condition and of the conditionings’ by which a member of the class knows, without thinking about it, just how to react to different cultural stimuli, what he or she finds ‘pretentious’ or ‘vulgar’ or ‘gaudy’ rather than ‘attractive’ or ‘dignified’ or ‘beautiful’ (Blunden, 2004). Habitus therefore is an internalised social embeddedness, rendering it impossible to turn a cow’s ear into a silk purse, a sensibility acquired over a life-time and from an upbringing in those conditions and the possibilities they include or exclude, with a future (including a future for one’s children) which offers prospects, or a past remembered when things were better (Blunden, 2004). Bourdieu brings to the foreground the structural tension between occupants of dominant and dominated positions within any social microcosm. Within the capitalist consumerist society this struggle between economic and cultural capital as primary modes of distinction should be reflected in distinctive consumption styles within different social fields. Translated to the field of consumption and status, this implies that within the dominant classes the dominant actors aim to preserve the existing valuation of status symbols, while dominated actors aim to develop an alternative valuation of status symbols. Both however are committed to finding status in consumption and therefore in maintaining a hierarchy of status symbols. Going one step beyond Bourdieu (1984), the struggle between the upper and the lower classes in a society should reflect the same conflict, with the lower classes carving their own status symbols both to reflect status hierarchy within their social microcosmos and to separate their microcosmos from the middle and the upper classes. 5. Empirical research The preliminary study reported here aims to identify the status symbols among the social groups with little cultural and economic capital. In order to identify everyday status symbols of modern times a survey was carried out among 144 households in a medium-sized town in the centre of The Netherlands. The respondents were approached at home, and sampling was in different neighbourhoods ranging from very expensive to very cheap housing. The sample contained only couples with or without children. Following Bourdieu we focus on economic capital, as indicated by income, and cultural capital as indicated by educational level. Therefore, age and household composition were not taken into consideration. A total of 21 respondents failed to provide data on income or education and were removed from the sample leaving 123 completed questionnaires. The respondents rated 32 products in a dichotomous choice, indicating whether they do (1) or do not (0) own or would desire Changing families and their lifestyles 

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the product. The products ranged from discount wine to caviar, from car tuning to brands of luxury cars, from kitchen mixer to solarium, covering luxury products as well as ethical products (fair trade & organic), domestic appliances as well as tattoos. Income was categorised into three levels, below modal (a) – up to twice modal (b) and over twice modal (c), with the highest income of either respondent or partner being used for classification. Education was also categorised into three levels, being either both partners below academic (a), one partner academic (b) and both partners academic (c). Both categorisations are rather coarse-grained, in order to keep the number of groups within manageable limits. It could be argued that a more fine-grained measurement of income and education might reveal more distinctions, but more detailed questions on income may also trigger a non-response. Income-related questions in surveys usually meet with up to 25 percent non-response (Moore et al., 2000), compared to just under 15 percent for income and education combined in this survey. In the graphs below different lines refer to different educational levels, whereas income is at the X-axis. The Y-axis indicates preference on a scale from zero (no preference) to one (preference). All reported results are significant at a five percent level. 6. Results 6.1 Univariate analyses 6.1.1 High-income products Several high-income products were identified, with high and to a certain degree medium incomes preferring the products significantly more than the low-income groups (Table 1, Figure 1). For most products the preference increases significantly in the high-income group, while being not different for low and median income groups, though literature9 and female jewellery already show a significant increase in the medium-income group as compared to the low-income group. The high income products show a diffusion pattern that is consistent with traditional status symbols. Preference for all products increased consistently with income.

9 It

should be noted that the concept of ‘literature’ has not been defined in the questionnaire, so it is possible that respondents differ in their interpretation of what counts as ‘literature’.

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Table 1. High-income products (with high+ and low- preference per group, different superscripts indicate significant difference in preference). Product

Low income

Median income

High income

Coffee Female jewellery Literature Lawn mower Volvo car Organic vegetables NRC/Handelsblad Sailing boat

0.890.640.360.390.040.110.040.00-

0.96-/+ 0.85+ 0.62+ 0.420.060.17-/+ 0.060.02-

1.00+ 0.89+ 0.85+ 0.72+ 0.47+ 0.34+ 0.34+ 0.15+

1

Coffee Female jewellery Literature Lawn mower Volvo car Organic vegetables NRC Sailing boat

Preference

0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0

Low

Median

High

Income

Figure 1. High income products.

6.1.2 Low-income products Apart from high-income products a set of low-income products was identified as well. For all products the preference of the low-income group significantly exceeds the preference of the other two income groups (Table 2; Figure 2). Preference for cigarettes and Opel cars decreases with income. Nevertheless in all groups preference for these two items differs from zero significantly, implying some preference even in the higher income groups. Both the low-income group and the median-income group show a significant preference for tattoos and car tuning, while for the high-income groups the preference for these products does not differ from zero significantly. Australian training suit and male jewellery only show a significant preference in the low income groups. Apparently these last two items are exclusive for low-income respondents. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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Table 2. Low-income products (with high+ and low- preference per group, different superscripts indicate significant difference in preference). Product

Low income

Median income

High income

Cigarettes Opel car Male jewellery Tattoos Car tuning Australian suit

0.50+ 0.39+ 0.36+ 0.32+ 0.29+ 0.21+

0.250.150.060.080.100.04-

0.190.110.020.000.020.00-

Preference

1

Cigarettes Opel car Male jewellery Tattoos Car tuning Australian

0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0

Low

Mid

High

Income

Figure 2. Low income products.

The finding that these products were consistently preferred only (or almost exclusively) by respondents with low incomes is contrary to expectations. Products like male jewellery, tattoos, tuned cars and Australian training suits appear to be status symbols for low income households. Also the Opel brand for cars is especially popular with low income groups. Compared to Munters (1977), who only identified smoking as a positive product choice of the lower classes10, we find a wider set of specific and positive low income products. Both low-income and high-income products show a marked pattern of preference varying with income with all the preferences following a parallel pattern, with the exception of organic vegetables that rate higher with the lower income categories than expected.

10 Positive in this context means a product that is apparently actively bought, rather than the ‘non-affordance’

items like ‘no-holiday, separate laundry centrifuge [=no-automatic washing machine], do-it-yourself home decoration [=no hired decorator]’ that feature in the low-class items of Munters (1977).

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6.1.3 High-education products The set of products for which preference is positively correlated to educational level only partly overlaps with the high-income products. (Table 3, Figure 3). The preference for literature11, perfume and lawn mower is significantly positive for all groups, whereas for the remaining products preference is not significantly different from zero for the low educational group. Literature and perfume are exceptional in this group, because preference is highest with the mixed education groups. The other products in this group show an increase of preference with joint educational level in the household. Table 3. High-education products (with high+ and low- preference per group, different superscripts indicate significant difference in preference).

Literature Perfume (female) Lawn mower Volvo car Organic vegetables NRC Fair trade Sailing boat

Both non-academic

Mixed/one academic Both academic

0.450.630.370.060.060.020.060.00-

0.84+ 0.87+ 0.60-/+ 0.190.29+ 0.130.16-/+ 0.06-/+

Preference

1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0

Low

Mixed

High

0.74+ 0.74-/+ 0.68+ 0.40+ 0.35+ 0.35+ 0.30+ 0.14+

Perfume Literature Lawn mower Volvo car Organic vegetables NRC Fair trade Sailing boat

Education

Figure 3. High-education products.

11 It

could be argued that the definition of literature is not constant among the respondents (cf. Kraaykamp. 1993). For our data this probably means an overestimation for the lower education groups as we measure preference for what the respondent considers as literature.

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6.1.4 Low education products Several products apparently are only preferred by the groups with the lower educational levels. For the other two educational groups the preference for Australian training suit, tuned car, male jewellery and tattoos the preference does not significantly differ from zero. Preference for the remaining two products significantly exceeds zero for all groups. Cigarettes are exceptional in this group because they are preferred least by the mixed educational group, and solaria are exceptional because they are preferred most by the mixed educational groups (Figure 4, Table 4). Apparently Australian, tuning, male jewellery and tattoos are exclusive status symbols for the low educational groups. A solarium appears to be especially preferred by the mixed educational group, whereas cigarettes are least preferred by this group. Tattoos, Australian suits, tuned cars and male jewellery are only preferred by the lowest educational group. Table 4. Low-education products (with high+ and low- preference per group, different superscripts indicate significant difference in preference).

Australian suit Car tuning Male jewellery Cigarettes Tattoos Solarium

Both non-academic

Mixed/one academic Both academic

0.14+ 0.22+ 0.22+ 0.41+ 0.24+ 0.22-

0.030.050.060.160.030.45+

1

Australian Car Tuning Male Jewellery Cigarettes Tattoos Solarium

0.8 Preference

0.000.030.020.23-/+ 0.000.16-

0.6 0.4 0.2 0 Low

Mixed

High

Education

Figure 4. Low-education products.

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6.2 Multivariate analysis Cluster analysis revealed that a group of four products shows a preference pattern that is distinct from the remaining 26 products used in this study. These four products are the Australian trainer suit, the tuned (or pimped) car, gold male jewellery and tattoos. The preference for these four products can be combined into a ‘bling-bling’ scale with a Cronbach reliability of 0.797. Analysis of variance reveals that this scaled preference shows a significant interaction between both education and income (F = 2.764; p < 0.05). In Figure 5 for purposes of clarity all values that do not differ significantly from zero are represented as 0. This shows that preference for this set of products does not differ significantly from zero for all but the lowest educational group. Within this group the preference is inversely related to level of income, implying that these products are used to display status among low education and low income consumers. 4 3.5 Preference

3 2.5

Low education

2

Mix education

1.5

High education

1 0.5 0

Low

Mid

High

Income

Figure 5. Preference for ‘bling-bling’ related to income and education.

7. Conclusion As the products in this survey were a sample of possible status products, we can only conclude that there are products for which the preference is dependent on economic capital [income] and products that are dependent on cultural capital [education]. The distribution of low-income products and low-education products reveals a class of products that are inversely related to both income and education. Economic theory recognizes ‘inferior goods’, that show a negative income elasticity of demand. Likewise Munters (1977) identified several negative items that were related to lower social status. This Changing families and their lifestyles 

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economic terminology however ignores the possibility of these goods being status symbols for a specific segment of the market. This survey shows that there are products that are positively sought by groups that are comparatively low in cultural and economic capital. From a cross-sectional study, like the current one, it is impossible to say which products show a trickle-up effect, which products are phasing down, and which are low-income status symbols. However, combining the results of both univariate analyses, one gets the impression that male jewellery, ‘Australian training suits’, tattoos and tuned cars are status symbols of low-education and low-income groups. This impression is corroborated by the multivariate analysis of a ‘bling-bling’ scale that is composed of preference for these four products. The high-income and high-education products also show products appearing in both lists, suggesting that products like literature and lawn mowers (as a proxy of a house with a lawn) are status symbols at the high-income and high-education end of the scale. The multicollinarity between income and education in our sample rendered multivariate analysis of these items impossible, so it is not possible to view income dependency within various educational groups or education dependency within income groups. However, the current results suggest strongly that further research into the specific status symbols of various socioeconomic groups is necessary. The concept of a ‘status symbol’ appears to be different for different socio-economic groups. 8. Discussion The study reported here shows that studying status symbols in everyday life is a promising line of research to enhance understanding of the sociology of household consumption. With the benefit of hindsight some obvious improvements in the data collection can be suggested. In order to make a further distinction in cultural capital it would be necessary to expand the measurements to parental and grandparental education and income, apart from the respondent’s. Also a finer grained categorisation of both education and income can be considered, though this poses heavy demands on sample size and is likely to increase the non-response. Another issue to be handled in subsequent studies is the collinearity between education and income. Up to a certain degree this collinearity is an empirical reality, but larger sample sizes would allow for separate analysis of on the one hand lower and middle groups and on the other hand middle and higher groups. This would eliminate at least the statistical handicap of empty cells in the cross diagonal corners of the data matrix, due to the lack of high education – low income and low-education – high-income respondents. Also the range of products sampled as possible status symbols should be improved in order to get a clearer picture of lifestyles among distinct social fields. One suggestion would be to incorporate choice of meal and mode of preparation, as daily food consumption is 104 

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highly subject to cultural and social imperatives, which shape the needs that arise and the satisfactions that are considered acceptable, or considered at all. After all ‘food is a metaphor for our sense of self, our social and political relations, our cosmology and our global system’ (Caplan, 1992: 30). Another suggestion is to look more closely at the status symbols of minority groups and second generation immigrants in order to gain a deeper understanding of their values and lifestyles. Finally, the measurement of preference could be expanded with negative scale points, in order to make a distinction between ‘lack of preference for a product’ and ‘deliberate avoidance of a product’. One of the main issues in consumer policy and especially consumer policy with respect to sustainability is reaching ‘difficult target groups’, most notably those with low educational and low professional status. Understanding the status symbols of different socio-economic groups, or within the different micro-cosmoses of society, and especially understanding the status symbols of those ‘difficult target groups’, would be useful for both consumer policy and consumer education in promoting more sustainable lifestyles to those families who up to this moment are among the most difficult to reach. Acknowledgements Special thanks to Kees de Hoog for many valuable comments and for inspiring this research in the first place, and to Michelle Geertman for collecting the data and performing the preliminary analyses. References Blumberg, P., 1974. The decline and fall of the status symbol: some thoughts on status in a postindustrial society. Social Problems 21: 480-498. Blunden, A., 2004, Bourdieu on Status, Class and Culture. Book Review of: Distinctions. A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. Pierre Bourdieu 1979. Translated by Richard Nice, published by Harvard University Press, 1984. Bourdieu, P., 1984 [1979]. Distinctions. A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste. (translated by Richard Nice), Harvard University Press. Brown, R., 1988. Intergroup behaviour In: M. Hewstone, W. Stroebe and J.P. Codol (eds) Introduction to Social Psychology: A European Perspective, pp. 381-410. Oxford: Blackwell. Caplan, P., 1992. Feasts, Fasts, Famine: Food for Thought. Oxford/Providence: Berg. Emirbayer, M. and E.M. Williams, 2005. Bourdieu and Social Work. Social Service Review 79(4): 689-724. Fram, M.S., 2004. Research for progressive change: Bourdieu and social work. Social Service Review 78(4): 553-76. Goffman, E., 1951. Symbols of class and status. The British Journal of Sociology 2(4): 294-304. Hart, R.F., A.J. Novak, A.G. Rao and S.P. Sethi, 2003. Optimal pricing of a product diffusing in rich and poor populations. Journal of Optimizing Theory and Applications 117(2): 349-75.

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Jones R. and D. Robinson, 2005. Water wealth and social status at Pompeii: the house vestals in the first century. American Journal of Archeology 109(4): 695-710. Klein, N., 2000. No Logo. New York: Picador. Kraaykamp, G., 1993. Over lezen gesproken: een studie naar sociale differentiatie in leesgedrag. PhD Thesis Utrecht University. Lalumandier J.A. and L.W. Ayers, 2000. Fluoride and bacterial content of bottled water vs tap water. Archives of Family Medicine 9(3): 246-50. Moore, J.C., L.L. Stinson and E.J. Welniak jr., 2000. Income measurement error in surveys: a review. Journal of Official Statistics 16 (4): 331-61. Munters, Q.J., 1977. Stijgende en dalende cultuurgoederen. Alphen a/d Rijn: Samsom. Pease, A. and B.Pease, 2001. Why Men Don’t Listen and Women Can’t Read Maps: How We’re Different and What to Do About It. New York: Broadway Books. Simmel, G., 1957 [1904]. Fashion. American Journal of Sociology 62 (6): 541-558. Spencer, H., 1898. Principles of Sociology. Volume II. New York: Appleton. Zimbardo, P., 1969. The human choice: individualism, reason and order versus de-individualism, impulse and chaos. In: W. Arnold and D. Levin (eds) The Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (17), pp. 237-307. Lincoln: Nebraska University Press.

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Welfare, income and socio-economic benchmarking Wim Heijman Abstract This article investigates whether the global distribution of income is also a suitable indicator for the distribution of welfare. To this end a model for the behaviour of the Average Global Consumer (AGC) was developed, showing that, based on a number of assumptions, this should be the case. The hypothesis that income is a suitable indicator for welfare was tested and confirmed for six composite goods. Furthermore, a global socio-economic benchmark system was developed to indicate whether a country is under- or over-performing with respect to the supply of the six composite goods. 1. Introduction It is common knowledge that income is not the sole welfare indicator. However, a number of important variables that are connected with welfare or happiness are income related.12 This paper has two objectives: 1. To show that, as a first guess, the income per capita of a country is a fairly accurate measure of its welfare and happiness level, and 2. To indicate a benchmark system on the global level for the priorities in national public spending. The welfare model of the average global consumer (AGC) developed in this paper is based on the idea that the consumer aims at maximum welfare, and that this can be seen in the amounts of market and public goods that are ‘bought’ by him through individual and public spending. In this way the benchmarking can be interpreted in two ways: 1. A tool for comparing the values of the national welfare indicators with those of other countries, and 2. A normative way of evaluating a country’s results. On the basis of this interpretation, national policy priorities in the areas concerned can be indicated in order to gain maximum welfare for the average consumer. This article shows that there is evidence for the correctness of the second interpretation. For reasons of simplicity, I used The Economist Pocket World in Figures, 2004 and 2007 editions, for the necessary empirical data on the world economy (The Economist, 2003, 2006). Of course, like every data source, this implies a number of limitations for applying the developed theory. However, these appeared not to be fatal. The remainder of the paper is organised as follows. Section two deals with the data source ‘World in Figures’. Section three examines the global income distribution. The idea is that 12 I consider ‘welfare’ and ‘happiness’ to be synonymous. On the issue of happiness a number of

interesting books and articles have been published. See for example Frey and Stutzer (2002) and Veenhoven (2005).

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if world income distribution is becoming more unequal and if welfare is strongly related to income, then welfare distribution is also becoming more unequal. Section three looks at a theoretical model from which a number of important hypotheses are derived. In Section four these hypotheses are tested. Finally, in the last Section, conclusions are drawn. 2. The world in your pocket Who drinks the most beer? Which city has the most attractive surroundings? Where is the investment climate most beneficial? Which country has the largest percentage of senior citizens? For almost any question you can think of, The Economist Pocket World in Figures has the answer. The Czech Republic leads the world in beer consumption (81.7 litres per head per year). If you are looking for the city with the most attractive surroundings, you should live in Zürich or Geneva. The best country for investors is Denmark. And if you think that European countries like the Netherlands have the biggest problem with an ageing population, then you are wrong; Japan has the largest percentage of citizens older than 60: more than 26 percent, compared to about 19 percent in the Netherlands. The ‘World in Figures’ is therefore all about rankings: who is doing the best and who the worst. In the same way that the periodical The Economist is not simply an economics journal, but also a more general periodical, The Economist Pocket World in Figures contains a selection of national data about a wide range of topics, including geography, trade, transport, culture and the environment. The ‘World in Figures’ contains information about 183 countries and is revised every year based on the most recent data. Besides the rankings in Part one, a summary of national data for the 69 largest countries is contained in Part two in which the publishers attempt to provide the most reliable possible comparisons of national data. Of course, making an objective comparison is occasionally difficult, and this is clearly indicated where applicable. The final two pages of the book summarise all the sources used. This little book is a convenient source of relevant data from around the world and the position of each country in these world rankings. Especially during election time, when politicians competing for the favour of the voters, use all kinds of facts – correctly or incorrectly – to support their arguments, it is good to be able to evaluate these facts on their own merits. In short, the ‘World in Figures’ provides us with a possible suitable database for an annual socio-economic benchmarking operation, which is the aim of this article.

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3. World income distribution The World Development Report 2006 (World Bank, 2005) deals mainly with the inequality of global welfare distribution. If income is an essential indicator of welfare or happiness, global income distribution is of essential importance, because in that case (and that is still to be proved) income distribution is also an important indicator of the distribution of welfare. This section aims at measuring the world’s income distribution with the help of Zipf ’s Law, which is also known as the Rank Size Rule (Zipf, 1949; Isard, 1956; Ball, 2005). According to Zipf a large number of social phenomena are distributed according to his law. 13 Mathematically speaking the law reads as: V = Krc

(1)

where K and c are constants, r stands for the rank and V for the variable to be explained. The normal way of evaluating the income distribution is using the Gini coefficient g. With the help of the Lorenz curve it can be shown that the Gini coefficient is a special case of the rank size rule. The Lorenz curve shows the relationship between the accumulated percentage of income (on the vertical axis) and the accumulated percentage of population (on the horizontal axis). The equation that fits the Lorenz scatter diagram fairly well is: y = zh, h ≥ 1

(2)

with y for the accumulated percentage of income (GDP), z for the accumulated percentage of population and h for the coefficient indicating the disparity in income distribution. In this special case constant K appears to be 1. The higher the h the higher the disparity in income distribution. With the help of ‘World in Figures’ I will measure h on the global level for two years: 2001 and 2004 (The Economist, 2003, 2006). Figure 1 shows the ‘Lorenz scatter diagram’ for the two years concerned. Based on the data of Figure 1, h can be computed with linear regression on the basis of the following equation: ln y = h ln z

(3)

Further it is possible to compute the Gini coefficient g from coefficient h. The relationship between h and g is described by the following equation (see Appendix 1): g= h–1 1+h

(4)

13 Pareto’s ideas on income distribution were based on the same idea (Ball, 2005).

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1.2

1

% gdp acc. (y)

% gdp acc. (y)

1.2 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1

% pop. acc. (z)

1.2

1 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

%pop. acc. (z)

1

1.2

Figure 1. Lorenz scatter diagram for the year 2001 (left panel, 177 countries) and 2004 (right panel, 183 countries) based on GDP. Source: The Economist (2003, 2006).

Table 1 shows the results. From Table 1 we can conclude that coefficients h and g for the year 2001 hardly differ from the computed values for the year 2004, which means that the disparity in global income distribution has remained more or less stable. Further, it can be derived from the figures that average income per capita in the world has increased. According to the theory in the next section, this means that the disparity in global welfare was also stable in the period described. I now turn to the theory predicting that welfare is an increasing function of income. Table 1. h and g for the years 2001 and 2004. 2001

2004

h

t-value h

R2

g

h

t-value h

R2

g

2.350

41.00

0.91

0.403

2.304

43.29

0.91

0.395

4. The theory Assuming that the Average Global Consumer (AGC) aims at maximising his utility, happiness, or well being, the following utility function and budget constraint can be formulated: Max U = U (X1, X2, X3, ..., Xi, ... Xn), i = 1...n, ∂U > 0, ∂U2 < 0 ∂Xi ∂Xi Subject to Y = P1X1 + P2X2 + P3X3 + ... + PiXi + ... + PnXn.

110 

(5)

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With U for utility for the AGC, Xi for the quantity of good i, Y for the income of the average global consumer, and Pi for the price of good i. Solving the model through a Lagrange procedure gives Gossen’s Second Law, which states that the optimum allocation of the budget or income is found when marginal utility per currency unit spent in each direction has been equalised (See Appendix 2). From this optimum condition it is possible to derive the relationship between income and each category of consumption. Assuming that utility function U of the average global consumer is such that (for sufficiently large Y) in the optimum Engel’s function for each individual good can be formulated as follows:14 Xi = yiY + δi

(6)

An example of such a utility function for the case of two goods is formulated in Appendix 2. A necessary assumption in the approach of this paper is that such a relationship not only exists between the consumption of private goods and average income, but also between the consumption of public goods and average income, and further that the Engel’s functions found for the global average consumer reflect the optimum consumption level of each national average consumer at each level of average income. The variables used in the utility function are: Human Development Index (X1), Environmental Health score (X2), Gender (X3), Health (X4), Life expectancy (X5) and Research and Development (X6).15 The variables represent more or less ‘composite goods’ consisting of public and private elements (Casamiglia, 1978).16 For each of these variables it is assumed that they contribute in a positive way to human well-being. The relationship to average global income, Engel’s functions, is examined in a cross-country setting. The central hypothesis to be tested is that there is a strong relationship between these variables and average income. If confirmed, the utility function of these variables might as well be reduced to: U = U (X1(Y), X2(Y), X3(Y), X4(Y), X5(Y), X6(Y), so: U = U(Y)

(7)

Furthermore, if utility U equals Happiness H, then, because U = U(Y), H = H(Y). This latter hypothesis is tested separately.17 In the next section the hypothesis is tested that the consumption level of the six composite goods mentioned is determined by income.

14 Engel’s

consumer.

function is the relation between the consumption of each good and the income of the average

15 Of course the choice for these variables is more or less arbitrary. Other variables like ‘Democracy’ (assumed

positive relation with income) or ‘Corruption’ (proved negative relationship to average GDP) are also possible (The Economist, 2007). 16 According

to Hicks’ aggregation theorem the use of composites is justified under a number of conditions (Hicks, 1939). 17 ‘Happiness’

Happiness.

is overlapping ‘Utility’ to a great deal. The overlap concerns all scarce goods that determine

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5. Testing the hypothesis that GDP per head determines the level of consumption of the composite goods

Human Development Index

Figure 2 shows the relationship between the Human Development Index Xi and GDP per head Y (in $ ppp), Figure 3 the relationship between Environmental Health and Y, Figure 4 the relationship between GRDI and Y, Figure 5 the relationship between Health spending per head and Y, Figure 6 Life Expectancy against GDP, and Figure 7 R&D expenditures per head against Y. Except for Life expectancy, the scatter diagrams do not show a ‘leveling off ‘ of the consumption as income grows. Table 2 shows the results of the regression analysis of the equation derived above (Xi = yiY + δi) 120 100 80 60 40 20 0

0

20000 40000 60000 GDP per head $PPP

80000

Figure 2. Scatter diagram of Human Development Index (HDI) X1 against GDP per head Y in 2004: 60 countries, Norway ranking 1, Romania ranking 60. Human Development Index: a knowledge variable consisting of average years of schooling and adult literacy. Source: The Economist, 2006.

Environmental health

100 99 98 97 96 95 94 93

0

10000

20000 30000 GDP per head

40000

Figure 3. Scatter diagram of Environmental Health scores X2 against GDP per head Y in 2004: 39 countries, Norway ranking 1, Kuwait ranking 39. Environmental Health score: index based on child mortality, indoor air pollution, safety of drinking water, quality of sanitation, and quantity of urban air particulates. Source: The Economist, 2006.

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GRDI

 98 96 94 92 90 88 86 84 82

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

GDP per head $PPP

Health spending per head

Figure 4. Scatter diagram of the relationship between the Gender Related Development Index (GRDI) X3 and GDP per head Y: 39 countries, Norway ranking 1, Kuwait ranking 39. Gender Related Development Index (GRDI): indicator of the disparities between men and women in individual countries. The lower the index, the greater the disparity. Source: The Economist, 2006.

40000 30000 20000 10000 0

0

2000

4000

6000

GDP per head $PPP

Life expectancy (years)

Figure 5. Scatter diagram of Health spending per head X4 against GDP per head Y: 31 countries, US ranking 1, Malawi ranking 31. Health spending per head: percentage of GDP times GDP per head ($PPP). Source: The Economist, 2006. 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

0

20000 40000 60000 80000 GDP per head $PPP

Figure 6. Scatter diagram of Life expectancy X5 (years) against GDP per head Y: 100 countries, Andorra ranking 1, Swaziland ranking 100. Life expectancy: The number of years a baby born today can expect to live. Source: The Economist, 2006. Changing families and their lifestyles 

113

R&D expenditures per head

Wim Heijman 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0

0

20000 40000 60000 80000 GDP per head $PPP

Figure 7. Scatter diagram of the relationship between the R&D expenditures per head X6 and GDP per head Y: 46 countries, Sweden ranking 1, India ranking 46. Research and Development (R&D) expenditures per head: percentage of GDP spent on R&D times GDP per head $PPP. Source: The Economist, 2006.

Table 2. Relationship between Xi and GDP per head Y. Variable

yi

t-value yi

δi

t-value δi

R2

X1 (HDI) X2 (Environmental Health) X3 (GRDI) X4 (Health exp. per head) X5 (Life Expectation) X6 (R&D)

0.000406 0.000153 0.000275 0.109894 0.000786 0.023788

11.914 6.563 7.306 17.446 11.221 8.674

79.439 144.858 83.672 -206.049 52.248 -114.542

95.607 144.858 78.491 -1.393 34.583 -1.588

0.710 0.606 0.591 0.913 0.562 0.631

The results are quite convincing. Apart from δ4 and δ6 all coefficients are significant on the one percent level (two-tailed test). So, the hypothesis derived from the theory put forward in the previous section is confirmed. To a large part, all variables concerned depend on the value of income per head. Also, because δ1, δ2, δ3 and δ5 are positive, income elasticities of Goods one, two, three, and five are between zero and one, which means that these ‘goods’ are considered by the AGC to be basic goods and not luxury goods.18 This means that, where there is under performance in the supply of these goods there is a high urgency to increase the supply (see Section 5). As far as Goods four and six are concerned, δ4 and δ6 are negative. However, the value of these coefficients is non-significant. It means that Goods four and six 18 Though the specific value of the income elasticity may change with the GDP per head, because the derived

Engel’s functions are linear, the character of the good (basic, luxury, origin) does not depend on the GDP per head. This follows directly from Marshall’s rule in the case of linear Engel’s functions.

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are considered by the AGC to be ‘origin goods’, which means that their income elasticities equal one. Therefore, they can be classified in between basic goods and luxury goods. Table 3 shows the income elasticities for the AGC for the six composite goods. The last hypothesis to be tested is the relationship between Happiness H and income Y. The data for this cannot be found in ‘The World in Figures’. Therefore I turned to the Special Eurobarometer ‘Mental Well-being’ (European Commission, 2006). In the framework of this research in 29 European countries the question was asked: Have you felt happy during the past four weeks? In the Netherlands 86 percent of the respondents answered this question with ‘all the time’ or ‘most of the time’. In Bulgaria this percentage was only 42 percent. Taking this as a measure for happiness H it is now possible to test the hypothesis that there is a positive relationship between happiness and income (GDP) per head. Figure 8 shows the scatter diagram of this relationship. The results of the regression procedure are given in Table 4. The estimated regression equation is: H = yY + δ. Table 3. Average Global Consumer’s income elasticities for the six composite goods. X2 (Env. Health) X3 (GRDI)

X4 (Health exp.) X5 (Life Exp.)

X6 (R&D)

0.044

0.014

1

1

Happiness (H)

X1 (HDI)

0.9 0.8 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0

0

0.029

20000

40000

0.118

60000

80000

GDP per capita (Y)

Figure 8. Scatter diagram of the relationship between happiness H and GDP per capita Y for 29 European countries. Source: European Commission, 2006.

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Table 4. Happiness as a function of income, linear estimation. y

t-value y

δ

t-value δ

R2

0.00000619

4.877

0.483

14.389

0.468

The result is quite satisfactory. However, because the score for happiness H cannot exceed 100, one might expect a leveling-off effect. In order to test whether happiness levels off when income grows the following regression equation was also tested: H = ε + σ Y+1 which may be called the leveling-off function. Table 5 provides the results. Apparently, this gives a somewhat better result than the linear estimation of Table 4. Therefore, it can be stated that there is a positive relation between happiness and income per capita and that there is some leveling-off effect when income grows, but this is not spectacular.19 The threshold-hypothesis as put forward by among others Max-Neef (1995), meaning the idea that after a certain income level and continuing growth of income per capita, well-being or happiness may decrease, is not confirmed by this result. Table 5. Happiness as a function of income, leveling off-function. σ

t-value σ

ε

t-value ε

R2

-2216.37

-4.956

0.755

24.93

0.476

6. Results of benchmarking The benchmarking procedure is based on the Engel’s functions for the six composite goods. The actual score of a country for a good was evaluated against the normative score computed with the good specific Engel’s function. Where the actual value was too low the country was given a minus for under-performing on this good; it was given a plus in the case of over-performing. A minus indicates that a country should improve on the issue, whereas a plus implies that a country could do less on a specific indicator. For a number of selected countries, the results of the benchmarking procedure are listed in Table 6. 19 The leveling off might be more visible if low income countries were involved.

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Table 6. Results of benchmarking for selected countries for the six composite goods. Country

X1 (HDI)

X2 (Env. Health)

X3 (GRDI)

X4 (Health exp.)

X5 (Life Exp.) X6 (R&D)

Australia Canada France Germany Hungary Italy Japan Netherlands Slovenia Spain Switzerland United Kingdom United States

+ + + + — + + + + + + +

+ + ? + — — — — + — — +

+ + + + — + + + + + + +

? — — + — — ? — ? ? + ?

+ + + + — + + + + + + +

— — + + — — + — ? — + —

—

—

—

+

—

+

+ = over-performance; — = under-performance; ? = missing data.

These results indicate, for example, for the Netherlands that, taking into account the Dutch average GDP, the country could do better on Environmental Health and on Health expenditure. Further, it is striking that Hungary has only negative scores, where Germany has only positive ones. Clearly, these scores could play a role in the evaluation of a country’s welfare policy. 7. Conclusion and discussion A number of conclusions can be drawn. 1. The Gini index g for income disparities is nothing other than an application of the rank size rule developed by Zipf. The disparity index h can be transformed into g in a simple way. 2. Global Income distribution hardly changed in the period 2001-2004. 3. As a crude welfare measure, income performs well. Under the strict assumptions of a welfare maximising model of the Average Global Consumer (AGC), the hypothesis that income is a suitable indicator for welfare is confirmed. 4. The six composite goods investigated all proved to have an income elasticity of unity or less. This indicates that the AGC considers these as basic goods and not luxury ones. This implies that, in the case of under-performance, governments should increase the ‘supply’ of these goods with high priority. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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5. The hypothesis that happiness is a positive function of income is confirmed for a number of European countries. 6. For the countries taken into account there was some leveling off as far as happiness was concerned. The threshold hypothesis, implying decreasing happiness with rising income per capita, was certainly not confirmed. The overall conclusion must be that one way or another happiness and utility are positively related to income. We may safely conclude that if average world income increases in a situation where income distribution hardly changes (as has been the case in the past few years) people’s well being is positively influenced. Possibly, a growing income is a necessary and not a sufficient condition for increasing happiness. If that is the case, then in the present, with a constant global income distribution between countries and a growing average income per capita, this necessary condition for increasing happiness is being fulfilled for more people than in the past. Acknowledgements Sonja Kruitwagen’s and Pierre van Mouche’s contributions to this paper are gratefully acknowledged. References Ball, P., 2005 [2004]. Critical Mass. London: Arrow books. Casamiglia, X., 1978. Composite goods and revealed preference. International Economic Review 19(2): 395-404. European Commission, 2006. Mental Well-being. Special Eurobarometer 248/Wave 64.4-TNS Opinion and Social. Frey B. and A. Stutzer, 2002. Happiness and Economics. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Heijman, W.J.M., 1998. The Economic Metabolism. Dordrecht (Netherlands): Kluwer. Hicks J.R., 1939. Value and Capital. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Isard W., 1956. Location and Space-Economy: A General Theory Relating to Industrial Location, Market Areas, Land Use, Trade, and Urban Structure. New York: Wiley. Max-Neef, M., 1995. Economic Growth and Quality of Life: a Threshold Hypothesis. Ecological Economics 15: 115-18. The Economist, 2003. Pocket World in Figures 2004 edition. Profile Books and The Economist. The Economist, 2006. Pocket World in Figures 2007 edition. Profile Books and The Economist. The Economist, 2007. December 23rd, 2006 – January 5th, 2007. How to grease a palm: Corruption has its own elaborate etiquette, 119-120. Veenhoven, R., 2005. Apparent quality of life in nations: how long and happy people live. Social Indicators Research 71: 61-86. World Bank, 2005. World Development Report. Washington DC. Zipf, G.K., 1949. Human Behaviour and the Principle of Least Effort. Reading (Mass.): AddisonWesley. 118 

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Appendix 1: from h to g. The relationship between accumulated income percentage y and accumulated population percentage z equals the Lorenz equation: y = zh with h for the disparity index. In order to derive the Gini coefficient g, the area under the Lorenz curve must be computed: 1

∫

1

ydz =  1 z1+h = 1 . 1 + h 0 1 + h

p=0

Now: 1– 1 g = 2 1 + h = h – 1 1 1+h 2 This implies that if h = 1, g = 0 and if h → ∞, g → 1. The coefficient h can be computed with the help of the equation ln y = h ln z. This can be done by linear regression if sufficient data are available. Subsequently g can be computed.

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Appendix 2: The utility maximising model The following utility function and budget constraint was formulated: Max U = U (X1, X2, X3, ..., Xi, ... Xn), i = 1...n, ∂U > 0, ∂U2 < 0 ∂Xi ∂Xi Subject to Y = P1X1 + P2X2 + P3X3 + ... + PiXi + ... + PnXn.

(5)

Solving the model through a Lagrange procedure gives the optimum condition: ∂U | ∂X1 ∂U | ∂X2 ∂U | ∂X3 ... ∂U | ∂Xi ... ∂U | ∂Xn = = = = = = P1 P2 P3 Pi Pn Function U is formulated in such a way that (for sufficiently large Y) in the optimum:20 Xi = yiY + δi A possible utility function would be (for two goods): U = (X1 + β1)α (X2 + β2)1–α, s.t. Y = P1X1 + P2X2 The optimum condition is: ∂U | ∂X1 α X +β p · 2 2= 1 = ∂U | ∂X2 1 – α X1 + β1 p2 So: P2X2 =

1–α 1–α P1X1 + β1P1 – β2P2 α α

Substitution in the budget constraint gives: X1 =

αY P 1–α P – (1 – α) β1 + αβ2 2 , X2 = Y – αβ2 + (1 – α) β1 1 . P1 P1 p2 P2

If Y = 0, Xi is 0 as well. However, for sufficiently large Y according to Marshall’s rule the income elasticity of Good 1 is between 0 and 1 if

20 Of course, if Y = 0 all consumption is 0, so all Engel’s Curves go through the origin. Therefore it is explicitly

stated ‘for sufficiently large Y’.

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–(1 – α) β1 + αβ2

P2 > 0, P1

which means that then Good 1 is a basic good.21 If –(1 – α) β1 + αβ2

P2 < 0, P1

the income elasticity of Good 1 exceeds 1, which means that it is a luxury good. According to the same rule, Good 2 is a basic good if: –(1 – α) β1 + αβ2

P1 > 0, P2

and it is a luxury good if: –(1 – α) β1 + αβ2

P1 < 0, P2

It can be proved that if Good 1 is a basic good, then Good 2 is a luxury good and vice versa. Proof: Good 2 is a basic good if: P1 αβ2 P (1 – α) β1 , > , or 2 < P2 (1 – α) β1 P1 αβ2

which is the condition for Good 1 being a luxury good.

21 Marshall’s

1998).

rule is a geometric way of indicating elasticities, in this case income elasticities (See Heijman,

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Diversity among the elderly, diversity in approach Katrien Luijkx and Carolien de Blok Abstract In our ageing and changing society, one of the important questions under consideration is: how can we, in the future, provide enough help and care to the elderly who need it. This concerns not only the amount of care to be delivered, but also the content of care and the extent to which the care provided meets the necessities, needs, and preferences of the elderly. Older people obviously differ in several ways and, as such, are also very heterogeneous in their necessities, needs, and preferences in the domains of housing, welfare, and care. This implies that we can not speak of the necessities, needs and preferences of the elderly. In this paper we will elaborate on diversity among the elderly along three separate lines, which will be combined eventually. First, the elderly will be categorized according to their necessities and needs for help and assistance; vital elderly are distinguished, as well as futureoriented vital elderly, lonely coping elderly, cognitive-restricted coping elderly, and needy elderly. Second, two types of elderly will be introduced according to the kind of caregiver that has the largest share in providing care and assistance to the elderly person. This results in the distinction between those elderly with a formal safety net and those elderly with an informal safety net. Last but not least, elderly can be classified according to lifestyle. We distinguish cosmopolitan elderly from involved critical elderly and traditional elderly. Combining these distinctions gives thirty possible segments of the elderly. For providers in housing, welfare and care insight into the diversity of the elderly population is important since it offers the ability to directly address the different types of elderly with services in their particular interest. It is expected that the use of modular production principles in the construction of care and service packages can offer almost unlimited service variations while preventing a rise in costs. 1. Introduction Due to our ageing society, the elderly population receives a lot of attention from politicians, policy makers, service providers in the domains of housing, welfare or care, and, last but not least, scientists. Although by no means all elderly people are in need of assistance, the ageing of the population results in a growing number of elderly who will be in need of help or care. Twenty years ago, twelve percent of the Dutch population was 65 years or older, nowadays fourteen percent is of this age. It is expected that in 2025 twenty percent of the population will be 65 years or older (CBS, 2005).

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In this respect, one of the questions under consideration is: how can we, in the future, provide enough help and care to the elderly who need it. More specifically, topics of interest are what part of the labor force will have to work in the care sector, how much informal care will be needed and will be available besides the formal provision of services in housing, welfare, and care, and how the care provided to and the incomes of the elderly will be financed. In the Netherlands, for example, it is expected that, without changes in policy, over twenty percent of the labor force will have to be employed in the care sector in fifteen to twenty years (RVZ Raad voor de Volksgezondheid en Zorg, 2006). However, it is not clear to what extent informal care is included in this expectation. In response to the ageing population and other societal developments, the Dutch government has introduced policy changes such as the modernization of the AWBZ (General Law for Special Costs in Care), reforms in health insurance, and the introduction of the WMO (Social Services Law). These changes directly influence the daily practice of providers in the domains of housing, welfare, and care. Self-evidently, budgets change and sometimes even disappear, new competitors enter the market, and clients are ever more empowered (Breedveld et al., 2006). Instead of complying with government funding and budgets, providers are increasingly challenged to focus on their ultimate clients, those being the civilians. As such, demand-based care is introduced. In order to supply clients with demandbased care, knowledge about their actual necessities, needs and preferences is crucial. Considering the ever-growing elderly population, it is essential to gain insight into the diversity within this age category in domains that are relevant to providers in housing, welfare, and care. How we will be able to take care of the elderly in the future concerns not only the amount of care to be delivered. The content of care and the extent to which the care provided meets the necessities, needs and preferences of the elderly are also important. Older people obviously differ in several ways and, as such, are also very heterogeneous in their necessities, needs and preferences in the domains of housing, welfare, and care. This implies that we can not speak of the necessities, needs and preferences of the elderly. In this paper, diversity among the elderly will be addressed. Our insights are mainly based on a PhD study concerning care for the elderly by Luijkx (Luijkx, 2001) combined with research on elderly segments commissioned by Thebe, a homecare organization in the region of Tilburg (Luijkx and Pardoel, 2005). Ensuing the latter research, a PhD project started at Tranzo, Tilburg University in 2006, to explore the possibilities of operations management in the demand-based delivery of elderly care (De Blok et al., 2007). Some preliminary findings will be presented in the final section of this paper. We will elaborate on diversity among the elderly along three separate lines, which will be combined eventually. First, diversity required in help or assistance in the domains of housing, welfare and care is presented. Second, we focus on the differences in the composition of the safety net. In other words: do elderly prefer help from someone who is part of their social 124 

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network, an informal caregiver, or do they favor help from someone who is a professional. Third, we pay attention to lifestyle as a characteristic that will influence the contents of the packages the elderly want to receive and, maybe to an even larger extent, will influence the way in which people like to receive help in several domains and how they like to be approached. After combining these three perspectives, we will focus on the consequences of this diversity for suppliers in the fields of housing, welfare and care. First of all, however, we will elaborate on the research methods of the main studies underlying this paper in the next section. 2. Research methods 2.1 Care for the elderly Concerns regarding future care provision to the elderly made a PhD study at the department Sociology of Consumers and Households of Wageningen University (Luijkx, 2001) focus on the following research questions: What is the picture of instrumental and social-emotional care for the rural elderly, who still live independently and are aged 75 years and older? Which characteristics of the elderly and which of the informal caregivers influence the care that the elderly receive? Care in general can be viewed as ‘a species activity that includes everything that we do to maintain, continue, and repair our ‘world’ so that we can live in it as well as possible. That world includes our bodies, our selves, and our environment, all of which we seek to interweave in a complex, life-sustaining web’ (Tronto, 1993). According to this, care comprises instrumental care as well as social-emotional care. Instrumental care can be defined as practical assistance in the household, like vacuum cleaning or help with physical tasks, such as getting dressed. This type of care can be measured with questions like ‘who does the groceries, who cooks, and who cleans’. Social-emotional care focuses on well-being. It expresses the character and the quality of a relationship. This care is measured with questions like ‘with whom do you share your daily concerns’. The rural elderly aged 75 years and older were included in the PhD research. The age of 75 can be seen as a turning point. People under 75 are usually not confronted with severe health problems or physical handicaps, whereas from the age of 75, people suffer more often from physical handicaps that limit their self-managing capacities (CBS, 1993; De Jong Gierveld, 1995). The focus on the rural elderly was mainly directed by the rural orientation of Wageningen University and by the fact that the elderly from rural areas are often underrepresented in other research. Besides, compared to cities, rural areas have a larger mean distance to facilities like shops, a library, and a pharmacy (Huigen and Van de Velden, 1989; Kempers-Warmerdam, 1988). At the same time, people in rural areas might be closer to each Changing families and their lifestyles 

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other and, as such, informal care would be more common (De Jong Gierveld and Fokkema, 1998; Fischer, 1982; Thomese, 1998). Data collection for the PhD study on care for the elderly proceeded in two stages. First, qualitative research was conducted to gain insight into the care for the elderly. Eleven elderly people were interviewed. In addition to this, the informal caregivers of six of these elderly were interviewed as well. Resulting from the qualitative research, the instrumental-care situation, the instrumental-care arrangement, and the social-emotional care arrangement were defined. The instrumental-care situation refers to the degree to which the elderly receive instrumental care from people outside their own household. The instrumental-care arrangement refers to the share of informal and professional caregivers in the assistance elderly receive. The social-emotional care arrangement pictures both the degree to which the elderly receive social-emotional care and the proportion of kin and non-kin in the social contacts. Hypotheses about these three objects were specified, based on literature and results from the qualitative research. For the quantitative research, the second stage of data collection, a survey was carried out among a random sample of people aged 75 years and older, stratified according to sex and marital status. These elderly were living in seven rural municipalities in the Netherlands. We were able to analyze the cases of 465 of the 743 elderly that were invited to take part in the research; this is a response rate of 62.6 percent. In addition, 235 informal caregivers of these elderly respondents filled out a written questionnaire. In this paper we mainly address the instrumental-care situation and the instrumental-care arrangement, in accordance with the discussion on elderly care. Although we recognize that loneliness is certainly a relevant problem for the elderly, the social-emotional care arrangement is beyond the scope of this paper. 2.2 Needs of the elderly The second main study on which this paper is based, focused on the necessities and needs of people aged 55 years and older in the domains of housing, welfare, and care (Luijkx and Pardoel, 2005). Thebe, an organization for homecare in the region of Tilburg, commissioned IVA, an institute for policy research and advice that is affiliated to Tilburg University, to provide insight into the necessities, needs and preferences of the elderly through the construction of elderly segments. The homecare organization requested this information to be able to formulate packages that meet elderly needs in an optimal manner. This question fits the development towards the provision of care and services in a more demand-based manner (Rijckmans, 2005). Demand-based provision of care and services, along with other government-induced changes, should in the end close the gap between supply and demand in the public sector. It must lead to service provision that better fits the needs of the individual (Baljé et al., 2003; Keek and Klink, 2005).

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For care providers, demand-based care introduces the challenge to fulfill the unique combination of necessities, needs, and preferences of every individual elderly client. This seems almost impossible. Working with segments of the elderly gives more insight into the necessities, needs and preferences of the elderly and enables the delivery of packages in a more demand-based way. An elderly segment can be defined as a cluster of elderly people having a specific combination of necessities, needs and preferences in the domains of housing, welfare, and care. In 2003, elderly segments were distinguished based on literature and explorative empirical research (Luijkx et al., 2004). In 2004, an extended empirical follow-up research was conducted on a larger scale (Luijkx and Pardoel, 2005). The research question relevant for this paper was: Which elderly segments can be distinguished among women and men aged 55 years and older? To construct elderly segments, a questionnaire was distributed among a random sample of 5,600 people aged 55 years and older, which was stratified according to the ten districts of Tilburg and six villages in its surroundings. In the questionnaire, questions have been asked concerning the use of and the necessities, needs, and preferences for supplies in the fields of housing, welfare and care. In addition, it also asked for general personal characteristics, health, mobility, and lifestyle. In the end, 2,423 elderly filled out the questionnaire, which gave a response rate of 43.3 percent. Based on differing necessities and needs for domestic adaptations, facilities that are considered of importance in the neighborhood, experience of the neighborhood, loneliness, domestic help, the use of supplies, and several activities five elderly segments have been characterized. To unravel the segments, the method of K-means was used in SPSS. This procedure attempts to identify relatively homogeneous groups of cases based on selected characteristics, using an algorithm that can handle large numbers of cases. As has been said, in this study the segments differ in their necessities and needs in the domains of housing, welfare, and care. The use of an algorithm requires the researcher to specify the number of clusters. By comparing the results of different numbers of segments, we decided that five was the optimum number. A sixth or even a seventh segment would not have any additional value; the differences among the segments would become too small. The clusters or elderly segments are mutually exclusive; every individual elderly person belongs to just one segment. In reality, however, there will of course be people who fit in one segment as well as in another. Furthermore, in this research special attention was given to lifestyle. Lifestyle can be interpreted in several ways. Sometimes it refers to habits in daily life and especially the degree to which these are healthy. A healthy lifestyle contains healthy nutrition, enough exercise, non-smoking, and moderate intake of alcohol (e.g. Van den Berg Jeths et al., 2004; Visser et al., 2005). However, we adhere to a different definition regarding lifestyle. In accordance with Motivaction (www.motivaction.nl) we define lifestyle as a person’s Changing families and their lifestyles 

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attitude towards life and his or her values, preferences, and opinions in daily living. Lifestyle was operationalised by asking questions about the activities that the elderly prefer, their participation in volunteer work, their interest in several topics such as computers/the Internet, religion, sports, preferred TV programs, magazines they read, and their opinion on several propositions. The K-means method was used for this classification as well. 3. Needs in the domains of housing, welfare, and care The next section shows the necessities and needs of the elderly in the domains of housing, welfare, and care. The instrumental-care situation, which refers to the degree to which older people receive instrumental care (Luijkx, 2001), along with the elderly segments, showing the needs and necessities in housing, welfare, and care, are presented (Luijkx and Pardoel, 2005). The five elderly segments and the three types of the instrumental-care situations have more similarities than differences. In a subsequent section we argue that these classifications both refer to the amount of instrumental care needed. The instrumental-care situation focuses only on instrumental care, the elderly segments cover housing, welfare, and loneliness as well as instrumental care. Because of the multi-layered composition of the segments, they will be used in the remainder of this paper to cover the amount of instrumental care. The instrumental-care situation will, therefore, be introduced only briefly. 3.1 The instrumental-care situation The instrumental-care situation pictures the degree to which older people receive instrumental care from people outside their own household. Informal care between spouses was not incorporated because the distinction between common daily and informal care in a household is almost impossible to make. At first sight, it is hard to determine whether one is cared for because of an allocation of tasks between spouses or because one suffers from a disease. In addition, in this study a household approach was taken. Three types of the instrumental-care situation are characterized. Elderly people in self-caring households care for themselves and, in households consisting of more than one person, for each other. They receive no or just a little help from people outside their household. Elderly people in cared-for households receive a lot of care from people that are non-household members. They cannot do much themselves. In between these categories are elderly persons in households that just can manage. These elderly largely care for themselves, but in addition receive substantial care from people outside their own household. They receive more instrumental care than the self-caring elderly but less than the cared-for elderly. In the quantitative sample, consisting of people aged 75 years and older, 27.5 percent can be called self-caring, 50.1 percent managing, and 22.4 percent cared-for. The quantitative research shows that the amount of instrumental care that the elderly receive is significantly related to household composition, age, and health indicators of the elderly. The elderly who live alone and the older elderly receive more instrumental care from 128 

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people who are non-household members than the elderly who share their household with someone else and the younger elderly. At first sight, the instrumental-care situation is not influenced by the sex of the elderly person. However, the female elderly in the sample are less healthy than the male elderly. Thus, for a comparison we have to control for health status. When women and men with an analogous health situation are compared, we can see that women receive less instrumental care than men. In addition, the elderly who are less mobile receive more care than the elderly who are more mobile. These results enable us to put the instrumental-care situation in a life-course perspective. When people become older their health tends to decline, resulting in more instrumental care received. Characteristics of informal caregivers are not predicting factors for the instrumental-care situation of the elderly. When people give informal care it does not seem to matter whether they are woman or man and whether they are family or not. Furthermore, the quality of the relationship does not influence the amount of instrumental care the elderly receive. The qualitative research has shown that children give informal care even when they experience the relationship with their parents as not very positive or even negative. The obligations attached to kinship relations seem to be more important than the quality of the relationship. 3.2 Elderly segments The elderly segments picture the needs and necessities of older people in the domains of housing, welfare, and care, in combination with several other characteristics, such as health, age, marital status, loneliness, income, and educational level. The segments vary with respect to these characteristics and can be easily recognized in practice. However, five needs are common for almost all elderly people; 80 to 95 percent of each segment has reported these needs. These basic needs are: • Shops in the neighborhood for daily groceries, especially a supermarket; • Shops in the neighborhood for supplies other than daily groceries, especially a drugstore; • Basis facilities in the neighborhood, especially a mail box, a general practitioner, and a pharmacy; • Other facilities in the neighborhood, especially a park or a forest, resting places, a library, and a community centre. • Complementary care aspects, especially appropriate patient approach and availability of care and services. The five elderly segments will be described in the following subsections. 3.2.1 Vital elderly The vital elderly do not require domestic adaptations. With respect to welfare aspects, they hardly feel lonely and they have a fairly broad interest in activities. The vital elderly like to go out; they prefer to pay visits, go cycling, or go to restaurants. They barely need Changing families and their lifestyles 

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care or assistance; at most they want some support in heavy domestic work and in doing their administration. The vital elderly are mobile and both physically and psycho-socially healthy. They are relatively young (on average 63 years of age) and predominantly married. Furthermore, the vital elderly are active; they participate in volunteer work, care for others, and over one fourth of this elderly segment (still) has a paid job. They are highly educated and have a high income. 3.2.2 Future-oriented vital elderly The future-oriented vital elderly largely resemble the vital elderly, the main difference being that the future-oriented vital elderly seem to put more emphasis on the fact that getting older is accompanied by infirmities. As a result, these elderly are in greater need of adaptations in their bathroom and toilet as well as general domestic adaptations, although they are quite young, very healthy, and mobile, just like the vital elderly. The fact that this group of elderly barely requires care or assistance confirms our expectation that the need for housing adaptations results mainly from an orientation towards the future. The future-oriented vital elderly often are married, fairly highly educated, and have a high income. Furthermore, the vitality of this elderly segment is also shown by the fact that quite a large part of this group participates in volunteer work, takes care of others in their environment, and has a paid job. 3.2.3 Lonely coping elderly The main characteristic of the lonely coping elderly is their loneliness; all these elderly experience feelings of solitude. Furthermore, this group is in a negative psycho-social condition and perceives cognitive constraints. Besides being lonely, these elderly are also coping; they can take care of themselves fairly well, but need other people or devices to help with this. Some require domestic adaptations, others do not. The same reasoning applies to their need for care and assistance. Here, expressed needs mainly concern issues that naturally come with getting older, such as the need for assistance when doing heavy domestic work. Their need for care and assistance is mainly related to difficulties experienced when bending over and stretching out. Furthermore, the lonely coping elderly have limited interest in activities compared to the groups of vital elderly. When they are interested in activities, it is activities that allow them to go out. Physically speaking, lonely coping elderly are quite healthy, whereas their psycho-social health is worse. Compared to the two groups of vital elderly, this segment has somewhat more physical constraints and is a little less mobile. The mental state in particular can be characterized as less positive. The lonely coping elderly are less highly educated and have a lower income than the (future-oriented) vital elderly. They are approximately of the same age as the future-oriented vital elderly: on average 65 years. A large part of this elderly segment lives alone. The lonely coping elderly are somewhat less active in paid and volunteer work than the vital elderly.

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3.2.4 Cognitive-restricted coping elderly The cognitive-restricted coping elderly are in need of many adaptations, care, and assistance. For adaptations, their needs mainly concern a thermostatic tap, a heightened toilet, and no or lowered thresholds. Needed care and assistance is largely caused by restrictions in bending over or stretching out; the elderly need help in heavy domestic work and transportation. They do not need assistance in physical care. Cognitive-restricted coping elderly do require services, such as a hairdresser and pedicure at home. In addition, they have some need for cognitive support; advice on nutrition and diet, home visits by an advisor for information and advice, help in doing their administration, and memory training. In general, the cognitive-restricted coping elderly experience considerable feelings of solitude, but less than the lonely coping elderly. Compared to the other segments, the cognitive-restricted coping elderly experience more cognitive restrictions. They have a reasonable amount of physical restrictions and cycle or drive less than the earlier mentioned segments. The mental state of these elderly is more positive than that of the lonely coping elderly, but less positive than the two segments of vital elderly. On average, the cognitive-restricted coping elderly are 71 years old and more often female than male. Furthermore, they are married less often compared to the other segments discussed. They are lower educated and their income is relatively low. 3.2.5 Needy elderly The needy elderly have many needs in different fields. They require many adaptations, in bathroom and toilet as well as in-house. Almost all these elderly need a heightened toilet, a thermostatic tap, support rails in the toilet, lowered or no thresholds, and a bedroom downstairs. Besides a need for adaptations, this segment also requires care and assistance; in performing domestic care, but also in physical care and the cognitive domain. Although the elderly in general do not need assistance in physical care, ninety percent of the people in the needy elderly segment do. Obviously, these elderly also need help in domestic care, while doing their administration, and for transportation. They also require in-house services, such as a hairdresser and a pedicure, and support in the cognitive domain, assisted holidays, day care or the possibility to stay temporarily in an elderly home when needed. In addition, the needy elderly feel quite lonely and they have bad health, both physically and psychosocially. Furthermore, they suffer from cognitive restrictions. This is also shown in the use of transportation; the needy elderly hardly cycle, hardly ever drive a car themselves, while more often than the other segments, they make use of a rollator or scooter for the disabled. On average, the needy elderly are the oldest of all segments: 75 years. More often than the other segments, they live alone; 52.7 percent of the needy elderly is married. They are low educated and have a low income. They are hardly active neither in volunteer work nor in providing care to others. In the sample, consisting of elderly people aged 55 years and older, 27.5 percent can be called vital, 26.5 percent future-oriented vital, 17.4 percent lonely coping, 18.4 percent cognitive coping and 10.4 percent can be called needy.

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3.3 In comparison The three types of instrumental-care situation revealed in the PhD study, and the five segments of elderly revealed in the other study, have more similarities than differences. The self-caring elderly in the PhD study are as vital as the (future-oriented) vital elderly segments. The lonely coping segment and part of the cognitive-restricted coping elderly live in households that can just manage. The cognitive-restricted coping elderly that are more coping than cognitive restricted can be called managing, whereas the elderly can be categorized as cared-for in case they are more severely restricted in their cognitive capabilities. The similarities between elderly people in cared-for households and the needy elderly are self-evident. To adequately compare the results of both studies, we need to compare the percentages of the people aged 75 years and older in the elderly segments (N = 494) with the percentages of the PhD study. Figure 1 shows these figures and the similarities of the results of the two studies. 100% 90%

Cared for

80%

Needy

70% 60% 50%

Managing

Cognitive-restricted coping

40% Lonely coping

30% 20% 10% 0%

Self-caring

Future-oriented vital Vital

instrumental-care situation

elderly segments

Figure 1. Comparing the percentages of people aged 75 years and older for the instrumentalcare situation and the elderly segments.

4. Who takes care Services in the domains of housing, welfare and care in particular, can be provided by professionals or by members of the social network, such as daughters, sons, and others. The latter can be called informal caregivers. At first sight, it makes no difference whether a formal or an informal caregiver provides help; the house will be cleaned, the meal will be 132 

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cooked, and grocery shopping will be done in either way. Looking more closely, however, we learned from the PhD study on care for the elderly (Luijkx, 2001), that there are differences between care offered by professionals and care given by informal caregivers. Firstly, the contents of the care package differ, but more important is the difference in the experience of the care received. According to the degree to which help is provided by informal caregivers or formal caregivers, we distinguished elderly people with an informal safety net from elderly people with a formal safety net. Elderly people with an informal safety net receive only or predominantly instrumental care from informal caregivers. Elderly people with a formal safety net receive only or predominantly formal (professional) care. The care both groups receive is different. Elderly people with a formal safety net are almost all helped to perform the heavy tasks in housekeeping such as vacuum cleaning and cleaning the windows. Compared to elderly people with an informal safety net, they receive a fixed package of care, the content of which is determined in advance. Care given to elderly people with an informal safety net is more diverse and seems to be more adjusted to individual needs and wishes. They, for example, are also assisted more often in paying the bills on time or in deciding when the refrigerator needs to be cleaned. Besides the content of their care package, these two types of elderly also differ in how they experience the care received. Elderly people who receive predominantly informal care refer to this care in terms of self-care. This way they emphasize that the care they receive from their daughter or son is close to them. Elderly people who predominantly receive formal care emphasize their feelings of independence in the care relationship; they receive care from a professional caregiver, pay for it, and therefore are not indebted to anyone. Because of this, these elderly experience this care as less of a threat to their independence when compared to informal care provision. Whether elderly people have a formal or informal safety net is significantly related to the normative values and characteristics of the social network of the elderly. Elderly people who believe that children (in-law) ought to give informal care and elderly people who think about gender roles in a traditional way, are more likely to have an informal safety net than elderly people who have other normative values towards these topics. Furthermore, elderly people who have a social network consisting for the most part of children, elderly people who have more children, and elderly people who have more children without paid employment more often receive care that is predominantly informal compared to elderly people for whom this is not the case. Characteristics that can not be influenced, such as their sex, age, and health, do not significantly influence the instrumental-care arrangement. This enables us to conclude that elderly people prefer either informal or formal care and deliberately choose for one or the other.

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To focus on the composition of the safety net, the instrumental-care arrangement was defined only for the 233 elderly who can just manage. Of the managing elderly 36.0 percent can be called managing with an informal safety net, that is 18.0 percent of the total sample of people aged 75 years and older, while 64.0 percent, that is 32.1 percent of the total sample, can be called managing with a formal safety net. 5. Lifestyle In a previous section lifestyle was described as a person’s attitude towards life and his or her values, preferences, and opinions in daily living. In several studies about needs in housing, welfare, and care, lifestyle was assumed to be an influencing factor (Luijkx et al., 2004; Luijkx, 2006; Luijkx and Pardoel, 2005). For example, elderly people who have a different lifestyle would differ in their needs, would prefer different manners, and would need to be approached differently. Although in research no such relationship has been significantly demonstrated yet, we strongly believe that lifestyle, certainly in the nearby future, will be an important influencing factor in the provision of housing, welfare, and care on which service providers can make a difference. In the study on elderly segments commissioned by Thebe, three lifestyles were distinguished by use of the K-means method of analyses (Luijkx and Pardoel, 2005). Elderly who can be called cosmopolitan are open to societal and technical renewals and they tend to look beyond their own surroundings and experiences. In general, they are interested in topical matters and content; on television they always watch the news and often watch discussion programs, they hardly ever watch quizzes or movies. In general, the cosmopolitan elderly are highly educated and have a high income. The elderly that can be called involved critical are interested in various issues and are therefore actively involved in society. At the same time, they are critical; they question if all changes in modern society are for the best and they like to discuss these issues and how societal changes can be improved. The involved critical elderly, for example, almost always watch the news, but also music programs, movies and quizzes. This segment does not belong to the elite like the cosmopolitan elderly do; they belong to the middle class. This is in line with the fact that these elderly, in comparison with the cosmopolitan elderly, are less highly educated and have a somewhat lower income. In comparison with the other two lifestyles, elderly people who have a traditional lifestyle are less interested in the world around them. They regularly watch the news, quizzes, and music or nature programs. They adhere to traditional values. In general, the traditional elderly are lower educated and their income is relatively low. Their health is also relatively poor. In the sample of 2,423 people aged 55 years and older, 33.8 percent can be called cosmopolitan, 34.2 percent involved critical, and 32.0 percent traditional. 134 

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6. Diversity among elderly In the previous sections, we elaborated upon several distinctions that can be found in the elderly population, which are relevant for receiving, and therefore providing, care and other services. In this section these insights will be combined, to reveal an overwhelming diversity amongst the elderly. First, the elderly were categorized according to their need for help and assistance; vital elderly were distinguished, as well as future-oriented vital elderly, lonely coping elderly, cognitive-restricted coping elderly, and needy elderly. These types of elderly people are presented on the horizontal axis of Table 1. Second, two types of elderly people were introduced according to the kind of caregiver (informal or formal/professional) that has the largest share in providing care to the elderly person. This resulted in the distinction between the elderly with a formal safety net and the elderly with an informal safety net. This is displayed on the vertical axis of the figure. Last but not least, the elderly can be grouped according to lifestyle. We distinguished the cosmopolitan elderly from the involved critical elderly and the traditional elderly. Along with the type of safety net, this is pictured on the vertical axis of the figure. Table 1 shows that combining these distinctions gives us thirty possible segments of elderly. The study on elderly segments gave us the percentages of people aged 55 years and older that belong to a certain segment, based on the amount and type of instrumental care they need in combination with their lifestyle. Based on the PhD study, we may assume that about one third of elderly people prefer an informal safety net, while two thirds prefer a formal safety net. The division between an informal and a formal safety net in Table 1 is based on this estimation. The estimated percentages also show that some combinations are less likely than others. For example, in reality the chance of meeting a cosmopolitan needy elderly person is small, while meeting a cosmopolitan (future oriented) vital elderly person with a formal safety net is much more likely. Besides the distinctions shown, we are convinced that there Table 1. Diversity among the elderly of 55 years and older (in estimated %). Safety net Vital

Cosmopolitan

Informal Formal Involved critical Informal Formal Traditional Informal Formal Total

3.9 7.9 3.1 6.3 2.1 4.2 27.5

Futureoriented vital

Lonely coping

Cognitive- Needy restricted coping

Total

3.9 7.7 3.1 6.1 1.8 3.7 26.3

1.7 3.5 1.7 3.5 2.3 4.7 17.4

1.6 3.2 2.3 4.5 2.3 4.5 18.4

11.4 22.8 11.3 22.7 10.6 21.2 100

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0.3 0.5 1.1 2.3 2.1 4.1 10.4

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may be even more possible relevant distinctions of the elderly population, which makes the diversity among the elderly even more obvious. 7. Diversity in approach Concluding this paper, we will pay attention to how the presented diversity among the elderly can be used in the day-to-day practice of organizations in housing, welfare, and care. For every organization, knowledge of its client base is indispensable in order to survive in a rapidly changing, competitive environment. Being under increasing competitive pressure (Breedveld et al., 2006), this also holds for service providers in the fields of housing, welfare, and care. In this sense, the presented diversity among the elderly can be employed in several ways, thereby offering means to shift towards a service organization that is more clientfocused. For example, an organization’s marketing approach can be changed from a productfocused method oriented to the masses, to an integrated, segment-focused approach, thereby allowing for more targeted promotion (Van Leeuwen, 2005). In addition, knowledge of the various profiles of necessities, needs, and preferences gives the opportunity to effectively develop new services. In this section, however, we will focus on yet another application of the presented diversity among the elderly, that being the opportunities it provides in the construction and delivery of demand-based care and service packages. As mentioned in the Introduction, the shift towards demand-based care challenges providers in housing, welfare, and care to focus increasingly on their ultimate clients, those being the civilians. The extent to which a provider of care or services is able to adapt its supply to an individual client’s needs and preferences will therefore largely influence its success in the marketplace. As such, understanding client needs has become essential throughout the entire service package. Providing the elderly with the care and service package that is optimally suited to their necessities, needs, and preferences would imply that organizations in housing, welfare, and care need to supply a wide variety of services. However, offering increased variety and choice options is usually accompanied by a rise in production costs (e.g. Ulrich, 1995), which is highly undesirable in the field of health care. The principle of modular production offers a way to increase variety while preventing a rise in costs. In essence, modular production allows separate parts of a product or service to be made in volume as standard components (Duray et al., 2000). These components can be easily mixed and matched to assemble numerous combinations that offer increased choice to the organization’s customers (Salvador et al., 2002). In a conceptual exploration on the application of modular production principles in elderly care, De Blok et al. (2007) showed that a modular organization of supply helps organisations to deal with varying client needs in a diverse elderly care environment. When constructing care and service packages for different elderly segments, distinctions can easily be achieved by combining different types of components for each segment, while drawing from the same set of supply. The modular service architecture also promotes joint service construction and delivery in a setting where clients need dissimilar types of services to be provided in a cost-efficient manner. 136 

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The thirty possible segments of elderly, as presented in Table 1, provide insight into the peculiarities of each category of elderly. Combining the presented insights with a modular construction of care and service packages allows an organization to determine a ready-to-use script for each segment that contains the services that are very likely required by an elderly client in that particular segment. As such, a package of services can be assembled in advance. For example, a pre-assembled package for future-oriented vital elderly people with a formal safety net and an involved critical lifestyle will most likely contain domestic adaptations, heavy domestic work, and administrative help. Furthermore, the package should emphasize the independence of the elderly client and allow for client involvement in the compilation and delivery of the care and service arrangement. Conversely, services provided in the ready-to-use package for cognitive-restricted coping elderly with an informal safety net and traditional lifestyle will most likely be extended with services in transportation, advice, and physical care and should emphasize security and support in service delivery. Furthermore, attention has to be paid to the care and assistance that is already provided by the informal safety net. As such, there has to be room for deliberation with the family care giver. Pre-assembled care and service packages have the advantage that solutions to an individual elderly client’s demands can be offered as soon as the segment the elderly belongs to is known. The provision of services in housing, welfare, and care to the individual client, therefore, may be faster and more accurate. As such, insight into the diversity within the elderly population offers providers in housing, welfare and care with the ability to directly address the different types of elderly with services for their particular interests, which can be individualized accordingly. Besides addressing all the elderly segments presented with pre-assembled arrangements in care and services, an organization may also choose to focus on only two or even one of the presented distinctions. This will drastically diminish the possible number of segments. Identifying unique distinctions can enable an organization to define a niche and develop customized service packages (Lengnick-Hall, 1996), as such offering unrivaled benefits within a focused market segment (Porter, 1985). Also when such a strategy is followed, the elderly segments shed a useful light on the necessities, needs and preferences of diverse types of elderly. Concluding the above, the presented segments provide guidelines for the composition and delivery of care and service arrangements. We realize that the care and service arrangements are based on mainstreams and fulfill needs only at the generic level of the elderly segment. To fulfill the demands of the individual client, fine-tuning will have to take place. The generic care and service package will have to be customized by means of adapting services in housing, welfare, and care. In this way, a specific care and service package, that fulfils the unique needs and wants of the individual client, is composed (Luijkx et al., 2004). However, the diverse elderly types presented grant a ready-to-use script with which organizations in the fields of housing, welfare, and care can immediately tune their organizational practices. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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Furthermore, we should avoid placing an elderly client into a ‘compartment’ purely on the basis of indicators or a questionnaire. It is important to determine the segment an elderly client belongs to in interaction with this client, based on good listening and examination of the client situation. Therefore, a setting should be created that allows for client involvement in the care process. By means of front office – back office configurations (Zomerdijk, 2005) an organization can decide which activities will have to take place in the presence of the client (front office activities) and which in the absence of the client (back office activities). Back office activities allow for efficiency and speed in the process of care construction and delivery. Front office activities allow for customization of the service package (Zomerdijk, 2005), but also for social interaction in which a professional can show his concern, empathy, and sympathy to the client. This is especially important in highly intangible services such as care and welfare. For these types of services, it is not only vital what service is provided but also how the service is provided. As such, a client’s perception of quality depends greatly on the delivery process and the professional delivering the service (Lengnick-Hall, 1996; Meyer Goldstein et al., 2002). Here, the insight into a segment’s lifestyle and values can be of great help in deciding how and by whom to deliver a care and service package to a particular elderly person. Currently, a PhD project at Tranzo, Tilburg University is exploring further the possible advantages that can be achieved from applying front office – back office configurations in elderly care. The presented application of elderly segments enables an organization to directly tune its organizational practices to a particular client. Insight into the diversity of the elderly population is important since it offers the ability to directly address the different types of elderly with services for their particular interests. For organizations in housing, welfare, and care this allows for a more effective and efficient way of working when taking the client as a starting point for care and service provision. References Baljé, S., M. Henzing, H. Krajenbrink, B. Lammerts, J. Middeldorp and T. De Vries, 2003. Vragender wijs. Vraagsturing in de praktijk [in Dutch]. Den Haag: Ministerie van Economische Zaken. Breedveld, E.J., B.R. Meijboom and A.A. De Roo, 2006. Labour supply in the home care industry: A case study in a Dutch region. Health Policy 76(2): 144-55. CBS, 1993. Ouder worden in nederland in 1993 [in Dutch]. Voorburg/Den Haag: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. CBS, 2005. Statline databank. Voorburg/Den Haag: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. De Blok, C., B. Meijboom, K. Luijkx and J. Schols, 2007. Modularity in health care: Towards costefficient and client-focused service provision. Paper presented at the EurOMA conference, Ankara. De Jong Gierveld, J., 1995. De leeftijd van de sterken; de positie van oudere vrouwen in Nederland anno 1995. In: C.H.M. Smits and M.J.F.J. Vernooij-Dassen (eds), De toekomst van vrouwen. Oudere vrouwen in onderzoek, beleid en praktijk [in Dutch], pp.13-23. Amsterdam: VU Uitgeverij.

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De Jong Gierveld, J. and T. Fokkema, 1998. Geographical differences in support networks of older adults. Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 89(3): 328-36. Duray, R., P.T. Ward, G.W. Milligan, and W.L. Berry, 2000. Approaches to mass customization: Configurations and empirical validation. Journal of Operations Management 18: 605-625. Fischer, C.S., 1982. To Dwell Among Friends. Personal Networks in Town and City. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Huigen, P.P.P. and M.C.H.M. Van de Velden, 1989. De achterkant van verstedelijkt Nederland. De positie en functie van landelijke gebieden in de Nederlandse samenleving [in Dutch]. Amsterdam/Utrecht: Koninklijk Nederlands Aardrijkskundig Genootschap / Geografisch Instituut Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht. Keek, T. and X. Klink, 2005. Beslissende invloed voor de burger. Advies aan het kabinet van de werkgroep vraagsturing bij (semi-)publieke diensten [in Dutch]. Kempers-Warmerdam, A.H.H.H., 1988. Vergrijzen in het groen. Het bereik van ouderen en de bereikbaarheid van voorzieningen in landelijke gebieden [in Dutch]. Nederlandse Geografische studies, 59. Lengnick-Hall, C.A., 1996. Customer contributions to quality: A different view of the customeroriented firm. Academy of Management Review 21(3): 791-824. Luijkx, K.G., 2001. Zorg; Wie doet er wat aan. Een Studie naar Zorgarrangementen van Ouderen [in Dutch]. PhD Thesis Wageningen University. Luijkx, K.G., 2006. Leefstijl en woon-, welzijns- en zorgwensen van ouderen [in Dutch]. Tilburg: IVA. Luijkx, K., C. De Blok, B. Meijboom and P. Van den Akker, 2004. Zorgarrangementen in de ouderenzorg. Vraagsturing in zorg en welzijn in tilburg [in Dutch]. Tilburg: IVA/Tranzo. Luijkx, K.G. and K. Pardoel, 2005. Ouderensegmenten. Behoeften wonen, welzijn en zorg in de wijk [in Dutch]. Tilburg: IVA. Meyer Goldstein, S., R. Johnston, J.A. Duffy and J. Rao, 2002. The service concept: The missing link in service design research? Journal of Operations Management 20: 121-34. Porter, M.E., 1985. Competitive strategy. New York: Free Press. Rijckmans, M.J.N., 2005. Positioning the Individual in Health Care. PhD Thesis Tilburg University. Amsterdam: Dutch University Press. RVZ Raad voor de Volksgezondheid en Zorg, 2006. Arbeidsmarkt en zorgvraag. Labour market and demand for care. Salvador, R., C. Forza and M. Rungtusanatham, 2002. Modularity, product variety, production volume, and component sourcing: Theorizing beyond generic prescriptions. Journal of Operations Management 20: 549-575. Thomese, F., 1998. Buurtnetwerken van ouderen. Een sociaal-wetenschappelijk onderzoek onder zelfstandig wonende ouderen in Nederland [in Dutch]. Amsterdam: Thela Thesis. Tronto, J.C., 1993. Moral Boundaries. A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. London: Routledge. Ulrich, K., 1995. The role of product architecture in the manufacturing firm. Research Policy 24: 419-440.

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Van den Berg Jeths, A., J.M. Timmermans, N. Hoeymans and I.B. Woittiez, 2004. Ouderen nu en in de toekomst. Gezondheid, verpleging en verzorging 2000 – 2020 [in Dutch]. Bilthoven/Den Haag: RIVM/SCP. Van Leeuwen, G.S.M., 2005. Zorgmarketing nieuwe uitdaging voor de zorg [in Dutch]. ZM Magazine (1): 2-5. Visser, M., S.M.F. Pluijm, M.H.L. Van der Horst, J.L. Poppelaars and D.J.H. Deeg, 2005. Leefstijl van 55-64-jarige nederlanders in 2002/’03 minder gezond dan in 1992/’93 [in Dutch]. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor Geneeskunde 149(52): 2973-8. Zomerdijk, L.G., 2005. Design decisions in the front office - back office issue. PhD Thesis Groningen University. Ridderkerk: Labyrinth Publications.

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The family as social capital: the influence of parents’ friends on occupational prestige Hester Moerbeek Abstract Modernisation theory predicted a transition from particularistic values to universalistic values in contemporary industrial societies. This should lead to a shift of the influence of ascribed characteristics, such as social background, towards the influence of achieved characteristics, such as education on life chances. Although the influence of social background has indeed diminished, the characteristics of the father continue to have an effect on his children’s occupational prestige. In this paper an alternative hypothesis is suggested to explain this remaining influence of social background on prestige. Instead of looking at the father as mainly an economic resource, and the remaining effect he has on his children’s achievements as a remainder of particularism, the suggestion is to look at both parents as their children’s ascribed social capital. Friends and acquaintances can then be seen as achieved social capital and the transition as one from ascribed to achieved social capital. This paper presents proof of the suggested ‘achieved-social-capital’ hypotheses, which state that: a. Ascribed social capital (family) is more important in the beginning of the career than achieved social capital (friends), b. Achieved social capital is more important in later stages of the career than ascribed social capital. 1. Introduction In contemporary societies the importance of (nuclear) families seems to be declining. Due to demographic changes more and more households consist of one person, relying on professionals, friends, acquaintances, and colleagues for practical and moral support. Although most Dutch children still grow up within the realms of a nuclear family, the common activities of families seem to have declined. Family members don’t eat, play or do sport together or even at the same time as used to be the case in earlier ages. In the Netherlands, ten percent of nuclear families can be classified as individualized households (De Hoog and Van Ophem, 2006). Family sociology is an important discipline to explain the impacts of these changes in families and family life. This paper is an attempt to provide an empirical example of the remaining importance of the nuclear family for people’s life chances. For this I will look into an area where theories of social stratification and social capital merge: the labour market. How people attain their status and their level of income, and how differences in status and income levels emerge, have been central questions in sociology for a long time. Two Changing families and their lifestyles 

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factors known for causing differences in status and income in industrial societies are family background and education. In the societal transition from a pre-industrial society towards an industrial one several things were presumed to change. Before the shift towards industrialism, sons tended to inherit their father’s job or business, and were often trained by him personally. This changed when more complicated machines were introduced into the production process, and the home ceased to be the major work place. Due to the rise in a demand for specialisation in the labour market, education became a more important factor in acquiring a job. Since then education has been claimed as a necessary requirement for obtaining a place in the labour market (Collins 1971; 1979). Changes in norms and values are intertwined with these economic changes in society. Where values used to be particularistic, and nepotism used to be the norm, in contemporary society values are expected to be universalistic and the norm should be a meritocracy (Parsons, 1951). In the Netherlands, the shift from a pre-industrial towards an industrial and later a postindustrial society has resulted in norms according to which all individuals should have equal chances to get a good education and a good job. Plus, given a certain education, all people should have equal chances to acquire similar-status jobs. These days, the Dutch government provides mostly free education until the end of the compulsory school period. Further education is provided below cost price. A grant and loan system is available to anyone wishing to pursue further studies. In the labour market people should be judged only on their own merits – when they start their employment career people should be judged on their education, and later on also on their work experience, but not on the basis of their social origin, sex, race, religion or sexual orientation. These norms are not unique to the Netherlands. In other Western (post-)industrial societies, the same norms prevail. The first extensive study that tested the true value of a meritocracy for the United States is Blau and Duncan’s ‘The American Occupational Structure’ (1967). Blau and Duncan conducted their study for men and their sons only, due to an under-representation of women in the labour market at the time. They found that the education and occupational status of someone’s father had a large impact on their education, even in an industrialised society like the United States in 1962. The father’s characteristics also directly and indirectly influenced his son’s occupational status, although the occupational status of the son was mainly explained by his own education. Blau and Duncan predicted that, with ongoing modernisation, the influence of education and work experience (achievement) on occupational status would increase at the cost of the influence of paternal characteristics (ascription). They expected the effect of the characteristic of the father to disappear altogether in time, as a consequence of a societal transition to universalistic norms. In the Netherlands, research has also shown a trend towards less influence of the father. Of course, now research has expanded to the mothers and daughters. Nevertheless, the 142 

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characteristics of the father in particular continue to have an effect on his children’s achieved education and occupational prestige (Moerbeek, 2001; Moerbeek and Need, 2003; Moerbeek and Flap, 2007). The question thus remains why the father’s influence is still so prominent, especially in the onset of his children’s career. Furthermore, social sciences need to try to explain the meaning of this lasting influence. In the next section I point to some possible theoretical explanations of this phenomenon, now more focusing on the father’s characteristics as indicative of family background. 2. The remaining influence of family background: are we a society in transition or is it part of the life cycle? A first possible explanation for the remaining influence of family background can be sought in the transition Parsons (1951) and Blau and Duncan (1967) predicted. It may still be true that our society is in a transition from particularistic towards universalistic values, but the transition is not yet complete. Evidence for this would be when the effect of family background was still decreasing. A trend towards less influence of family background has been found by some (see, for instance, Ganzeboom and De Graaf, 1983; Ganzeboom et al., 1987; Ganzeboom et al., 1989). But, despite theoretical and methodological contributions to the model throughout the years, the main conclusions of Blau and Duncan’s research have remained intact. And even if the direct effect of family background on occupational prestige disappeared, there is a vast and lasting effect of family background on education. In the Netherlands, people’s achieved level of education is highly correlated with their parents’ education. Due to the Dutch educational system, this influence can not be explained by economic factors alone. Therefore, another possible explanation for the remaining influence of family background gained ground: the so-called cultural capital theory. This theory leaves the idea of a societal tradition behind and focuses, following Bourdieu (1973; 1983; 1984[1979]), on cultural differences between social strata. The line of reasoning is that parents from the upper classes are equipped to teach their children the culture of the upper classes. In higher education this culture prevails, and thus children from higher classes are better able to succeed in these types of education. Although this line of reasoning certainly sounds plausible, it is also a bit archaic; chances within Dutch society are supposedly distributed based on merits and not on class, and the theory of cultural capital finds its basis in a class system that seems to have largely disappeared. Furthermore, although this may explain the influence of family background on educational achievement, it does not yet explain the direct influence of family background on occupational prestige. An alternative explanation is sought in social capital theory. Social capital consists of the social resources a person has access to through the people he or she knows and the people who know him or her. Thus, social capital is a product of the social networks people form. (For more definitions of social capital, see Coleman, 1990; Lin, Changing families and their lifestyles 

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1982; Putnam, 2002.) Although there are several definitions of social capital, they share a common ground: social capital, like financial capital (money) does not mean anything until it is spent. Social capital may for example yield care, company, friendship, and information. On the labour market, social capital may provide people with, for instance, information about jobs, employers and employees, or with good references. Higher occupational prestige or income than can be expected based on educational level or work experience alone might result. Sources for social capital can be friends, acquaintances, or family members. First of all, social capital can be fitted in the predictions Blau and Duncan made. If we argue that family is ascribed social capital, and friends and acquaintances are achieved social capital, in contemporary societies the influence of family as social resources should have declined relative to the influence of friends and acquaintances as social resources. Thus, the societal transition may have been from nepotism to other less obvious forms of favouritism. Although this argument sounds plausible, it is almost impossible to prove. One would need very particular historical and longitudinal data for that. So let us stick to the lasting effect of family background as found in contemporary research and try to fit social capital into a life cycle perspective. The first people we all meet (some exceptions are of course possible, but they are very rarely found in a-select data) are our parents. Thus, following social capital theory, our parents would be the first persons to provide us with social resources. Later on in life, by going to school and during our first steps in the labour market, we produce our own social capital through the friends and acquaintances we meet and the social resources they provide us with. In this paper I would like to prove that the lasting effect of family background on labour market achievements takes on the form of the social capital parents provide their children with (ascribed social capital). Furthermore, I would like to argue that during the life cycle the social capital provided by friends (achieved social capital) becomes more important for labour market achievements than ascribed social capital. These arguments have been supported by empirical findings until now, since family background is found to be a more important explanatory factor for the prestige of the first job than for later job prestige. These expectations can be summarized in the following ‘achieved-social-capital’ hypotheses: a. Ascribed social capital (family) is more important in the beginning of the career than achieved social capital (friends). b. Achieved social capital is more important in later stages of the career than ascribed social capital. In the following sections I will first describe the data and operationalisations used to test the achieved social capital hypotheses. After that, I will describe the analyses and results.

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3. Data and operationalisations For the analyses in this paper I make use of the Dutch Telepanel Survey (ESR/Telepanel 1993).22 The Telepanel Survey consisted of three waves, of which the second wave is most relevant to this research. The second wave contains about 1,900 households with approximately 3,500 household members. Background characteristics largely comply with Dutch households in general. A complete justification of the representativeness of the total survey can be obtained from the Steinmetz Archive (ESR/Telepanel, 1992-1993, Steinmetz Archive). In order to test my achieved-social-capital hypotheses, I used the prestige of the two best friends of the parents at the time the respondent was young as an indicator for ‘ascribed social capital’. The prestige of the two best friends of the respondent was used as an indicator for ‘achieved social capital’.23 Variables like age and sex were measured straightforwardly. For the level of education for respondents and their fathers (the latter was used as an indicator for family background24) I used the Standard Educational Index from 1987 (Central Bureau of Statistics 1987): (1) primary; (2) low vocational, extended primary; (3) middle vocational, grammar; (4) higher vocational; (5) university. To determine a person’s occupational prestige, I applied the occupational prestige scale that was constructed for the Netherlands by Sixma and Ultee (1984). This scale ranges from 13 (garbage collector) to 87 (surgeon). Data were collected 22 These data are quite old. Nevertheless they are the best data on the combination of labour market achievements,

social capital and family characteristics the Netherlands have to offer until now. This may be seen as another indication that family sociology should not loose it’s disciplinary status. There have been other large-scale data collections on Dutch families, but not with indicators of social capital and/or labour market achievements included. 23 These variables measure access to social resources rather than the application of social resources on the labour

market. If we focus on actual use of social resources selectiveness may occur (see Lin and Dumin, 1986; Völker and Flap, 1999; Moerbeek, 2001; Moerbeek and Flap, 2007 for further details). The focus on actually used social capital has major drawbacks. Bias may occur because those people who did make use of social resources, but did not obtain a job are left out of the analyses. Another drawback is that when one only takes the amount of social resources used into account, and leaves out the quality of the social resources (the status of the contact person) the effects on occupational prestige are all negative (see De Graaf and Flap, 1988). It seems as if for people who use social resources to find a job, the job in itself is more important than whether it is the best job they could find given their education and work experience. A way to avoid these drawbacks is focusing on access to social resources rather than on actual use. 24 To ensure parsimony of the model, I have only included the education of the father as an indicator for family

background. Due to the high correlation between the education of the father and his occupational career, and between the educational level of both parents, including these other variables in the model would enhance the risk of multi-collinearity, especially when many other, highly correlating, variables are included. In the present case the choice for the education of the father was based on empirical considerations. Apparently the recollection of the respondents is better with regard to their father’s education. This variable had far fewer missing values than the father’s occupational prestige.

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on full careers, up to twelve jobs. Prestige of the current or last job of respondents was found by creating a loop over all jobs which selected the last job on which information was given by the respondent. 4. Influence of friends of the family versus own friends In order to see the relevance of the analyses that will follow in this section, I have to explain a bit more about social resources, and the mechanisms through which they work. Why would it be useful for someone’s labour market position to know certain people? The first and most direct way in which people can help each other in the labour market is by one hiring the other. The second way in which people can help each other on the labour market is by giving good references, and the third, most indirect way, is by giving information (on vacancies or work environment for instance). Parents can do these kinds of things for their children, but they can also ask their friends to do so or their friends can do so without asking. Here a principle from social psychology enters the picture, namely that of transitivity of friendships. If, for instance, Peter befriends John and Bill, but John and Bill do not directly befriend each other, they will nevertheless show the same willingness to help each other as they would to help Peter because of their mutual friendship with him. Because of this principle the friends of the parents may be willing to help their friends’ children and can thus be an important asset for these children at the time they enter the labour market. To test the achieved-social-capital hypotheses, the line of reasoning remains as stated before: when people enter the labour market they do not yet have that many work-related friends. For that reason, their parents are still a very important social resource. Later on in their career people will make their own work-related friends and acquaintances. Therefore, the friends of the parents will have a greater influence at the beginning of the career, while a person’s own friends will be of more influence later on. In order to test the hypotheses, I have regressed prestige of the first and the current job on the prestige of the parents’ friends and the prestige of the respondent’s own friends. The prestige of the parents’ friends when the respondent was young is used as an indicator for ascribed access to social capital. The prestige of the respondent’s own best friends at the time of the interview is used as an indicator for achieved access to social capital. According to the achieved-social-capital hypotheses, the prestige of the friends of the parents is a dominant influence on the respondent’s first job, while the prestige of the respondent’s own friends is of more influence on the prestige of the respondent’s current job. In Table 1 the results of the analysis are reported. From Table 1 we can see that the achieved-social-capital hypotheses cannot be refuted. The parents’ first best friend has a highly significant effect on the prestige of the first job. The parents’ second best friend also has a positive effect, although this is only significant at the ten percent level. Regarding the prestige of the current job, we see that the prestige of the 146 

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Table 1. Regression of prestige of first and current job on ‘friends’ variables. Unstandardised and standardised coefficients (pairwise deletion of missing values, minimum N=560). First job prestige First job prestige Education Friend parents 1 Friend parents 2

1.351 ** 0.132 0.143 ** 0.173 0.062 ^ 0.074

Own friend 1 Own friend 2 Intercept R2

28.650 7.10%

Current job prestige 0.534 ** 0.467 0.538 0.046 -0.010 -0.011 0.037 0.037 0.180 ** 0.184 0.078 * 0.082 8.796 32.65%

** significant at 1% level * significant at 5% level ^ significant at 10% level

respondent’s best friends has a highly significant positive effect, although the effect of the first best friend is greater than that of the second best friend. The prestige of the parents’ best friends has no effect on the prestige of the respondent’s current job. This is in line with the prediction of the achieved-social-capital hypotheses. The results in Table 1 seem to provide proof for the achieved-social-capital hypotheses. Nevertheless, the true test of the hypotheses can only be performed if the characteristics of the father are included in the analysis. The transition Blau and Duncan (1967) originally predicted was the one from ascription (family background) to achievement (own education). If this transition is indeed to be read as a transition from ascribed social capital (friends of the parents) to achieved social capital (own friends), inclusion of the social capital variables should diminish the effects of family background and education. In Table 2 the analysis of the status attainment model with the inclusion of ascribed and achieved social capital is depicted.

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Table 2. Regression of prestige of first and current job on ‘friends’ variables. Unstandardised and standardised coefficients (pairwise deletion of missing values, standard errors between brackets). Minimum N=445. First job prestige First job prestige

Education

Father’s education

Current job prestige

1.289 0.126 (0.272) ** 3.659 0.241 (0.407) **

0.606 0.529 (0.028) ** 0.801 0.068 (0.280) * -0.291 -0.017 (0.423)

20.534 8.46%

31.340 29.04%

Friend parents 1

Friend parents 2

First job prestige

1.124 0.110 (0.472) * 2.832 0.187 (0.758) ** 0.106 0.129 (0.043) * 0.025 0.029 (0.043)

Own friend 1

Own friend 2

Intercept R2

27.006 9.53%

Current job prestige 0.545 0.475 (0.047) ** 0.608 0.052 (0.468) -1.096 -0.063 (0.756) 0.002 0.002 (0.043) 0.049 0.051 (0.043) 0.181 0.185 (0.041) ** 0.080 0.084 (0.041) * 9.018 33.64%

** significant at 1% level * significant at 5% level

From Table 2 the following conclusions can be drawn (we need to compare the standardised coefficients now): • Indeed, for the first job, the effects of own education and the education of the father (family background) become smaller after the inclusion of the ascribed social capital variables. (It should however be noted that the inclusion of these variables only increases the explained variance by one percent.)

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• For the current job, the effect of education disappears after inclusion of the achieved social capital variables. The education of the father had no effect to begin with. • The fact that the parents’ best friends have an effect on the prestige of the first job (note that the effect is higher than that of own education) and the respondent’s own two best friends have an effect on current occupational prestige – even after controlling for own education and education of the father – is a powerful confirmation of the achievedsocial-capital hypotheses. 5. Conclusions and discussion In this paper I have proposed a new answer to an old question. The old question is: when will the influence of social background on occupational prestige disappear? The old answer was: as soon as the transition from ascription (particularistic values) to achievement (universalistic values) is completed. My new answer is: probably never. There will probably always be some form of intergenerational ascription, and I argue that we should look at this from a family perspective in order to better understand the mechanisms behind it. To summarise, I contrasted the modernisation perspective – which implies a transition from social origin to education as the main determinant of status – with a hypothesis that postulates a shift from ascribed to achieved social capital. In operational terms I predicted that during someone’s occupational career, family are more important for the status of the first job than in later stages. Friends are more important in later stages, since people start to make their own friends during their time in school and when they take their first steps in the labour market. In the early stages of the occupational career, children start creating their own stock of social capital, which will later on become more important than the social capital produced by their parents. The tests of the hypotheses in this paper led to some interesting conclusions: for the first job the effects of education and family background on prestige become smaller after the inclusion of ascribed social capital; for the current job the effect of education on prestige disappears after inclusion of achieved social capital. The fact that the effects of ascribed social capital on the prestige of the first job and of achieved social capital on the prestige of the current job remain significant – even after controlling for education and social background – is a powerful confirmation of the achieved-social-capital hypotheses. These findings could lead to bold conclusions like ‘parents should find friends with relatively high prestige in order to ensure a good future for their children’. I would not be in favour of such bold conclusions. Rather, I used this empirical example as an illustration of the fact that there is a lot going on within families and households that is still unexplored. As I explained in note 1, the data used for this paper are quite old. It might be interesting to see whether the relationships as studied here have changed, in light of the demographical changes in society. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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Furthermore, the outcome variable of this paper, occupational prestige, is probably not the only possible outcome for which the family produces useful social capital. Other possibilities that spring to mind are, for instance, health and care. Another peek into the black box of the family may be just as useful to study the family production of social capital in these areas. In this paper I hope to have shown that combining theories from several sociological theories – in this case modernisation, social stratification and social capital – is a fruitful approach in order to study certain mechanisms. Such a combination of theories to study the many mechanisms within families and households would best be captured under the heading of family sociology. Traditional topics that were addressed by family sociology, such as partner selection (for instance: De Hoog, 1982), divorce and its consequences (Dronkers et al., this volume; Spruijt, this volume), and family policy (De Hoog and Hooghiemstra, 2006), can be broadened to include the production of social capital within families. References Blau, P.M. and O.D. Duncan, 1967. The American Occupational Structure. New York, London: The Free Press. Bourdieu, P., 1973. Cultural reproduction and social reproduction. In: R. Brown(ed.), Knowledge, Education and Cultural Change, pp. 71-112 London: Tavistock. Bourdieu, P., 1983. Ökonomisches Kapital, kulturelles Kapital, soziales Kapital. In: R.Kreckel (ed.), Soziale Ungleichheiten, 183-198 Göttingen: Verlag Otto Schwarz & Co. Sozial Welt, Sonderband 2. Bourdieu, P., 1984 [1979]. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. CBS, 1987. Standaard Onderwijsindeling. SOI 1987. Voorburg: Central Bureau of Statistics [Standard Educational Index]. Coleman, J.S., 1990. Social capital. In: J.S. Coleman, Foundation of Social Theory, pp. 300-24 Cambridge MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Collins, R., 1971. Functional and conflict theories of educational stratification. American Sociological Review 36: 1001-19. Collins, R., 1979. The Credential Society. New York/San Francisco/London:Academic Press. De Graaf, N.D. and H.D. Flap, 1988. With a little help from my friends: Social resources as an explanation of occupational status and income in West Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States. Social Forces 67: 452-72. De Hoog, K., 1982. Partnerselectie bij Huwelijkssluiting in Nederland. PhD Thesis Wageningen University. De Hoog, K. and E. Hooghiemstra, 2006. Gezinsbeleid uit de kinderschoenen. Analyse van de verkiezingsprogramma’s 2006. Nederlandse Gezinsraad: Den Haag.

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De Hoog, K. and J.A.C. Van Ophem, 2006. Families and changing life cycles. In: G. Meijer, W.J.M. Heijman, J.A.C. van Ophem and B.H.J. Verstegen (eds), Heterodox views on economics and the economy of the global society, pp.143-54. Mansholt Publication Series (1). Wageningen: Academic Publishers. ESR/Telepanel (formerly SSCW-Telepanel), 1993. Dutch Telepanel Survey [Data file]. Stichting Economische, Sociaal culturele en Ruimtelijke Wetenschappen (ESR) van de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), The Hague. Data collection: Stichting Telepanel, Amsterdam. Available from: Steinmetz archive, Amsterdam. Ganzeboom, H.B.G. and P. De Graaf, 1983. Professional mobility between the generations of 1954 and 1977 in the Netherlands [Beroepsmobiliteit tussen generaties in Nederland in 1954 en 1977]. Mens en Maatschappij 58(1): 28-52. Ganzeboom, H., R. Luijkx, J. Dessens, P.M. De Graaf, N.D. De Graaf, W. Jansen and W.C. Ultee, 1987. Intergenerational class mobility in the Netherlands between 1970 and 1985 (Intergenerationele klassenmobiliteit in Nederland tussen 1970 en 1985). Mens en Maatschappij 62(1): 17-43. Ganzeboom, H.B.G., R. Luijkx. and D.J. Treiman, 1989. Intergenerational class mobility in comparative perspective. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility 8: 3-84. Lin, N., 1982. Social resources and instrumental action. In: P.V. Marsden and N. Lin (eds), Social Structure and Network Analysis, pp. 131-45. Beverly Hills etc.: Sage Publications. Lin, N. and M. Dumin, 1986. Access to occupations through social ties. Social Networks 8: 365-85. Moerbeek, H.H.S., 2001. Friends and Foes in the Occupational Career - The Influence of Sweet and Sour Social Capital on the Labour Market. (ICS dissertations [73]). Amsterdam: Thela Thesis Publishers. Moerbeek, H.H.S. and A. Need, 2003. Enemies at work: can they hinder your career? Social Networks 25(1): 67-82. Moerbeek, H. and H. Flap, 2007. Social resources and their effect on occupational attainment through the life course. In: N. Lin and B. Erickson (eds), Social Capital: Advances in Research. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [In Press] Parsons, T., 1951. The Social System. Glencoe: Free Press. Putnam, R.D., 2002. Democracies in Flux: The Evolution of Social Capital in Contemporary Society. New York etc.: Oxford University Press. Sixma, H. and W.C. Ultee, 1984. An Occupational Prestige Scale for the Netherlands in the 1980s. In: B.F.M. Bakker, J. Dronkers and H.B.G. Ganzeboom (eds), Social Stratification and Mobility in the Netherlands, pp. 29-39. Amsterdam: Siswo. Völker, B. and H.D. Flap, 1999. Getting ahead in the GDR: Social capital and status attainment under communism. Acta Sociologica 42(1): 17-34.

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Combating social reproduction: how Frisian children can benefit from the agenda of the new Dutch minister for Youth & Family Kees Verhaar and Yvonne van Westering Abstract For a long time the Dutch province of Fryslân has been lagging behind in a socio-economic sense, which implies higher unemployment and lower income figures than the Dutch average. At the same time, the province is known for its own regional culture, which is at the heart of the identity of the Frisian people. This paper raises the issue of social reproduction in relation to that culture. It is proposed that norms and values relating to this culture imply the acceptance of the lower socio-economic performance of Fryslân and thus of the Frisians – resulting in the transfer of this level of economic performance as ‘normal’ in the education of the Frisian youth. This might be one of the reasons that Frisian children in primary education perform less well than the Dutch average. The question is raised as to what extent the education policies proposed by the new Dutch Minister of Youth and Family might help to overcome this process of social reproduction. 1. Introduction In his public lecture to celebrate his inauguration as a professor in family sociology Kees de Hoog focussed on the intergenerational changes in everyday family life and analogous to these the change in the focus in Dutch family policies during the post-war period in The Netherlands (1946-2003) (see De Hoog, 2003). In this paper we focus on a complementary perspective, viz. the social reproduction of certain traits and attitudes from parents to their children. More specifically: we go into the social reproduction of a culture that is characterized as lagging behind. While doing so, we ask ourselves whether or not the policy agenda of the new Dutch minister for Youth and Family offers opportunities to combat this process of social reproduction. To be sure, ‘new’ here refers not just to the person who has been appointed as minister following the elections of November 2006, but even more so the introduction of this political portfolio. Actually, we are inclined to say that here we observe a re-institutionalisation of family policies which is quite in line with the analysis made by Kees de Hoog. Our analysis concentrates on the Dutch province of Fryslân25. There are several reasons to do so. Some of these have to do with the social-economic situation that is exemplary of 25 The

Dutch provincie of Fryslân is known under two names: the Dutch Friesland and the other relating to its autochthonous minority language: Fryslân. Out of respect for the Frisians and their culture we opt for the latter.

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Fryslân, and actually has been so for quite some time. Moreover, the province claims that it may be characterized by a regional culture which the Frisians see as unique – illustrated by their description of Fryslân as it bêste lân fan d’ierde (the best country on earth). In fact, this culture is something that the Frisians are proud of, and thus the preservation of Frisian culture is high on the policy agenda. Insofar as Fryslân may be characterized as a deprived area, with matching cultural traits, this may indeed be seen as rather unique. In the next section we will go into the reasons for describing Fryslân as a deprived area. Next we will go into the aspects of Frisian culture that are of relevance for our line of reasoning and into the issue of social reproduction of these characteristics. Dutch policies on youth and family come to the fore in the section after that. We will especially focus on the so-called Centres for Youth and Family, which according to the policy agenda need to arise in every city quarter in our country, and the opportunity these centres offer to combat the process of social reproduction with the help of educational support for parents and their children. Monitoring from the start the introduction of these centres and the effectiveness of the support and services provided by them offers a unique opportunity to gain further insight into the question of how to support parents and children en route to a better future. However, when we suggested as much during a lecture in Fryslân we were confronted with quite some opposition. How did we dare to put the qualities of Frisian culture into question? The ‘best country on earth’ lagging behind? Whatever the official statistics say: rubbish! We will briefly describe the public debate following our lecture, thus illustrating the importance of mobilizing the people involved. In other words: holding up a mirror that reflects some unfavourable outcomes of the culture within which parents raise their children is really like rubbing salt into a wound – which may not be the best way to present policy proposals. 2. Fryslân: a deprived area? Throughout the world, the label ‘Frisian’ relates to quality, that is to say it refers to the fact that some of the best cattle in the world originates from Frisian soil. This, in turn, literally reflects the quality of the land (viz. soil) and of the people working in the sector that is at the core of the Frisian economy: agriculture. To be sure, these qualities not only refer to cattle breeding, but also to related industries and services (dairy production being the most prominent).26 Moreover, we should also draw attention to the fact that the province is very important for the cultivation and production of other agricultural products, especially leg potatoes. Recently the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics published figures that show that 18 percent of Dutch sheep are living in Fryslân. Additionally, on average 40 percent of Dutch soil consists of meadows, whilst in Fryslân this percentage is 70.27 26 Friesland Foods

is not only one of the most important dairy industries in the world, its name also illustrates the importance of the label ‘Friesland’ or ‘Frisian’. 27 CBS, May 16th, 2007.

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And yet, in a socio-economic sense the region is lagging behind and has actually done so for quite some time, which is reflected in the attention given to economic development policies which goes back to the 1950s28, and which in more recent years was reflected in the support by the European Union. The popular explanation for the lagging behind of Fryslân in terms of unemployment (structurally higher than the national average), income (structurally lower than the national average) is that, notwithstanding the qualities of Frisian agriculture, the regional economy predominantly consists of economic activities (agriculture, traditional industry) with rather bleak prospects. However, Boomsma (1995) has demonstrated that such a structural explanation does not altogether explain the economic performance of Fryslân. In fact, he suggests that not sector structure but other ‘typical Frisian factors’ (155, emphasis added) are to blame for this – a suggestion that we will return to. So, that Fryslân is lagging behind in a socio-economic sense has been acknowledged by national and European policies for some fifty years or so. The provincial authorities have never been reluctant to claim (extra) support from the Dutch government or from the European Commission to support them in developing policies to change this unfavourable situation. To their credit, they have also developed many policies that were intended to contribute to such a change, either by stimulating local or regional economic initiatives (e.g. in the tourism sector) or by attracting employment from outside the province. And yet, recent figures show that unemployment in Fryslân is still above the Dutch average and that every Frisian municipality is below the Dutch average in terms of inhabitants’ income. Even worse: not only is Fryslân as a whole ten percent below the Dutch average, 11 of the 20 poorest municipalities in the Netherlands are Frisian. Thus it should come as no surprise that a national study (Kinderen in Tel [Kids Count]) on the situation in which children live, grow up and are raised concluded that most parts of Fryslân should be classified as a development area (Steketee et al., 2007). In that respect the label ‘achterstandswijk’ (‘slum’) was used, which has the advantage of attracting attention, but has the disadvantage, as we were to discover, of a connotation that not only includes socio-economic characteristics as the ones mentioned above, but also brings to mind big city slums and neighbourhoods (see the final section). One important characteristic not mentioned so far is the educational level of the working population. In Fryslân this level is relatively low – which of course is reflected in the average

28 As

an aside, prof.dr. Jelle Zijlstra, the Minister for Economic Affairs who was involved with these policies during those years, was a Frisian himself.

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income level, for lower level jobs are related to lower level salaries.29 The problem is worse, though, because the most talented Frisian youngsters have to leave the province to follow a university education elsewhere, as there is no university in Fryslân.30 Moreover, they will have to find jobs elsewhere, because the number of jobs for which a higher level of education is needed within the province is relatively small. Chances for improvement are slim as well, at least as far as spin-offs in terms of business start-ups related to their courses are concerned – another disadvantage of the lack of a university within the provincial boundaries.31 However, the biggest problem in this respect is that children in primary education perform worse than the Dutch average. This even goes for children that originate from the middle or higher socio-economic strata. As a result, the number of children (18%) advised to go to the so-called HAVO or VWO (middle vocational or grammar school) secondary education (mandatory if one wishes to continue in higher professional education or go to a university respectively) lies on the same level as that of students from an allochtonous background (18%) or from remedial students with a Dutch background. Especially in children with a migrant background, this figure is seen as a problem: talent is being wasted, not to mention opportunities for integration into Dutch society. The same, in our view, goes for Frisian children, especially because there is no reason to assume that something like a ‘genetic defect’ lies at the root of these figures: during the first half of primary education Frisian children do quite well! (Van Ruijven, 2004). Van Ruijven points to the professional qualities of the teachers in primary education as a reason for the poorer results in Frisian primary schools. But, as it turns out even for children who have the abilities to go to HAVO or VWO it is not uncommon to opt for a lower level of secondary education, we feel that this explanation is not enough: other factors play a role as well (Provinsje Fryslân, 2007: 107). This brings us to the potential role of Frisian culture. 3. Characteristics and potential influence of Frisian culture Within the Netherlands it is common to acknowledge that Frisians may be characterized by a specific regional culture. In Frisian, this specific culture is known as the Frysk eigene (‘Frisian’s own’), a label that in our view already has connotations of something that is at the very core of being Frisian, and (thus) something to be proud of. This connotation is reflected in policies that aim at the preservation (if not extension) of the Frisian culture. However, the question remains what the characteristics are that make this culture so specific. 29 Other

factors contributing to the lower than average level of income in Fryslân are reflected in the various reasons that mean that people are dependent on benefit allowances, unemployment amongst them. But we should also mention that the so-called ‘grey burden’ is above the Dutch average. 30 To be sure, several institutes provinding higher vocational education are located in Fryslân. Yet, the absence

of a university is a hindrance to the development of an innovative climate (also see note 31).

31 For a study into the potential spin-offs of a university for the economy of a region that is lagging behind, see

Florax, 1988.

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One of these characteristics is very specific within The Netherlands indeed, namely the Frisian language.32 Contrary to regions where people speak variations of Dutch, it is generally acknowledged that Frisian can be distinguished as a language of its own. All the characteristics that make up the Frysk eigene have been defined by Zoon (1969: 89), as: 1. The Frisian people, with their own character, values and traditions, history, language and culture, and 2. The agrarian structure, rural society and landscape. For our discussion we focus on the ‘Frisian people, more specifically their character, values and traditions’. From a sociological point of view, we use these elements of the Frysk eigene when we speak of the Frisian culture. In other words: our emphasis is on norms and values and related behaviour; whilst given our focus on youngsters we are especially interested in how these are transferred from one generation to the other. To be sure, our use of the term culture is to be distinguished from the use Zoon makes in his definition, where culture relates to the arts (70). Zoon has studied numerous publications that describe the Frisian national character as being amongst other things modest, individualistic, conscientious, idealistic, with an inclination towards rational and logical reasoning, persevering, independent thinking, emotional, proud, honourable, loyal, etc. (69). However impressive this list may seem, we should also draw attention to the fact that despite these qualities in the past the necessity was felt to study whether or not the Frisians would be able to adopt to the modernizing (i.e. industrializing) society (Heslinga, 1954). Apparently there were some reasons to doubt the almost superhuman character of the Frisians as described above. Other studies indeed point to less favourable characteristics of people living in specific areas of the province. Descriptions given in these publications make clear that a deviant way of arranging one’s working life was to be found in such areas (for instance: various publications by Bouma 1956, 1958a, 1958b, 1960; the Bronnenboek, 1953; Dam, s.a.; E.T.I.F. [Economic and Technological Institution for Friesland], 1953; Sikkema and Sikkema, 1954; Spahr van der Hoek, 1960; 1969). We will, albeit briefly, elaborate on this older literature. There are a number of local communities in Fryslân which have been faced with the phenomenon of unemployment for generations. One author even claims that in these villages ‘... a kind of structural unemployment or at least (...) a surplus of poor workers’ was found as early as in 1749 (Spahr van der Hoek, 1960: 64). Topical are the so‑called ‘moor land villages’, originally small settlements of people ‑ mainly peat diggers ‑ who were not accepted elsewhere and were relegated to the moors. They lived under harsh conditions, 32 Though

we should add that other regional languages are coming to the fore as being of importance as well (Van der Borgt et al., 1996).

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their dwellings mostly being mere sod huts accommodating large families (often including their small stock), and in abject poverty, while socially speaking their situation was equally miserable. In a publication on the best‑known (if not: most notorious) of these three (if not of the moor land villages in general), namely De Harkema, the following characteristics are mentioned: ‘...the primitive accommodation and the low level of medical care and hygiene, the absence of regular work, the roving life of the men for the greater part of the year, in addition to hardly any contacts with the outside world or none at all, poor incomes and, consequently, a bad nutritional condition, close mutual ties, little or no sense of responsibility, alcohol abuse, mistreatment of children, et cetera’. (E.T.I.F., 1953: 86. For detailed descriptions reference is made to Spahr van der Hoek (1960; 1969). One of the best known moor land villages [Zwaagwesteinde/De Westerein] is described in Sikkema and Sikkema (1954). The book ‘A worker’s childhood memories’ [ Jelle Dam, 1857‑1935] also gives a good impression. Finally reference is made to the reminiscences of a physician living in this region in the second half of the 19th century (Greidanus, 1974). People provided for themselves on the one hand with what the moors produced ‑ such as sod for dwellings, fire wood, feed for the small stock, small game ‑ and, on the other, by picking up a living with occasional deals, odd jobs, et cetera, and (at first) petty crime as well. One author even observes that ‘in fact anything was allowed to make a living’ (Spahr van der Hoek, 1969: 148). For more details, special reference is made to E.T.I.F. (1953: 86), Spahr van der Hoek (1960: 74‑87; 1969: 145‑8). Actually, these briefly described conditions still prevailed in these villages in the recent past. For example, where living conditions are concerned, as late as around 1960 caravans and even hen houses served as living accommodation. After World War II the authorities published a few reports paying specific attention to the village of De Harkema. A publication of the Economic and Technological Institution for Friesland (E.T.I.F.) of 1953 describes the economic problems of the municipality to which the village belongs and contains a number of relevant policy recommendations. The employment situation in this municipality was bad (in sharp contrast with the situation in the Netherlands as a whole) and the village was considered the main depressed area in the municipality, emphasis being put on the fact that precisely this village showed a ‘work rhythm’ where unemployment for a great part of the year (seasonal unemployment) was a common feature (E.T.I.F., 1953: 90‑1). In spite of the bad economic conditions, people did not want to leave, the out‑migration surplus being relatively low (E.T.I.F., 1953; also see Bouma, 1956). The E.T.I.F., however, reached the rather drastic conclusion that the village (not only the largest community of the municipality, but, additionally, a village with deplorable housing conditions) should be reduced in size in view of the bad economic situation (especially in relation to employment). In particular the younger workers would have to leave, compulsorily

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if necessary. Therefore it was recommended to restrict new building in the village to a minimum (E.T.I.F., 1953). Another report, also published in 1953, dealt with the overall social situation of the village and also contained very negative descriptions, e.g. ‘The village is lagging far behind as to culture, education and especially hygienic conditions. On the one hand the villagers may be too careless, on the other hand the grinding poverty in the pre‑war period would never have allowed them to relieve themselves from their wretched situation.’ In this report, the percentage of ‘antisocial families’ was estimated at 60 percent or more (even a percentage of 90 percent was mentioned) and, according to the report, there was a general sense of inferiority (Bronnenboek, 1953: 291). Additionally, all this has contributed to the bad reputation the inhabitants of moor land villages ‑ and probably in particular those of the village discussed above in more detail ‑ enjoy in the rest of Friesland. As far as labour market related topics are concerned, this reputation is reflected in people’s opinion that the inhabitants deal with unemployment in a way all their own. Every now and again, things occur that seem to confirm the image, such as the discovery of a huge working ‘on the side’ affair in the early 1980s that even drew national attention (Hier en Nu, current affairs television programme of February 3rd, 1983; the daily Friesch Dagblad of January 31st and February 18th, 1983). To be sure, this culture does not necessarily imply that people are unwilling to work. On the contrary, in line with Frisian culture as a whole a strong work ethic may be expected, which one may ascribe to a masculine working class culture. The point we are trying to make is that, whatever qualities are indigenous to the Frisians, within their province there is also experience with a coping behaviour towards (regular, recurring) unemployment and all its consequences (in particular poverty). Verhaar has demonstrated that such adaptive behaviour can certainly be seen as typical for a specific area of Fryslân, viz. the municipality of Achtkarspelen, which brings him to the conclusion that within that area one can speak of a regional culture (Verhaar, 1997). It is this coping behaviour that we postulate as characteristic of the Frisian culture as a whole in the sense that it has led to values and behaviour, which are geared to lower socio-economic achievement. Above, we have already hinted at various arguments to underpin this line of reasoning: ‘typical Frisian factors’ that contribute to the lower economic performance of the province, the lagging behind of children in primary school and the advice to go to a lower type of secondary school even if one meets the standards for HAVO or VWO. To these we could add the observation by Jansma, that only one percent of the Frisians feel that it is important that their children should achieve something in this world ( Jansma, 2000). Indeed, why opt for more, if the economic situation is as it has been for so long: lower level jobs, lower level income, higher unemployment?

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To be sure, though we have steered away from the debate as to whether or not the Frisian culture is as unique and specific as the label ‘Frysk eigene’ seems to suggest (note our reference to working class culture for a hint on our position in this debate) we feel obliged to point out that the process we are now referring to is not unique. This process, in which parents transfer specific norms and values, i.e. relating to lagging behind in a socio-economic sense, is known as social reproduction. There is a long tradition in sociological theory in which this process, specifically referring to situations as the one we are dealing with in this article, is described (e.g. Lewis 1961, 1968; Wilson, 1987; Te Grotenhuis, 1993). Indeed, Verhaar’s study on Frisian youngsters is also part of this tradition. In a very well-known study, Paul Willis posed the question of why working-class kids choose working-class jobs (Willis, 1983/1977). Maybe we should rephrase that question of ‘Why do Frisian children choose a Frisian future?’ We will come back to that question in the last section of this article. 4. Youth and family: current policy as an impetus for change During the years 2003-2007 the so-called ‘Operation Young’ investigated the situation of Dutch youngsters, and in particular the way in which various government institutions (from a national, provincial and local level) and other organizations try to make a positive contribution to their journey towards adulthood. The need to set out with such a trajectory was felt, because it was generally acknowledged that the organization of youth policies (both in terms of policy making and policy execution) had grown into an intangible web.33 By way of example, on a national policy level youth in one way or another was a responsibility of the ministries of health and well-being, education, social affairs, immigration and integration, justice, internal affairs and town and country planning. In practice, if the situation of a child was at risk of becoming problematic, various institutions on the local level were supposed to intervene – however, if problems got worse the child would be referred to youth care, which is an organisation that falls under the provincial authorities. All this more or less apart from problems arising during school time, and the support organized through the school to deal with those. Not to mention the bureaucratic problems of transferring a child from one institution to anther, the cooperation between institutions or the administrative burden (especially for the child and his parents or guardians) of taking down personnel details over and over again (see Van Eijk, 2006 for full details of the analysis of Dutch youth policies). According to the advise given by Steven van Eijk, the national Commissioner on Youthand Youngsters Policy (who led Operation Young) an important contribution to the disentanglement of this Gordian knot would be achieved if local municipalities were to 33 Several

dramatic incidents highlighted this problem, though we feel that they were not the main reason to set out with Operation Young – they did, however, underscore the need to reflect on the situation of youth policies.

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become the coordinators of the execution of youth policies.34 The execution of youth policies would be supported considerably by the introduction of the so-called Centres for Youth and Family. Such Centres would provide all the normal everyday life-forms of support and advice (e.g. inoculation and monitoring of development, advice on child care and the like), but it could also be supportive for the signalling of problems, as well as providing (a way to) the support to deal with such problems, whatever their nature might be. According to Van Eijk, such centres could also provide all kinds of educational support for parents. This kind of support, we feel, offers an opportunity to tackle the problem described above, a problem which more generally speaking is also brought forward by Van Eijk as a very important issue to be dealt with: the social reproduction of socio-economic leeways. The fact that Van Eijk points at a serious problem when he brings up the issue of social reproduction in areas such as poverty, underachieving at school and unemployment is generally acknowledged. However, this acknowledgment includes a connotation that such problems mainly occur in the big cities, in particular in neighbourhoods where people from a Mediterranean descent ([former] Moroccans in particular) are in the majority. These too are the areas where national government intends to focus on in its attempt to create a turn-around. Yet, there are various districts where the same problems occur, and these areas are not on the list of priorities of the Cabinet. This goes for Fryslân (to elaborate on the description above: on average 17 percent of children in the Netherlands grow up in a leeway behind area, whereas the Frisian figure is almost twice as high – with certain districts even scoring far higher percentages), and also for some other parts of the country such as the Northeast of Groningen. This apparent neglect for such backwards districts is a shame, not only from a social or political point of view, but also from a scientific perspective. For Fryslân as an administrative entity (i.e. the Province) offers a unique opportunity to test the effectiveness of the educational support instruments needed to achieve this turn-around of the process of social reproduction. Within Fryslân all kinds of situational contexts are available: a large city (at least by Dutch standards) with even some (relatively speaking) slums and a number of immigrant inhabitants, smaller cities, villages and rural areas. This implies that a strategy can be developed in which the application of educational support can be tested in various circumstances. The fact that all these circumstances are within close reach of each other, makes it easier for the users of these strategies (people connected to the Centres for Youth and Family) and for researchers to communicate, monitor developments and results and while doing so develop the best (package of ) approach(es) and instruments.

34 Implying that the Province should be removed from the picture. On a national level, according to van Eijk,

a coordinating minister on Youth and Family should be introduced to disentangle the policy web, which has developed between the various ministries involved with youth policies.

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One might wonder what we mean when we speak of educational policies. To be sure, we do not have a policy in mind where the State takes over parental responsibility for raising children. What we are thinking of are forms of support, instruments, examples and the like that induce parents to think beyond their current boundaries when investing in the future of their children – if only one step. Currently, some programmes are made available that offer the means to provide this kind of educational support. One of these, by way of example, is Triple P. This is an evidence-based parenting program. Triple P is a parenting and family support strategy that aims to prevent behavioural, emotional and developmental problems in children by enhancing the knowledge, skills and confidence of parents. The program consists of a multi-level strategy, recognizing that parents have differing needs and desires regarding the type, intensity and mode of assistance they may require. The first level of support is designed for all parents interested in information about parenting and helps them promote their child’s development. We assume that the provision of these kinds of support in the long run will help to turn around the process of social reproduction. Of course, we admit that this assumption needs to be tested in practice. This may take some time, as given the indicators presented above the first indicator to test the effectiveness of the education support would be the results in primary education. We do think, however, that tackling the problem right at the beginning, from the cradle so to speak, is far more effective than waiting until children drop out of school or are unemployed, and it should at least make up for the arrears in their human capital by extra training on the job. Referring to the Frisian context, there is one kind of educational support that we want to bring up. To do so, we refer to Sesame Street, which is well-known to be a very effective support in the raising of children, in particular where basic literacy and numeracy are concerned. Frisian culture is reflected in the work of the Frisian broadcaster Omrop Fryslân. Building on the experience gained through Sesame Street we suggest that the Province of Fryslân invests in a programme for young children that invites them to broaden their horizons. Similarly, since 1989 in The Netherlands we have a programme called Jules unlimited, which introduces elderly children to exiting developments in sports, science and technique. Something along this line could be broadcast especially for Frisian children, inviting them to reach for new frontiers while building on the qualities of their own cultural heritage. 5. A cultural debate These last examples were amongst our suggestions when we presented a draft version of this paper during a conference in the Frisian capital of Leeuwarden. Apart from the quintessence of these suggestions from an educational point of view, they also demonstrated that we did not intend to be hostile to Frisian culture as such. How could we be, given that one of us is the first ever Dutchman to write his PhD in Frisian (Verhaar, 1997)?

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Moreover, we also pointed out that, as we said above, Fryslân (apart from a small part of its capital Leeuwarden) is not on the list of government priorities where policies to deal with neighbourhoods in arrears are concerned. However, André Rouvoet, the new Minister for Youth and Family, offers yet another opportunity. For at that moment he had not yet published his agenda, though it was already common knowledge that the Centres for Youth and Family and an emphasis on educational support would be at the very top of his list of priorities. In fact, without going into the question about what the specific role of Frisian culture might be, during a television interview dedicated to our arguments he underscored the importance of educational support to overcome the negative effects of social reproduction of lee ways (Goedemorgen Nederland [Good morning, the Netherlands], March 29th 2007). Thus we urged the Frisians to jump at this opportunity. However, as it turned out we had touched an open nerve. Various comments pointed out that we were absolutely wrong: Frisian culture implied that the province literally consisted of ‘the best country on earth’, statistics surely did not include the quality of living in this province, and how could we forget that people in Fryslân were happy. A leading labour politician even pointed out in a postcard that she sent us, that the Frisians were amongst the most generous where support of charities is concerned – so how could we imply that they were lagging behind? And surely, according to these critics, we must have been very wrong, when we suggested that Frisians are stupid and backward. It is interesting to see, how arguments can be manipulated when people feel threatened. For, if only concentrating on the latter point, we have continuously underscored our point that the underachievement of Frisian children at school does not reflect their qualities, and indeed that developing their full potential is our one and only aim, both from an ethical point of view and because tomorrow’s economy needs people to do so if they want to earn a decent living. The former point was apparently not heard, whilst the latter point was immediately translated into the idea that we wanted Fryslân to be buried under asphalt (roads and industrial areas), which certainly would be to the detriment of the landscape. Yet, in a more private way we have also been approached by many people who feel that there is some truth in the points we are making, to say the least. As far as we can tell, these people do not seek a public stage to bring out their arguments. Which makes us wonder, whether or not we have not only touched upon an issue relating to the future of Frisian children but also one relating to the functioning of public debate in Fryslân. Whether or not the latter is at stake, we have seen that when introducing such a sensitive line of reasoning one must be aware of the approach one takes to make sure that the message is effective. In the short run, one may wonder whether or not we chose the right approach – though we are inclined to wait for the somewhat longer run to see what happens when the dust has settled.

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Returning to Willis’ main question, however, one hypothesis comes to mind. According to Willis, the lads he studied opted for a future for which he used epitaphs such as ‘condemned’ (Willis: 174) – for surely, in the longer run a low level of socio-economic well being would result from their choices.35 The point being, that though these working-class kids knew this, they still opted for working-class jobs because these related to their cultural identity and heritage. In other words, whatever the future ‘damnation’ might be, their choice was a positive one. This would lead us to the suggestion that although children36 (and certainly their parents) know what the relatively meagre results of their choices are, they still do so because they opt to be Frisian. For, as the list of qualities presented by Zoon demonstrates, being Frisian and thus being an heir to Frisian culture is indeed something positive. How to make use of this attitude and still achieve a turn-around, is quite another matter. Moreover, returning to the public lecture in which Kees de Hoog celebrated his inauguration as professor in family sociology, we cannot help but notice that (contrary to the theme of that lecture) at least in this respect there does not seem to be an intergenerational change in family life – which underscores the sustainability of Frisian culture. References Boomsma, P., 1995. Sosjaal-ekonomyske ûntjouwings yn Fryslân - de fraach nei arbeid [in Dutch]. In: P.M. De Klaver, C.H.A. Verhaar and L.G. Jansma (eds), ‘Wurk foar Fryslân’. In: It Beaken 57(3/4): 138-66. Bouma, L.H., 1956. Rapport omtrent een sociologisch onderzoek inzake de arbeidersdorpen van de gemeente Achtkarspelen. I. Harkema‑Opeinde [in Dutch] s.l. (Leeuwarden): Social investigations in Friesland. Report no. 6 of the Stichting Friesland voor Maatschappelijk Werk. Bouma, L.H., 1958a. Rapport omtrent een sociologisch onderzoek inzake de arbeidersdorpen van de gemeente Achtkarspelen. II. Boelenslaan [in Dutch]. s.l. (Leeuwarden): Social investigations in Friesland. Report no. 7 of the Stichting Friesland voor Maatschappelijk Werk. Bouma, L.H., 1958b. Rapport omtrent een sociologisch onderzoek inzake de arbeidersdorpen van de gemeente Achtkarspelen. III. Twijzelerheide [in Dutch]. s.l. (Leeuwarden): Social investigations in Friesland. Report no. 8 of the Stichting Friesland voor Maatschappelijk Werk. Bouma, L.H., 1960. De arbeidersdorpen in de gemeente Achtkarspelen, deel IV Samenvatting van het sociologisch onderzoek. Terugblik en beschouwing [in Dutch]. s.l. (Leeuwarden): Social investigations in Friesland. Report no. 9 of the Stichting Friesland voor Maatschappelijk Werk. Bronnenboek, 1953. Bronnenboek bevattende gegevens ten grondslag liggend aan het rapport maatschappelijke verwildering der jeugd [in Dutch]. ‘s‑Gravenhage: Staatsdrukkerij en Uitgeversbedrijf. 35 Returning to his study in an interview in NRC Handelsblad (Dutch national newspaper, January, 25th/26th,

2003) some 25 years later Willis describes how meagre the future of his ‘lads’ turned out to be.

36 By way of illustration; in Verhaar’s study (1997), compared to Frisian and Dutch youngsters, the unemployed

youngsters from the municipality of Achtkerspelen were more aware of the importance of going to school and getting a diploma if one is to achieve something in the labour market.

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Dam, J. (s.a.). Jeugdherinneringen van Jelle Dam [in Dutch]. Buitenpost: publishing house Lykele Jansma (with an introduction by Lykele Jansma). De Hoog, C., 2003. Opgaan, blinken, verzinken en uit de as herrijzen. Gezinnen, gezinssociologie en gezinsbeleid 1946-2003 [in Dutch], Wageningen: Wageningen University. ETIF (Economic and Technological Institution for Friesland), s.a. (June 1953). Sociale en economische problemen van de gemeente Achtkarspelen [in Dutch]. Leeuwarden: E.T.I.F. no. 317. Florax, R., 1988.The University: A Regional Booster? Economic Impacts of Academic Knowledge Infrastructure. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1992 [PhD Thesis University of Twente]. Heslinga, M.W., 1954. Friese fabrieksarbeiders. Enige sociale aspecten van industrialisatie in Friesland [in Dutch], Assen: van Gorcum. Jansma, L.G., 2000. Libbenskôging in Fryslân [in Frisian], Ljouwert: Fryske Akademy. Lewis, O., 1961. The children of Sánchez. Autobiography of a Mexican family, New York: Random House. Lewis, O., 1968. A Study of Slum Culture – Backgrounds for La Vida, New York: Random House. Provinsje Fryslân, 2007. Sociaal rapport Fryslân 2007 [in Dutch], Leeuwarden. Sikkema, K. Sr. and K. Sikkema Jr., 1954. Zwaagwesteinde, het ventersdorp op de Friese heide [in Dutch]. Franeker: T. Wever/Fryske Akademy, Wâldrige no. 2. Spahr van der Hoek, J.J., 1960. De heidedorpen in de Noordelijke Wouden [in Dutch]. Drachten: Laverman/Fryske Akademy, Wâldrige no. 8. Spahr van der Hoek, J.J., 1969. Samenleven in Friesland [in Dutch]. Drachten: Laverman/Fryske Akademy no. 345, Wâldrige no. 16 (also published as a thesis in Groningen). Steketee, M., J. Mak and B. Tierolf, 2007. Kinderen in Tel [in Dutch]. Utrecht: Verwey-Jonker Instituut. Te Grotenhuis, H., 1993. Bijstandskinderen Opgroeien aan de rand van de verzorgingsstaat [in Dutch]. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press (PhD Thesis University of Amsterdam). Van Borgt, C., A. Hermans and H. Jacobs (Eds.), 1996. Constructie van het eigene. Culturele vormen van regionale identiteit in Nederland. [in Dutch], Amsterdam: P.J. Meertensinstituut. Van Eijk, S., 2006. Koersen op het kind, Sturingsadvies deel 1. ’s Gravenhage: Projectbureau Operatie Jong. Van Ruijven, E.C.M., 2004. Onderwijseffectiviteit in Fryslân, Leeuwarden/Ljouwert: Fryske Akademy, 2004. [Dissertation Groningen.] Verhaar, C.H.A., 1997. Achtkarspeler JWG-ers en in streekeigen kultuer [in Dutch], Ljouwert: Fryske Akademy (Dissertation Wageningen). Willis, P., 1983 [first edition 1977]. Learning to Labour ‑ How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. Aldershot: Gower Publishing Company Limited. Wilson, W.J., 1987. The Truly Disadvantaged. The Inner City, the Underclass and Public Policy. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press. Zoon, J.H., 1969. Friesland tussen Hoop en Vrees [in Dutch]. Drachten: Laverman, Fryske Akademy nr. 356.

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‘Hidden persuaders’, values and gender codes in students’ selections of ads and commercials Anke Niehof Abstract For the course Lifestyles and Consumer Patterns students at Wageningen University have to do an assignment in the form of an analysis of an advertisement or commercial with regard to a number of questions. This has yielded analyses by 220 students of the 2002-2006 cohorts. These form the basis for this paper. The paper addresses two types of question. First, how does the selection of the students relate to their personal characteristics? Second, what do we find in the ads and commercials they selected? The latter includes several aspects: the messages conveyed by the advertised goods and commodities, values referred to in the way they are presented, the target audiences, and the gender codes that could be elicited. With regard to gender both conventional and deviating gender codes and images – ‘counterpoint’ images – could be identified. Altogether the exercise yielded predictable results as well as surprises. 1. Introduction For five years now students at Wageningen University who follow the course Lifestyles and Consumption Patterns (part I) have had to do the following assignment: Select a ‘rich’ advertisement in a magazine or a t.v. commercial. The appeal of the advertisement must go beyond the utilitarian value or the cheap price (bargain) of the good or commodity advertised. Present, describe and analyse the advertisement. Answer the following questions in the analysis: 1) How is the good or commodity presented; 2) What is it meant to communicate and to what values does it appeal; 3) What is the targeted audience; 4) What are the (hidden) gender codes; 5) Are the concepts of conspicuous consumption or conspicuous leisure applicable? In this paper I will explore the results of the students’ work. I will do so, first, by presenting the selection made by the students in relation to their characteristics, second, by examining the pattern that emerges from the contents of the selected advertisements or commercials in terms of the questions one to four of the assignment. For the first line of inquiry I will relate the selection made by the students to their nationality and gender. The total number of students who followed the course in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, or 2006 and did the assignment is 220. The course is given in the third year of the bachelor program and it is also obligatory for first year students of the related master Changing families and their lifestyles 

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program who have done their bachelor elsewhere. The latter category includes ‘Erasmus’ students from other European universities and students from outside Europe, most of them Chinese. By the time the students have to do the assignment, they have been lectured on the sociological literature on consumer society and the ‘symbolic meaning of consumption’. The latter is defined by Antonides and Van Raaij (1998: 66) as referring to ‘both the expression of one’s personality, culture and history through consumption, and the interpretation of others’ consumption with regard to these factors.’ For the second line of inquiry the students provided me with a sample of advertisements from various magazines and television commercials. Through using their lens, the work of the students gives us an insight into the kind of goods advertised in magazine ads and on television, the audiences they are targeted at, the values they appeal to and the gender codes they carry. In the second part of the paper I will discuss the pattern that emerges from this analysis against the background of the literature on the role and meaning of goods in consumer society. Given the symbolic meanings of consumption (see above), one would expect the following elements in the selected ads and commercials: 1. An appeal to individuality and uniqueness, in line with Baudrillard’s (1998) conceptualization of consumer society as being driven by the search for difference, and the roots of consumer society in the individualism of the romantic era (Campbell, 1987). 2. An appeal to prestige and social status, richness and wealth, in line with the mechanism of conspicuous consumption as coined by Veblen (1975 [1899]) and the use of consumer goods to bridge the gap between the actual and the aspired way of life, as captured in McCracken’s concept of displaced meaning (cf. Corrigan, 1998: 45). 3. An appeal to important cultural and societal values that, according to Douglas and Isherwood (1979), consumer goods and the way they are used inform us about. Examples of such values in present-day society are family values, environmental values, and values of connectedness and friendship. 2. The students and their selection The students in the sample are not only students but also consumers. Moreover, after they have completed their studies and found a good job, which is why presumably most of them go to the university, they belong to the market that many of the ads they selected are targeted at. In his classic on consumer society Baudrillard compares increasing consumer aspirations and belief in the power embodied by consumer goods to the cargo cult myth. Referring to the younger generations in particular, he says: ‘Faith in consumption is a new element; the rising generations are now inheritors: they no longer inherit goods, but the natural right to abundance’ (Baudrillard, 1998: 32). The question is to what extent the students from different countries are aware of this inner logic of consumer society, and, even though they were exposed to the same lectures and reading materials, understood the assignment in the same way. 170 

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Of the 220 assignments, I rejected 42 for further analysis, because the choice of 42 students was not ‘rich’ enough. Most commodities advertised in this group are very basic (high utility value) and/or in their presentation there is little appeal to any associations or values beyond their use or price, though there might be some reference to gender. The assignments were marked accordingly. Of the 42 rejected assignments ten relate to food or drink, nine are about daily body care. Quite a few are from providers of services, courses or utilities. The remaining ones are an odd mix. An ad from a well-known Dutch bank was also rejected because it was too ‘flat’, though it showed how banking is still a man’s business. Table 1 shows the distribution of the rejected and accepted selections in relation to the students’ characteristics. According to the figures in Table 1, gender did not make much of a difference for correctly understanding the purpose of the assignment. In the distribution according to nationality, however, the good performance of the non-Dutch European students stands out, while the Dutch students seem to perform slightly below average. The selection of the students in terms of the kind of commodity advertised in the ad or commercial of their choice can also be related to nationality and gender, which is done in Table 2. Originally I divided the commodities presented in the selected ads and commercials into 14 categories, but because the numbers would become too small I merged some, so that the number of categories used for further analysis is seven. For a good understanding of the remainder of the paper I will briefly describe the seven categories: Table 1. Approval and rejection of the students’ selection by students’ characteristics. Students’ characteristics

Nationality Dutch European, non-Dutch Non-European Gender Male Female Total

Approved

Rejected

N

(%)

N

(%)

N

(%)

127 26 25

(77.9) (96.3) (83.3)

36 1 5

(22.1) (3.7) (16.7)

163 27 30

(100.0) (100.0) (100.0)

47 131 178

(81.1) (80.9) (80.9)

11 31 42

(18.9) (19.1) (19.1)

58 162 220

(100.0) (100.0) (100.0)

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Table 2. Distribution of topic selection according to students’ characteristics. Category1

Nationality2 Dutch

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Total

16 (57.1) 17 (73.9) 27 (71.1) 18 (78.3) 30 (71.4) 5 (62.5) 14 (87.5) 127 (71.3)

Gender2 European non-Dutch 3 (10.7) 3 (13.0) 8 (21.0) 2 (8.7) 6 (14.3) 3 (37.5) 1 (6.3) 26 (14.6)

NonEuropean 9 (32.2) 3 (13.0) 3 (7.9) 3 (13.0) 6 (14.3) 1 (6.3) 25 (14.1)

Male

6 (21.4) 4 (17.4) 6 (15.8) 5 (21.7) 19 (45.2) 1 (12.5) 6 (37.5) 47 (26.4)

Total Female

22 (78.6) 19 (82.6) 32 (84.2) 18 (78.3) 23 (54.8) 7 (87.5) 10 (62.5) 131 (73.6)

28 (100.0) 23 (100.0) 38 (100.0) 23 (100.0) 42 (100.0) 8 (100.0) 16 (100.0) 178 (100.0)

1Categories are: 1 = Food and drink; 2 = Clothing, shoes, handbags; 3 = Body care and fragrance;

4 = Watches and jewellery; 5 = Cars and appliances; 6 = Social marketing; 7 = Miscellaneous. 2Percentages between brackets.

Category 1: Food and drink, including special foods and snacks, and alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages. Category 2: Clothing, shoes and handbags, including fashionable clothes, lingerie, stylish shoes and sport shoes, and a few ads for stylish handbags, most of them bearing familiar brand names. Category 3: Body care and fragrance, including luxury products for daily body care and – mostly – perfumes. Category 4: Watches and jewellery, with watches being the most popular item. Category 5: Cars and appliances, including (predominantly) cars but also a motor bike, television sets, a (design) vacuum cleaner, and mobile phones. Category 6: S ocial marketing. Though only a small category I decided to keep it apart and not merge it with the (last) category of miscellaneous choices. These ads or commercials are rich in the sense that they refer to important societal values or social causes, not in the sense that they will lure buyers into conspicuous consumption or appeal to social prestige. The topics in this category include, for example, condom use for safe sex, human rights, protection of wild life, and illiteracy in the Netherlands. Category 7: Miscellaneous, including the topics of leisure, interior design (furniture), and cigarettes (the Marlboro Man is still among us).

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Conforming to the stereotype, male students are over-represented in the category that includes predominantly cars, but also electronic devices and mobile phones (Category 5). Likewise, female students are overrepresented in the categories of clothing, shoes and handbags (Category 2), and that of body care products and perfumes (Category 3). The non-European students seem to have a disproportionate preference for ads and commercials in the category of food and drinks, but the numbers are very small. The latter applies even more to the predominance of female students in the category of social marketing. But because of the small numbers, offering explanations for these two tendencies would amount to speculation. 3. The contents of the selection: commodities as messages In this section the emphasis is on the goods or commodities and how they are presented, or – to put it differently – on ‘commodities as messages’ (Solomon et al., 2002) and ‘the world of goods’ (Douglas and Isherwood, 1979). For this discussion it has to be kept in mind that the selection is not a representative sample from a universe of ‘rich’ advertisements in all eligible magazines or all television commercials. It is the selection of students, made during the years 2002-2006, of ads and commercials they found suitable or attractive, from sources they had access to. In this section I will look at the contents of the selected ads and commercials by following the questions the students had to answer, making use of the answers they came up with, but also correcting or adding to these when warranted. 3.1 Presentation of the good or commodity In a paper like this it is impossible to discuss this aspect properly because reprinting the ads is not feasible and describing them all would take too many words. To give the reader an idea, the ads or commercial that I find most attractive will be briefly described. For me, attractiveness lies in originality (choice of actors and themes featuring in the presentation), aesthetic features (with regard to colour or composition), or a powerful creation of a certain atmosphere. Obviously, the choice is subjective. Category 1: Food and drink In this category it is difficult to find really attractive ads or commercials. Recall that in this category relatively many assignments were rejected because they were not ‘rich’ enough (see above). Foods and drinks are mostly too basic to lend themselves to embellishment. Alcoholic beverages offer more prospects, since they are less basic (at least for most of us) and can be used to enhance status and prestige, or togetherness and friendship. However, my choice in this category is for the Nespresso (coffee) ad that features George Clooney. The ad is nicely done in coffee colours with the magnetic presence of George Clooney in the centre. It is an example of ads that feature a celebrity to enhance their power of attraction, of which there are quite a few in the selection.

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Category 2: Clothing, shoes, handbags My favourite in this category is an ad of two elderly Jamaican ladies who proudly wear their Puma sneakers. It is the unexpected combination of these two distinguished, spectacled, nicely dressed (complete with hat) old ladies with this casual type of footwear that attracts your attention. As the student who selected it says: ‘The picture doesn’t really fit. […] It makes you look twice’. Category 3: Body care and fragrance In this category I selected two, quite different, examples. One is of a perfume called Alien, which is presented by an elf-like, transparent looking woman, whose almost white hair is spread out and surrounds her shining face like a halo. There is a whiff of mystery about the picture. The text says: ‘Do you believe in the Extraordinary?’ The second one is an ad for a Chanel perfume called Coco Mademoiselle. The mademoiselle, for the part of her body visible in the picture, is dressed in nothing but a long pearl necklace and a coquettish little black hat with a white rose pinned on it. There is nothing mysterious about her; she radiates self-confidence and challenge. Looking directly at you, she seems to be saying: ‘Don’t you want to be as attractive as I am?’ The two perfumes would appeal to quite different female personalities. I like the specificity that sets them apart from the majority of the perfume ads, where we find just the predictable elements of eroticism and sex appeal, embodied by seductive-looking, often half-naked, wrinkleless and slender beautiful ladies. Like that of the Marlboro man, the image of the woman as an object of desire is still very much among us. Category 4: Watches and jewellery The ad chosen in this category is that of a Breitling watch. The picture shows an elegantly dressed lady (furs and hat) waiting for her suitcases that are being carried from the aeroplane by a man in uniform. Judging by the clothes she is wearing and the propeller aeroplane, the scene (in black-and-white) must be set in the 1950s. The sturdy watches at the bottom of the picture are in colour. Beneath the name of the company the writing of 1884 indicates the company’s respectable age. The lady is obviously a well-travelled person who can afford luxury and has style. Through her and the setting of the picture a message of style, elegance, reliability, and tradition is conveyed. Category 5: Cars and appliances In this category I selected two ads, one of a car and one of an appliance. The car ad is from Toyota, but the picture does not show a car. Instead, it shows a child curled-up and sleeping in what looks like a nest made of twigs that is floating on the water of a pond. Water-lily leaves surround the nest and the water is tranquil, just showing a few ripples. The scene has a fairy-tale-like quality. The text says ‘zero emissions’, explaining that Toyota’s hybrid technology is aiming at a ‘more sustainable tomorrow’. The second ad I selected is that of a Miele vacuum cleaner. The picture features an attractive man in his mid-thirties, casually dressed, who is sitting in a modern, stylish and sparsely furnished living room. A pile of books is next to his chair on the floor. The vacuum cleaner is in the forefront. It is small and 174 

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nicely designed, with red roses painted on its nose, the red of the roses matching the colour of the man’s chair. It is one of a Miele series called ART. Clearly, this is not a vacuum cleaner for family households where generally (still) women and not men do the cleaning; this ART piece is marketed to young urban professionals and bachelors with good taste. The categories 6 and 7 do, in my view, not include ads that are worthwhile describing here separately, although there are some interesting ones too. In the selection of the students there are a few commercials, but their quality does not justify an extensive description. The only element that sometimes features in commercials and is virtually absent in the ads, is that of humour. However, though some commercials are meant to be funny, presumably to hold the attention of the viewer, whether they are so depends on one’s sense of humour. 3.2 The values referred to This sub-section is about the semantic properties of the selected goods and commodities and the way they are presented. It is about the functional, social, or cultural values they refer to. As already explained above, the sample is not representative. The distribution of the values referred to in the selected ads and commercials does not reflect the relative strength of these values in the European countries the sources were sampled from. Because the students had to select a ‘rich’ advertisement or commercial, the selection from these sources is also biased in favour of luxury goods. Despite these disclaimers, we shall see to what extent the elements identified by sociological theory (see above) can be found in the material and whether the kind of commodity makes a difference. The exploration of the contents of the commercials and advertisements, in terms of images, actors, themes, settings, text, and visibility of status symbols, yielded a number of values. Additionally, the expected values based on the theory – individuality, uniqueness, prestige, wealth, and important societal values – were checked for their presence. Before looking at the results of this exercise some preliminary points have to be made. First, I did not use rigorously standardized indicators for the values but interpreted the messages conveyed by the pictures in a rather loose, impressionistic manner. Though I did it twice and got the same results, it is definitely a subjective element in the analysis. This cannot be avoided. As Stuart Hall (1997: 9) says: ‘there is no single or ‘correct’ answer to the question, ‘What does this image mean?’ or ‘What is this ad saying?’.’ Second, although in general one particular value or reference is dominant, sometimes there are two almost equally dominant ones. Hence, the total number of values found exceeds that of the number of commercials and ads in the sample. Third, I did not include the category of social marketing (Category 6, N=8) in this analysis because its ads or commercials are too different from the rest. They appeal to more general social causes and values and are targeted at the public at large. Fourth, though gender is part of the analysis in this section, it will be more specifically dealt with further on in this paper.

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The values the ads or commercials were found to refer to are the following: Value 1: Individuality, uniqueness, personal distinction; Value 2: Richness, wealth; Value 3: Style, class, elegance, good taste; Value 4: Achievement, success; Value 5: Freedom, independence; Value 6: Friendship, togetherness, relating to others; Value 7: Technological progress and reliability; Value 8: Gender: masculinity or femininity; Value 9: Pleasure, happiness, sexual freedom; Value 10: Love and romance; Value 11: Sustainability, preserving nature; Value 12: Vitality and health; and Value 13: Family values. The highest scoring value is the one that appeals to style, class, elegance, or good taste (V3), confirming the prevailing theory about consuming as a means to satisfy aspirations to higher status and prestige. The appeal to wealth and richness (V2) scores less, though the same kind of mechanism is involved. The second highest scoring value is the gender value (V8). Table 3. Values referred to according to category of commodity. Value1

V1 V2 V3 V4 V5 V6 V7 V8 V9 V10 V11 V12 V13 Total

Category of commodity2

Total

1

2

3

4

5

7

1 7 8 3 2 3 1 3 2 30

2 9 4 1 1 6 4 2 1 30

2 2 1 3 2 12 6 5 1 6 40

4 5 7 2 7 1 1 27

2 9 12 3 5 1 10 4 1 1 1 1 50

2 2 5 1 3 2 3 2 1 21

13 16 42 7 15 10 20 28 13 11 6 13 4 198

1The values are the following: V1 = Individuality, uniqueness, personal distinction; V2 = Richness,

wealth; V3 = Style, class, elegance, good taste; V4 = Achievement, success; V5 = Freedom, independence; V6 = Friendship, togetherness, relating to others; V7 = Technological progress and reliability; V8 = Pleasure, happiness, sexual freedom; V9 = Masculinity, femininity; V10 = Love and romance; V11 = Sustainability, preserving nature; V12 = Vitality and health; V13 = Family values. 2Categories are: 1 = Food and drink; 2 = Clothing, shoes, handbags; 3 = Body care and fragrance; 4 = Watches and jewellery; 5 = Cars and appliances; 7 = Miscellaneous.

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This means that in relatively many ads or commercials the images of the ideal ‘feminine woman’ and – to a lesser extent – the ideal ‘masculine’ man are evoked, though – as we shall see below – there is quite some variation in the gender images. Another point to be made on the distribution is the relatively low score of the value that appeals to individuality and uniqueness (V1). Based on the conceptualization of consumer society as being driven by the search for difference one would expect a higher score. Values that are important in society at large, such as family values (V13) and respect for nature (V11) have a low score, implying that marketing organizations do not consider them sufficiently appealing for the kind of advertisements and commercials selected here. The low score of family values (V13) seems to contradict an observed trend of increasing positive valuation of the family in Europe (cf. Antonides and Van Raaij, 1998: 52-53). It is noteworthy that two out of the four ads that focus on this value are from China and were selected by Chinese students. The Toyota ad where sustainability is the key message (V11), which I discussed above, appears to be quite exceptional as an ad that focuses on environmental values. When looking at the distribution of values over the different categories (excluding Category 6) a distinct pattern seems to emerge. In the first category of food and drink the value of friendship and togetherness (V6) has the highest score, confirming the social significance of food and drink. Status (V3) scores well too, especially for certain alcoholic beverages but not beer. According to the pictures, beers are definitely for socializing, especially among men. Of the four scores for family values (V13), not surprisingly two are in the category of food and drink. In the second category of clothing, shoes, and handbags, status and elegance (V3) are of primary importance. Of the six gender (V8) scores in this category three are derived from lingerie ads that portray beautiful, desirable women. Gender and images of masculinity and femininity (V8) are predominant in the third category, especially in the perfume ads. Here we find the stereotypical image of the seductive woman. One of the ads even features a woman eating an apple (Eve!), a detail that the student concerned failed to notice at the time. The six scores for the value of health and vitality (V12) are wholly derived from ads and commercials on body-care products. In the fourth category of watches and jewellery the appeal to status and elegance (V3) is predominant, but the appeal to technological progress and reliability (V7) in the ads on watches gets an equally high score. In these ads there is often an appeal to both aesthetic and technological sophistication, especially of the watches that look very expensive (V2), as can be deduced from their design and the materials used. More than in the other categories the items in this one appeal to individuality. As in category four, in the fifth category of cars and appliances the reference to technology (V7) is also important, but the message which says that you enhance your status by buying this car or television set even more so. The appeal to wealth and richness (V2) scores high in this category as well, the car apparently still being the archetypical commodity for displaying conspicuous consumption. The category of miscellaneous is too heterogeneous to draw conclusions about a pattern.

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3.3 The target audience The answers to the question as to which audience these kinds of ads or commercials are targeting, do not require extensive discussion. Overwhelmingly the target audience is relatively young, from adolescents to adults under forty, and has money to spend. Admittedly, this might be a bias induced by the age group of those who performed the selection. Nevertheless, in the countries of the sampled ads and commercials populations are rapidly ageing and one would expect this to have an impact on advertisement culture and policies. Most people in their ‘third age’ (Laslett, 1991) do not want to be young again. They want the kind of consumer and luxury products that suit their age and lifestyle, and they will be sensitive to symbols of status and prestige different from those for the younger generation. 3.4 Gender codes For the analysis of the ads and commercials from a gender perspective, two main questions are addressed. The first is about the kind of images of men and women, masculinity and femininity evoked. The second is about the way gender role divisions are referred to. In addressing these I also looked for unexpected elements in the setting or syntax of the ads or commercial. By syntax I mean the way the commodity is pictured in relation to an occasion or specific setting and the reference to the rules governing this relationship (cf. Solomon et al., 2002: 54). These counterpoint images, as I call them, are interesting because they indicate changes in gender images and gender roles. Before addressing these two questions I want to return to the subject of the target audience discussed above. In terms of age and gender four categories of target audiences can be distinguished: teenage girls, teenage boys, adult women, and adult men. Strikingly, the category of teenage girls is amply represented and that of teenage boys hardly. I found only two examples of the latter. One is a Heineken commercial where a boy needs the beer to gather courage to approach the girls at a party. The other one is an ad for a Piaggio scooter that shows a face that is half-boy and half-gorilla and tells boys to ‘wake up the beast in them’ (possibly to compensate for the dull image of the scooter). Apparently, teenage girls are a more promising market than teenage boys, or – alternatively – girls do not mind being called girls, while boys want to be men, thus contradicting popular wisdom that ‘boys will be boys, but girls will be women’. Girls are a category by themselves. The Tommy Hilfiger brand has developed a line of perfumes especially for girls, including one called Tommy Girl. The way girls are pictured in one particular ad corresponds exactly to the picture on the front page of the book written on the subject of images of girls in the mass media by Susan Douglas (1995). The ad in our sample is for a ladies’ razor called Venus and pictures four girls having fun in a pink cabriolet car. The front page of Douglas’s book also shows four girls having fun in a similar car (also pink!). The only difference is that the ad of Douglas’s girls and their car is – by the look of them – from the 1950s. 178 

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Some commodities are more gendered than others. Drinks appear to be very much a gendered commodity. Judging from the syntax in the ads, beers are male and wines, liqueurs, and most non-alcoholic beverages (tea and coffee) are female. Beers are for male socializing, and appeal to male friendship and solidarity. There are two exceptions in the sample. The first is a Heineken beer ad, which sends a very different message. It pictures two stylishly dressed women who are (ball-room) dancing in the background and two pairs of high-heeled shoes standing next to a couple of cans of Heineken beer in the foreground. The message is that women too can drink beer and that drinking beer can also have class (provided it is Heineken, of course). I subsumed this ad under those that display counterpoint images (see above). The second example is a commercial with a very macho story of cowboys and fighting, featuring David Beckham. Reconciliation among the fighting men is brought about by a drink, not a ‘masculine’ beer but a Pepsi. Of the female drinks some are clearly for girls to have fun together, in others women appeal to the values of friendship and wellbeing in general. Images of the ‘masculine’ man and the ‘feminine’ women abound in the ads for clothing and, in particular, perfumes. Judging by the ads, sport shoes and sneakers are not gendered commodities. The ads have a unisex look, to appeal to men and women alike. While perfumes were always a female commodity, there are quite a few ads for fragrance for men (usually after-shave) in the sample. When comparing the perfume and after-shave ads, they have the sexual appeal in common but differ in one important aspect. Most perfume ads show the female body as an object of beauty and desire, the after-shave ads show fully clothed men. Never mind how sexy and attractive these men may look, they do not have to be half-naked to get the message across. The exception to the latter is an ad from Calvin Klein that shows the upper part of a naked man and woman, the man covering the woman’s breasts with his arm and a bottle of Calvin Klein One (unisex). Cars are still very much a male commodity, especially the big ones and the 4-wheel drives. Two car ads use the Dutch term ‘jongensdroom’ in the text, which literally translates as a boy’s dreams. The connotation in Dutch is that of dreams you have when you are young about what you will have or achieve when you are grown up but which will generally not come true. The few car ads that seem to be targeted at women are of rather small, elegantly designed cars with a lot of room in the boot (for the shopping), and are set in an urban environment. Table 4 provides a summary of the predominant images of men and women, and masculinity and femininity, I found in the ads and commercials in the sample. The last row gives the masculine and feminine archetypal qualities that still predominate. An exceptional ad is one that presents an image of male beauty. It features a handsome man wearing a gorgeous necklace (Swatch bijoux). From a feminist perspective non-sexist advertising would present authentic female experience, show positive female role models, reflect co-operation among women, and ‘represent a new humanity’ (Stern, 2000: 70-71). By the last qualification Stern Changing families and their lifestyles 

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Table 4. Images of men/masculinity and women/femininity in the ads and commercials. Images of men and masculinity

Images of women and femininity

Male friendship and solidarity Men as irresistible, handsome and attractive, conquering women The rugged, individual, tough, adventurous man1 The father breadwinner The out-door man with a lot of leisure time and money to spend The young, urban, professional (yup) Masculine toughness

Girls having fun together Women as the eternal Eve, seducing men with their desirable bodies The modern, independent, self-confident, individual woman The modern housewife and mother The mysterious and exotic woman Elegance and style Feminine beauty

1As in ‘Marlboro Man’, characterized by Solomon et al. (2002: 53) as ‘quintessential US’.

(2000: 71) means that the advertising goal is ‘to depict the humanisation of both sexes, so that values such as nurturance, kindness and co-operation can be given the chance to change the world for the better.’ In the total selection there are ads and commercials that present gender images or refer to gender roles that more or less comply with these feminist criteria, but only a few. While most of the ads contain conventional (or sexist, as Stern would say) images of women, some of them present women as self-confident, independent persons (Stern’s positive female role models). We find them in car ads that feature women, in ads for casual clothing for women, and in the ad for Gauloises Blondes cigarettes (nicely contrasting with the Marlboro man). There are several ads or commercials that refer to gender roles. A funny one is a beer commercial ‘Bavaria beer: Call of the wild’. It shows men who are doing female work (cleaning the house, shopping) and then, simultaneously, drop these activities and go hunting and chopping wood together, after which they collectively storm the pub for a beer. In this way they reconfirm their masculinity; they are ‘real’ men again. The opposite narrative is provided by the man with the Miele ART vacuum cleaner (see description above). Here, we see an individual man, definitely a yuppy, who is obviously doing his own housework, albeit with a designer vacuum cleaner. In a French commercial about the liquid detergent Ariel there is also a man connected with domestic chores. The man, wearing spotless white clothes, is explaining the wonders of the detergent to his (sceptical) mother. The two last examples I included in my list of counterpoint ads. Two commercials can be put in this category as well. At first glance, both seem to confirm traditional family gender roles – father/breadwinner and mother/housewife – but there is an interesting little twist in both of them. The first one is a commercial about a Renault family car. The family – father, mother and children – is on 180 

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an outing and the car drives through the woods. This would be a conventional picture were it not that it is the mother who is in the driver seat, not the father. The second commercial is about a food product called Brinta ‘wake-up’ breakfast. The situation is hectic and the father has to go to work. But his breakfast is not waiting for him, prepared by a dutiful wife. She is too busy. The father is relaxed; he has his ready-made, all-in-one Brinta breakfast, and is not expecting his wife to prepare his breakfast. Table 5 summarizes the so-called counterpoint elements, meaning elements that deviate from conventional gender images and roles. Table 5. Elements deviating from conventional gender images and roles. Counterpoint gender images

Counterpoint gender roles

Self-confident, independent women Male beauty Gender equality Men as sexual objects, women as independent actors

Men doing household chores Mother taking the family out in the car Father taking care of his own breakfast Domestication of men, de-domestication of women

4. Concluding notes Above we already observed that some important societal values seem to be under-represented in the selected ads and commercials, notably family values and environmental values. Though the question remains to what extent ‘visual language reflects a truth about the world’ (Hall, 1997: 7), especially with regard to car ads and commercials, one would expect reference to environmental concerns. However, except for one, the car ads and commercials in the sample still picture cars as ‘a triumph of modern engineering and manufacturing’, as representing ‘scientific and technical progress’ and ‘the domination and control of nature’ (Budd et al., 1999: 87). The one exception is the Toyota ad that I discussed above as one of my favourites. Though it also stresses the miracles of technology, in this case the message is that technology is geared towards (pre)serving nature rather than controlling it. Regarding gender one can pose the question whether the second feminist wave and increasing participation of women in the labour market brought about a significant change in gender images produced by advertising and the way gender roles are pictured in advertisements and commercials. A study of 1699 television commercials from the 1990s in the United States found little evidence of change. The researchers found ‘no support for the hypothesis that women and men would be equally likely to be portrayed as sex objects’ and the data ‘tend to disconfirm hypotheses about a gender-neutral society [and] a gender-neutral family environment’ (Coltrane and Adams, 1997: 338). In spite of the counterpoint messages and Changing families and their lifestyles 

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images that I could identify, on the basis of the material available for this paper the overriding impression is also that of continuing more or less stereotypical casting. And then the girls: do they represent a new type of woman in the making? In the ads targeted at them, the image of attractive (not so much sexy), self-confident young women who enjoy life, is cultivated. In an article in the Dutch daily Volkskrant (2006) the authors, a sociologist and a psychiatrist, argue that present-day girls seem to be unaware of the fact that the independence they experience is contained by societal structures and conventional sexual stereotypes. These girls neither acknowledge nor understand the struggle of women of their mother’s generation to achieve the right to self-determination; they seem to take it for granted. Young women nowadays suffer from sociological blindness, says sociologist Christien Brinkgreve in the article. She could be right, but that would make girls no different from the majority of the population. However, the fact that the image of girls-having-funin-a-pink-cabriolet-car (see above) survived for almost fifty years, does not give us the idea that the images of girls and women have basically changed. Acknowledgements I wish to thank the 220 students for their effort without which this paper could not have been written. Some of them did very well, by making an original choice and presenting a thorough analysis. However, I decided to mention none of them by name, including the outstanding ones. References Antonides, G. and W.F. Van Raaij, 1998. Consumer Behaviour: A European Perspective. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons. Baudrillard, J., 1998. The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage. Budd, M., S. Craig, and C. Steiman, 1999. Consuming Environments: Television and Commercial Culture. New Brunswick, New Jersey and London: Rutgers University Press. Campbell, C., 1987. The Romantic Ethic and the Sprit of Modern Consumerism. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Coltrane, S. and M. Adams, 1997. Work – Family Imagery and Gender Stereotypes: Television and the Reproduction of Difference. Journal of Vocational Behavior 50: 323-347. Corrigan, P., 1998. The Sociology of Consumption. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage. Douglas, M. and B. Isherwood, 1979. The World of Goods: Towards an Anthropology of Consumption. London: Allen Lane. Douglas, S.J., 1995. Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media. New York: Three Rivers Press.

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Hall, S., 1997. Introduction. In: S. Hall (ed.), Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices, pp.1-13. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage, in association with The Open University. Laslett, P., 1991. A Fresh Map of Life: The Emergence of the Third Age. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. Solomon, M., G. Bamossy and S. Askegaard, 2002. Consumer Behaviour: A European Perspective. Harlow, England, London, New York, etc.: Pearson Education Limited & Prentice Hall. Stern, B., 2000. Advertisements as women’s texts. In: M. Catterall, P. Maclaran, and L. Stevens (eds), Marketing and Feminism: Current Issues and Research, pp. 57-75. London and New York: Routledge. Veblen, T., 1975 [1899]. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Augustus M. Kelly. Volkskrant, 2006. C. Brinkgreve and A. Soleman, Je borsten zijn je wapens [in Dutch]. Volkskrant, 26th August 2006.

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Economic motivations, task division, family type and financial management of Dutch households Johan A.C. van Ophem and Gerrit Antonides Abstract Little research has focused on the effects of partner attributes and family type in economic family decision-making processes, except the division of labor. Rather than focusing on the question of how household partners in general sort on particular attributes, we focus on the effects of relevant personal characteristics of household partners on household economic decision making. In particular we deal with the determinants and effects of demographic attributes, risk preference, time preference, attitude toward money, and whether or not the partners are spending their money freely, on the division of labor and financial management of the household. In addition, we study combinations of partners who are both economical, both spending freely, or one partner economical and the other spending freely. In the second part of this paper we analyse the relationship between family type – traditional, modern/egalitarian and individualised – and household financial management. The data are the fruit of close research co-operation of the authors with NIBUD, The Netherlands’ Institute for Budgeting by households. The NIBUD has collected the data by means of an Internet survey from May to November 2003. The results indicate that, in accordance with the literature, females tended to be more risk averse than males. It appeared that married persons were more risk averse than cohabiting persons, implying marriage as a rather safe choice. In comparing the respondents’ opinions regarding their own spending of money and their partners’ spending, we constructed four types of households, ranging from both partners being very economical to both partners spending very freely. Households with both partners being economical show more prudence in their financial behaviour than households in which partners are spending freely. This result is confirmed by the analysis of family type and financial behaviour. A household of the individualized family type is less inclined to behave in a financially prudent way. In the final section the authors discuss the implications for policy and research. 1. Introduction The formation of a household generally results in higher welfare of the partners than the sum of welfare when each of the partners stays single. Higher welfare can be attained from increased efficiency due to the combination of activities, economies of scale and psychological advantages. Here, we focus on the particular combination of household partners’ activities as a result of household decision making. Economic research has mainly focused on the division of paid and unpaid labor in households, in which the wage rate of the partners plays an important part. Partners with Changing families and their lifestyles 

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different wage earning capacity generally would decide for specialization in the division of labor, i.e. one partner working in the paid labor market and the other partner doing unpaid household labor (Becker, 1981). In this respect it is relevant how partners sort on certain characteristics, in particular wage-earning capacity. Other factors may also influence labor division, such as care for young children, norms and values. In marketing and economic psychology, attention has been paid to different roles of household partners in different stages of the decision-making process concerning the purchase of goods and services (Rosen and Granbois, 1983; Crispell, 1995) and to financial management of the household (Pahl, 1995; Burgoyne, 1995). Decision making and financial management have been related to a number of partner attributes associated with the power exerted in negotiations within the household (Scanzoni and Polonko, 1980; Woolley, 2003). Power may depend on institutional factors, e.g., family law, marriage market factors, and personal attributes, such as education, profession, etc. Little research has focused on the effects of partner attributes in economic family decisionmaking processes, except the division of labor. Rather than focusing on the question how household partners in general sort on particular attributes, we focus on the effects of relevant personal characteristics of household partners on household economic decision making. In particular we deal with the determinants and effects of demographic attributes, risk attitude, time preference, attitude toward money, and whether or not the partners are spending their money freely, on the division of labor and financial management of the household. In addition, we study combinations of partners who are both economical, both spending freely, or one partner economical and the other spending freely. In family sociology attention is paid to the relationship between control of money and control of household finance (see e.g. Pahl, 1995). Pahl has presented a typology of money management by households (families) ranging from the whole wage system to the one of independent management. In this paper we will proceed the other way round. We will investigate whether it is possible to relate a typology of families to the way money is handled in the household. Furthermore, family sociology has analysed the task division between the spouses in different family types. In De Hoog and Hooghiemstra (2002) and De Hoog and Vinkers (1998) four distinct family types were discerned: the traditional, the modern, the egalitarian and the individualised family type. Next, we provide a brief overview of the relevant theory. We continue describing the data set. We then present the results of empirical analysis and finally discuss the results. 2. Theory Economic decision making is influenced by a number of basic psychological motivations and capacities including, for example, the Big Five (Costa and McCrae, 1985), IQ, affectivity, and adult attachment (Luo and Klohnen, 2005). Here we focus on risk preference, time preference 186 

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and money attitude. We assume that, like most basic psychological motivations, these factors may be both inherited and shaped during upbringing and education (Mischel, 1968). An important motivation in economic decision making, for example in job choice, investment and credit decision making, is risk preference. It is well documented that females are generally more risk averse than males (Byrnes et al., 1999; Grable, 2000). Hence, females are expected to invest relatively often in safe assets (Barber and Odean, 2001) and to be reluctant to take credit. Another relevant motivation in intertemporal decision making is time preference, with positive (negative) time preference defined as the propensity to prefer immediate (delayed) consumption outcomes. Bishai (2004), using an indirect measure of time preference, found that females have more negative time preference than males. In general, the higher educated have lower time preference than the lower educated (Fuchs, 1982). Hence, females and higher educated people are expected to save more and borrow less than males and lower educated people, given their financial assets. Attitudes toward money may be relevant to household financial decision making although its effects are not always clear (Furnham, 1984; Stone and Maury, 2006). However, we expect a positive attitude toward money to be associated with relatively careful household financial management. Most research on partner attribute combinations deals with assortative mating, i.e., households sorting on similar or dissimilar attributes (Watson et al., 2004; Rose, 2001; Jepsen and Jepsen, 2002). In general sorting on similar attributes has been found, except for earnings capacity. According to Becker (1981), dissimilar wage-earning capacity of spouses should result in specialization with respect to paid labor and household tasks, such that highwage partners work in the labor market and low-wage partners perform household tasks. A different strand of research focuses on the effect of attribute differences between spouses on the division of power exerted within the household (Safilios-Rothschild, 1970; McDonald, 1980; Mizan, 1994). In particular, different education, wages, or bargaining skills might lead to uneven power distributions between household partners. Dobbelsteen and Kooreman (1997) found that females gain a higher share in the management of household finances the lower the male’s wage rate and education. In our research we study household financial management as a result of attribute similarity or dissimilarity of household partners. In particular, we expect more (less) efficient financial management if the partners are both economical (uninhibited) in spending. Couples of the traditional family type have traditional ideas about the division of work, household tasks and marriage, education of their children and about the positions of men and women. In this family type, children have to obey their parents and there is little negotiation between parents and children. In the traditional nuclear family motherhood is Changing families and their lifestyles 

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a dominant perspective. The socialization of children is governed by the principles of order, regularity and diligence. Spouses are seen as equal, although the wife focuses her efforts on household and children. The climate in the traditional family is more authoritarian than in the other family types. Traditional families are to be found among lower economic strata, non-western immigrants (from Turkey or Morocco), orthodox-Christian religious households and among households in which both spouses are lower educated. The ideas about financial management are traditional as well (see De Hoog and Van Ophem, 2006). Debt is to be avoided. Austerity is a virtue to be practiced. Since the borderline between the two types is fluent (see Te Kloeze et al., 1996), the modern and egalitarian family types are treated as one type in this paper. In the modern-egalitarian family type the ideas about marriage, socialisation and education of the children are traditional. But the family climate, especially the relationship between men and women is relatively democratic. Husbands take part in domestic work. Children should obey their parents, but their voices and preferences are taken into account. This family type tries to achieve egalitarianism between the spouses, but the husband is still the main breadwinner. Wives have part-time jobs. This type of family is to be found in the middle and upper-middle economic strata. Attitudes to debts are quite liberal in the sense that in circumstances where debts can be repaid easily, indebtedness is permitted. Neither austerity nor spending freely is seen as a virtue. In the individualistic family type husbands and wives have an equal task division. Both spouses are higher educated and career oriented. Both are working full time. Both are important decision makers. They spend a lot of money on different forms of child-care. The nanny or au pair is frequently to be found. Motherhood as the most important social identity is rejected. They are convinced that they are forerunners by their values, opinions and activities. This family type is aimed at individual freedom and self-actualisation. Austerity is not a virtue, and spending freely and having debts are not a problem. 3. Data and method The data are the fruit of close research co-operation by the authors with the NIBUD, The Netherlands’ Institute for Budgeting by households. The NIBUD collected the data by means of an Internet survey from May to November 2003. Readers from two daily newspapers that differed in their readership and content, were called upon to visit the NIBUD website and to fill in a questionnaire about money and money management. This resulted in a dataset with 5,200 respondents who filled in all questions fully and correctly. The analyses reported in this paper relate to a subset of couples with and without children. It should be noted that the research is not aimed at getting insight into the situation or the behaviour of vulnerable groups. Furthermore, it should be noted that two out of three persons in the Netherlands did have an Internet account at home in 2003 (CBS, 2007).

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Several issues were addressed in the questionnaire next to socio-economic and sociodemographic questions such as age, education of respondent and partner, household income and income of the members of the household, marital status, household size, household type, net wealth of the household. The issues relate to the strategic (financial targets, reserve, planning in and over the life cycle), administrative (ways of book keeping and/or keeping notes, information search, budgeting, and operational level (making ends meet, opinions and attitudes towards money and financial management) of household decisions with respect to financial matters. Several personal motivations, relevant to economic decisions were measured from the respondents, including risk preference, time preference, and money attitude. Risk preference. Response on 7-point Likert scales ( ‘Agree,’ …’Disagree’) to each of the following statements: ‘Safe investments are more important than high yield,’ ‘Investing in stocks exclusively is risky,’ ‘I rather prefer safe investments,’ ‘I am ready to run risk in exchange for high profit’ (reverse score). Principal components analysis (PCA) yielded one component explaining 59% of the item variance. The scale value of risk aversion was computed as the factor score. Time preference. Response on 4-point scales (‘Definitely does not apply to me,’ ‘Does not apply to me,’ ‘Applies to me,’ ‘Definitely applies to me’) to each of the following statements: ‘I am ready to give up current well-being for future issues,’ ‘I focus on the present, and wait and see what the future brings,’ ‘I try to influence the future with my current behavior.’ PCA yielded one component explaining 48% of the item variance. Money attitude. ‘Agree’ versus ‘Don’t agree’ response with respect to the following statements: ‘I often fantasize about money,’ ‘Money is the only thing that can always help you,’ ‘Money can solve all your problems,’ ‘I do anything for money,’ ‘I often worry about finances.’ PCA yielded one component explaining 39% of the item variance. In addition to the personal motivations, the respondents reported how freely they were spending their money, and how freely their partners were spending money. Answers were given on a 5-point scale (‘Very economical,’ ‘Economical,’ ‘Neither economical nor spending freely,’ ‘Freely,’ ‘Very freely.’) 4. Results One of the aims of collecting the data was to have an overview of the financial management and financial behaviour of Dutch households. The distribution across household types was as follows: 34 per cent singles (70 per cent female); 6 per cent single parents (95 per cent female) and 60 per cent couples with or without children. On average, higher incomes were found among couples, higher education among couples without children and lower educational levels among the single parents.

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In agreement with the literature, in our survey females tended to be more risk averse than males (see Table 1). However, males showed slightly more negative time preference than females, in contrast with our expectations. Furthermore, people with university or higher professional education were less risk averse, had lower time preference, and more positive attitudes toward money than the lower educated. People who had learned how to deal with money when they were young had more negative time preference and more positive attitudes toward money than people who had not learned this. Next, we studied how the economic motivations influenced economic decision making (see Table 2). It appeared that married people were more risk averse than cohabiting people, implying marriage as a rather safe choice for these people. Also, risk aversion was associated with relatively difficult financial management of the family. We found rather strong effects of time preference on economic behavior. Negative time preference was associated with cohabiting and marriage settlements, more frequent accountkeeping and expense monitoring, easy financial management and positive opinions about dealing with money. Positive money attitudes were associated with marriage rather than cohabiting, easy financial management and positive opinions about dealing with money. Table 1. Reported motivations (factor scores) by respondent attributes. Risk preference

Gender Male 0.302 Female −0.124 F-value 150.554 (p<.001) Education Elementary school −0.005 Lower professional −0.124 Secondary school −0.087 Mediate professional −0.030 University or higher professional 0.119 F-value 8.197 (p<.001) Learned how to deal with money when young Yes 0.011 No −0.027 F-value 1.032 (n.s.)

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Negative time preference

Money attitude

0.053 −0.025 3.916 (p<.05)

0.024 −0.025 0.799 (n.s.)

−0.335 −0.284 −0.021 −0.068 0.186 60.629 (p<.001)

−0.692 −0.367 0.110 −0.084 0.255 20.911 (p<.001)

0.065 0.116 −0.195 −0.332 39.070 (p<.001) 159.679 (p<.001)

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Table 2. Reported motivations (factor scores) by economic behavior. Risk preference

Household arrangement Married, community of property −0.058 Marriage settlement 0.047 Cohabiting, partnership contract 0.155 Cohabiting, no partnership contract 0.121 F-value 6.741 (p<.001) Frequency of keeping the accounts More than once a week 0.028 Once a week −0.026 Several times a month 0.030 Monthly −0.056 Less than once a month 0.079 F-value 1.439 (n.s.) Monitoring expenses Yes, regularly 0.016 Yes, only for large expenses 0.004 Yes, very irregularly −0.028 No 0.024 F-value 0.688 (n.s.) How does the family manage? Difficult/very difficult −0.038 Neither difficult nor easy −0.100 Easy/very easy 0.162 F-value 22.294 (p<.001) How do you think the family deals with money? Good 0.002 Neither good nor bad −0.011 Bad −0.057 F-value 0.939 (n.s.) How do you deal with money yourself? (Very) economically −0.049 Neither economically nor spending −0.012 freely Spending (very) freely 0.060 F-value 2.574 (n.s.)

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Money attitude

−0.039 0.136 0.157 0.042 4.616 (p<.001)

0.071 0.142 0.045 −0.164 7.513 (p<.001)

0.115 0.005 −0.004 −0.075 −0.183 6.766 (p<.001)

−0.005 0.044 0.041 −0.049 −0.280 4.307 (p<.01)

0.016 0.045 0.065 −0.106 5.492 (p<.001)

−0.140 0.084 0.086 −0.052 11.311 (p<.001)

−0.162 −0.740 −0.060 0.009 0.186 0.470 20.701 (p<.001) 277.680 (p<.001) 0.152 0.370 −0.068 −0.073 −0.161 −0.513 17.883 (p<.001) 159.560 (p<.001) 0.169 0.007 −0.171 19.159 (p<.001)

0.094 0.127 −0.118 16.851 (p<.001)

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In comparing the respondents’ opinions regarding their own spending of money and their partners’ spending, we constructed four types of households: (1) both partners being economical or very economical (10.6%), (2) one partner economical or very economical and the other partner spending freely or spending very freely (14.2%), (3) both partners spending freely or very freely (11.8%), and (4) other combinations of spending behavior (63.4%). We compared a number of different household behaviors across these four types (see Table 3). Married couples belonged more often to type 1 than cohabiting couples indicating more control of expenses. Cohabiting couples belonged more often to types 3 and 4 than married couples, which was consistent with a need for freedom in spending. Also, type 1 households, as opposed to type 3 and type 4 households, were characterized by keeping accounts and monitoring expenses frequently, knowing the budget for expenses, and having less debate about money. Type 3 households, combining the most extreme ways of dealing with money, most frequently reported having debates about money. Furthermore, type 1 households had a more favorable opinion about the way the family dealt with money than types 3 and 4. The household types did not differ significantly with respect to amount of wealth, but type 4 in Table 3 did have a relatively large amount of debt. Type 1 households appeared more able to pay large expenses immediately, whereas types 3 and 4 in Table 3 more often borrowed or paid in installments. Furthermore, type 1 households, as opposed to types 3 and 4, more often planned expenses for the next year, had an overview of their wealth, and made financial targets. Finally, types 3 and 4 more often reported that they don’t save regularly. We constructed family types as follows. A traditional family was defined as a family where the husband was the only breadwinner. A modern-egalitarian family was defined as a family with a part-time gainfully employed wife and a full-time gainfully employed husband. An individualised family was defined as a dual-earner family, with both spouses gainfully working more or less the same number of hours, each more than 32 hours a week. From Table 4, we can conclude that households belonging to the individualised family type were, in comparison to household belonging to the traditional family type, characterized by a higher income, higher level of education, younger age of both male and female. The division of labour within the individualised family household was such that both females and males were equally responsible for the household. The duration of living together was about twice as short, but the global level of assets and debts too was higher than in the traditional family type. Households of the modern/egalitarian type had a position in between the other two family types with respect to the indicators discussed above. These results were in accordance with the expectations stated in section 2.

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Table 3. Partner combinations of dealing with money by economic behavior. Both partners (very) economical

Percentage of sample 10.6% Household arrangement Married, community of property 11.2% Marriage settlement 12.9% Cohabiting, partnership contract 7.8% Cohabiting, no partnership contract 7.7% Chi-squared 50.754 Frequency of keeping the accounts More than once a week 13.0% Once a week 10.2% Several times a month 9.8% Monthly 10.6% Less than once a month 8.1% Chi-squared 59.974 Monitoring expenses Yes, regularly 17.0% Yes, only for large expenses 9.2% Yes, very irregularly 5.6% No 6.3% Chi-squared 199.357 Budget for expenses known Yes, for all expenses 16.3% Yes, only for certain expenses 5.9% No 5.2% Chi-squared 165.875 Frequency of debate over money Often 7.0% Sometimes 8.1% Never 15.5% Chi-squared 248.696

Changing families and their lifestyles 

One partner (very) economically or spending (very) freely, other partner neither economical nor spending freely

One partner (very) economical, other partner spending (very) freely

Both partners spending very freely

63.4%

14.2%

11.8%

65.8% 60.6% 60.9% 54.9% (df=9)

12.5% 14.2% 16.8% 21.4% p<.001

10.5% 12.3% 14.6% 16.0%

65.6% 66.6% 60.3% 61.4% 50.3% (df=12)

12.1% 13.1% 17.1% 14.6% 15.5% p<.001

9.3% 10.1% 12.9% 13.4% 26.1%

63.8% 72.1% 59.7% 62.1% (df=9)

13.2% 11.9% 17.5% 14.0% p<.001

6.0% 6.7% 17.2% 17.6%

62.9% 66.1% 57.3% (df=6)

13.7% 13.9% 17.0% p<.001

7.2% 14.1% 20.5%

43.7% 63.0% 68.5% (df=6)

36.7% 16.8% 4.8% p<.001

12.6% 12.0% 11.2%

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Table 3. Continued. Both partners (very) economical

How do you think the family deals with money? Good 18.6% Neither good nor bad 5.8% Bad 3.0% Chi-squared 480.070 Net wealth <€ 0 13.3% €0 – €100,000 11.1% >€100,000 10.2% Chi-squared 11.615 Approximate debts € 0 – €10,000 14.0% € 10,000 – €100,000 11.5% >€100,000 7.5% Chi-squared 35.084 Financing a large expense Can be paid immediately 11.1% Money should be borrowed 8.5% Paid in installments 12.6% Chi-squared 70.191 Planning expenses for next year Yes 15.2% No 9.1% Chi-squared 44.145 Overview of wealth Yes 14.7% No 8.9% Chi-squared 56.926 Financial targets made Yes 12.6% No 8.3% Chi-squared 26.538

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One partner (very) economically or spending (very) freely, other partner neither economical nor spending freely

One partner (very) economical, other partner spending (very) freely

Both partners spending very freely

67.4% 65.3% 42.2% (df=6)

10.0% 16.2% 20.3% P<.001

4.0% 12.6% 34.6%

54.9% 62.1% 65.0% (df=6)

15.5% 14.8% 13.2% n.s.

16.3% 12.1% 11.6%

60.9% 63.3% 64.3% (df=6)

15.0% 13.9% 13.0% p<.001

10.1% 11.3% 15.2%

66.5% 56.2% 54.5% (df=6)

13.1% 16.5% 16.2% p<.001

9.3% 18.9% 16.6%

63.2% 63.2% (df=3)

14.2% 14.0% p<.001

7.5% 13.7%

64.5% 62.7% (df=3)

13.8% 14.1% p<.001

7.0% 14.3%

63.1% 63.8% (df=3)

14.2% 13.8% p<.001

10.1% 14.2%

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Economic motivations, task division, family type and financial management

Table 3. Continued. Both partners (very) economical

Save regularly Yes, fixed amount per month Yes, if money is left over No Chi-squared

9.4% 13.5% 10.1% 55.861

One partner (very) economically or spending (very) freely, other partner neither economical nor spending freely

66.3% 61.8% 51.9% (df=6)

One partner (very) economical, other partner spending (very) freely

Both partners spending very freely

13.2% 14.4% 17.3% p<.001

11.1% 10.2% 20.7%

Table 4. Selected socio-economic indicators of three family types Variable

Traditional family

Modern/egalitarian Individualised family family

Monthly household income Age man (years) Age woman (years) Highest educational level in household 1 Duration of living together (years) Division of labour within household 2 Net wealth position in euros -global level of debts 3 -global level of assets 4

€2165 48.2 44.8 3.17 20.1 2.6

€2719** 42.6** 39.4** 3.59** 16.8** 3.1 **

€3041** 38.8** 35.9** 4.01** 11.5** 3.6**

3.3 3.5

3.9** 3.9**

4.0 ** 3.8**

* p < 0.05, ** p< 0.01, traditional family is the reference group. 1 1 = primary education, 2 to 4 secondary education types, 5 = tertiary education(completed). 2 1 = female manages household alone, 2 = female manages household, male helps occasionally, 3 = female manages household/male helps regularly, 4 = female and male are both equally responsible for household, 7 = male manages household alone. 3 1 = 0, 2 = 1 – 9,999, 3 = 10,000 – 19,999, 4 = 20,000 – 49,999, 5 = 50,000 – 99,999, 6 = 100,000 – 199,999, 7 = 200,000 – 499,999, 10 ≥ 1,000,000. 4 1 = < 0, 2 = 0 – 19,999, 3 = 20,000 – 49,999, 4 = 50,000 – 99,999, 5 = 100,000 – 199,999, 6 = 200,000 – 499,999, 8 ≥ 1,000,000.

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Table 5 gives information about financial management of the family types discerned. A small majority of all three types had set financial targets, while almost all households agreed about the necessity of a financial reserve. There was no difference in the frequency of debate over money in the household or the way the household dealt with money. In all three family types about 25% planned next year’s expenses. Furthermore, there was not much difference in the frequency of bank accounts being overdrawn. Severe financial stress also did not occur frequently and was not related to the family type. Table 5. Selected indicators of financial management and financial situation according to family type. Variable

How do you deal with money 1 - mean score male - mean score female Making ends meet mean score2 Income judgements, mean values of monthly amounts in Euro’s necessary bad sufficient good Household has set financial targets (yes in %) Financial reserve necessary (yes in %) amount in Euro’s amount available (yes in %) Severe financial stress having sold assets to pay for daily expenses (yes in %) to draw more than 500 Euro from savings accounts to pay for daily expenses (yes in %) to borrow more than 500 Euro to pay for daily expenses (yes in %)

196 

Traditional family type

Modern/egalitarian Individualised family type family type

2.97 2.90

3.05 2.99*

3.19 ** 3.06 **

3.26

3.61**

3.93**

1593 1263 1768 2159 51

1850** 1442** 2059** 2606** 55

1918 ** 1526 ** 2192 ** 2856 ** 57

98 6390 46

97 6001 51

98 5996 55**

0

0

2

20

29**

26

2

4

5

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Economic motivations, task division, family type and financial management

Table 5. Continued. Variable

Traditional family type

Modern/egalitarian Individualised family type family type

Debate over money in household 3 Opinion family deals with money 4 Keeping track of financial administration 5 Payment of a large expenditure 6 Planning next year’s expenses (yes in %) Bank account overdrawn 7 No debts Increase in household economic rationality 8 Assessment of financial situation 9

2.22 1.75 2.25 1,56 28 2.19 19 3.79 3.09

2.25 1.78 2.46 ** 1.40** 25 2.27 12 ** 3.49** 2.66**

2.25 1.81 2.59** 1.42** 26 2.12 13** 3.44** 2.25**

* p < 0.05, ** p< 0,01, traditional family is the reference group. 1 1=very economical, 2= economical, 3=neither economical nor spending freely, 4=spending freely, 5=spending very freely. 2 1 =very difficult, 2 = difficult, neither difficult nor easy, 4 = easy, 5 = very easy. 3 1 =never, 2 =seldom, 3 = regularly. 4 1 = good, 2 =not bad/not good, 3 = good. 5 1 = several times a week,2 = once a week, 3 = each month several times, 4 = monthly, 5 = less than once a month. 6 1 = will be paid out of own funds, 2 = will be paid out of a personal loan, 3 = will be paid from an installment credit. 7 1 = never, 2 = sometimes, 3 = regularly, 4 = always. 8 index ranging from 1 to 5. Consists of the number of affirmative answers to the following items: to give more weight to the price when buying things; to spend more time looking for bargains; to pay more attention to price-quality ratio; to gather more information before buying; to ponder purchases. 9 1 = considerably improved, 2 = slightly improved, 3 = no change, 4 = slightly worsened, 5 = considerably worsened.

Differences across household types were found concerning other aspects of financial management and situation (not reported in Table 4). Individualized family types, in comparison to traditional family types, more frequently held the opinion that their financial situation had improved. They had less difficulty in making ends meet and their increase in household economic rationality as measured by means of the index explained in Table 4 was less and they were more able to pay for a large expenditure from their own funds rather than borrowing the money. Individualized families kept track of their financial administration less frequently than the other family types. The financial reserve seen as necessary was present Changing families and their lifestyles 

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relatively frequently. Individualised family types stated relatively often that both males and females dealt with money more freely. Finally, the levels of income seen as necessary, bad, sufficient or good were higher than the corresponding ones in traditional families, indicating that individualized families needed more money to feel as equally well off as traditional families. Just as in Table 4, households of the modern/egalitarian type had an intermediate position with respect to the matters discussed. The results supported the expectations with respect to austerity and spending freely in financial management depending on family type. 5. Discussion Although household partners generally sort on similar attributes, they frequently differ with respect to important economic motivations, including risk preference and time preference. In agreement with the literature, we found females to be more risk averse than males. However, contrary to Bishai (2004), we found more negative time preference with males than with females. This is consistent with Read and Van Leeuwen’s finding (1998) that females preferred more unhealthy snacks than males in immediate choice (although no difference was found in advanced choice). We did not find significant gender differences with respect to money attitudes. Time preference and money attitudes were significantly related to learning how to deal with money in childhood and with education. This finding suggests that these attributes can be shaped to some extent by parents and teachers, which seems to be relevant for financial guidance in long-term consumer policy. Our research shows that the economic motivations are significantly related to a number of economic behaviors. Rather than viewing such behaviors as independent or isolated, they seem to be generated by common factors to a significant extent. The proper measurement of such motivations may be applied in budget advice or self-help tests for consumers. A relatively new aspect in our research is the family typology based on (reported) freely spending money of both partners. We have found significant and plausible relationships with a number of family behaviors. These results imply that attribute similarity of household partners may amplify the effects of this economic motivation, whereas attribute dissimilarity may indicate averaging of the effects. These processes might be taken into account in family budget advice. In future research, it appears promising to include more partner attribute combinations, preferably including risk preference, time preference and money attitudes. Also, more behaviors might be included, e.g., insurance behavior, investment behavior, family planning, and career planning.

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Next to the characteristics of individuals, it is fruitful to pay attention to the household or family as a social group. In this paper we have established the relevancy of relating a family typology – based on characteristics of the family in terms of a social group, as has been done by Kees de Hoog and his associates – to the way money is handled. These results are in line with the ones obtained from analysis by means of a family typology based on (reported) freely spending money of both partners. There will be relatively many higher educated people, especially women, in the future. Because of homogeny in the partner market and marriage market (as has been demonstrated by De Hoog, 1982), a larger share of individualized family types will be expected. This will have consequences for the way money is handled in households. Spending freely prevails in individualized families. In comparison to traditional families, they are less inclined to restrict spending. Although this type of family is equipped with higher income and wealth, this family type is also much more prone to the risks of divorce and separation than the traditional family. In view of the high costs of such an event, more people will be faced with budgeting problems. References Barber, B.M. and T. Odean, 2001. Boys will be boys: Gender, overconfidence, and common stock investment. Quarterly Journal of Economics 116: 261-92. Becker, G.S., 1981. Treatise on the family. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Bishai, D.M., 2004. Does time preference change with age? Journal of Population Economics 17: 583-602. Burgoyne, C.B., 1995. Financial organization and decision-making within Western ‘households’. Journal of Economic Psychology 16: 421-30. Byrnes, J.P., D.C. Miller, and W.D. Shafer, 1999. Gender differences in risk taking: A meta analysis. Psychological Bulletin 125: 367-83. CBS, 2007. Statline De Digitale Economie 2003. Seen on 21-2-2007. Costa, Jr., P.T. and R.R. McCrae, 1985. The NEO Personality Inventory. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources. Crispell, D., 1995. Dual-earner diversity. American Demographics ( July): 32-7. De Hoog, C., 1982. Partnerselectie bij Huwelijkssluiting in Nederland. PhD Thesis Wageningen University. De Hoog, K. and J. Vinkers, 1998.Van Individualisering naar Pluriformiteit. Analyses van Gezinsbeelden in de Programma’s voor de Tweede Kamerverkiezingen. Den Haag: Nederlandse Gezinsraad. De Hoog, K. and E. Hooghiemstra, 2002. Links en Rechts Aandacht voor het Gezin. Gezinsbeelden in de Partijprogramma’s voor Verkiezingen van de Tweede Kamer. Den Haag: Nederlandse Gezinsraad. De Hoog, K. and J. Van Ophem, 2006. Families and changing life cycles. In: G. Meijer, W.J.M. Heijman, J.A.C. Van Ophem and B.H.J. Verstegen (eds), Heterodox Views on Economics and the Economy of the Global Society, pp. 143-54. Wageningen: Wageningen Academic Publishers.

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Dobbelsteen, S. and P. Kooreman, 1997. Financial management, bargaining and efficiency within the household; An empirical analysis. De Economist 145(3): 345-66. Fuchs, V.R., 1982. Time preference and health: An exploratory study. In: V.R. Fuchs (ed.) Economic Aspects of Health, pp. 93-120. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Furnham, A., 1984. Many sides of the coin: The psychology of money usage. Personality and Individual Differences 5: 501-9. Grable, J.E., 2000. Financial risk tolerance and additional factors that affect risk taking in everyday money matters. Journal of Business and Psychology 14(4): 625-30. Jepsen, L.K. and C.A. Jepsen, 2002. An empirical analysis of the matching patterns of same-sex and opposite-sex couples. Demography 39(3): 435-53. Luo, S. and E. Klohnen, 2005. Assortative mating and marital quality in newlyweds: A couple-centered approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88(2): 304-26. McDonald, G.W., 1980. Family power: The assessment of a decade of theory and research, 1970-1979. Journal of Marriage and the Family 42: 841-54. Mischel, W., 1968. Personality and Assessment. New York: Wiley. Mizan, A.N., 1994. Family power studies: Some major methodological issues. International Journal of Sociology and the Family 24: 85-91. Pahl, J., 1995. His money, her money: Recent research on financial organization in marriage. Journal of Economic Psychology 16: 361-76. Read, D. and B. Van Leeuwen, 1998. Predicting hunger: The effects of appetite and delay on choice. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 76(2): 189-205. Rose, E., 2001. Marriage and assortative mating: How have the patterns changed? Working paper, University of Washington. Seattle, WA, USA. Rosen, D.L. and D.H. Granbois, 1983. Determinants of role structure in family financial management. Journal of Consumer Research 10: 253-58. Safilios-Rothschild, C., 1970. The study of family power structure: A review of 1960-1969. Journal of Marriage and the Family 32: 94-104. Scanzoni, J. and K. Polonko, 1980. A conceptual approach to explicit marital negotiation. Journal of Marriage and the Family 42: 31-44. Stone, B. and R.V. Maury, 2006. Indicators of personal financial debt using a multi-disciplinary behavioural model. Journal of Economic Psychology 27: 543-56. Te Kloeze, J.W., K. de Hoog, M. van Bergen and M. Duivenvoorden, 1996. Tussen vrijheid en gebondenheid. Het postmoderne gezin ontdekt. Leuven/Apeldoorn, Garant. Watson, D., E.C. Klohnen, A. Casillas, E.N. Simms and D.S. Berry, 2004. Match makers and deal breakers: Analyses of assortative mating in newlywed couples. Journal of Personality 72(5): 1029-68. Woolley, F., 2003. Control over money in marriage. In: S. Grossbard-Shechtman (ed.), Marriage and the Economy: Theory and Evidence from Advanced Industrial Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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From pedestrian fare to gourmet trend: the case of Salicornia europaea L., a traditional gathered wild sea shore vegetable Lisa L. Price Abstract Salicornia europaea L has its life history along the seashores and salt marshes of Northern and Southern Europe as well as areas of North America and many other areas around the world. This wonderfully salty and crunchy vegetable is known by many folk names from various cultures including common glasswort or marsh samphire (English), zeekraal (Dutch), and glasört (Swedish) and was traditionally gathered by fishing folk, sailors and others whose lives and livelihood were tied to the sea. This vegetable is an annual pioneer species that grows in silt and sand along the sea shore (watered by the waves or tides) and can also be found in salt marshes. A brief description of the botanical and environmental aspects of the species is provided and the paper goes on to examine the literature on the nutritional value of the species and notes from historical records on consumption. Information is then presented on the growing interest of saltwater agriculture and the current cultivation of Salicornia europaea as a sea vegetable for the market and its promotion. Lastly, the paper examines the growing gastronomic and gourmet interest in this species through a look at a selection of internet sites that include discussions by chefs, web-based culinary news articles, and recipes to prepare in the at-home kitchen. The paper concludes with a commentary on this transformation. 1. Introduction Salicornia europaea L is a traditional wild food plant that grows on sea beaches and in salt marshes. The common name in English is glasswort (common glasswort). This crisp and salty vegetable has as many local folk names as the cultures in countries in which it is eaten: marsh samphire (English), zeekraal (Dutch), glasört (Swedish), almyrides (Greek), toongtoongmadi (Korean), and yan jiao cao and hamcho (Chinese). Very little is available in the literature on the use of Salicornia europaea L in traditional diets, yet we find a proliferation of websites that illustrate the growing popularity in contemporary cuisine. This growth can possibly be linked to the contemporary interest in traditional foods as well as the increased access the modern consumer has to the species through the growth in market cultivation and marketing of the species. No longer is it only primarily known to coastal dwellers or only available in the wild. Websites provide forums to learn about the species, through discussion groups and on-line recipes. Salicornia europaea L is a delicious vegetable that is promoted for consumption primarily with fish or other seafood as well as fresh in salads. But it is not only delicious; it is nutritious as well, being particularly rich in Changing families and their lifestyles 

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vitamin C and minerals. To a certain extent, it has served in the past as a functional food in Northern Europe, providing a high level of vitamin C in the colder coastal area in the spring after a winter of few green, fresh foods being available. The functional, health properties of Salicornia europaea L are culturally recognized in some parts of Asia, for example, the species appears in traditional medical texts in China and Japan (www.myoceangreen.com/ salicornia.htm). This paper provides a brief examination of this wild food species. My interest in the species came about through a chance discovery of it in the local greengrocers in the non-coastal town of Wageningen in the Netherlands in 2004. This year (2007) the same green-grocer (in response to my inquiry) told me the zeekraal (Dutch folk name for Salicornia europaea L) he had on sale came from Mexico. Later in 2007, I saw it for the first time in the grocery store chain of Albert Heijn in Wageningen in a pre-packaged grouping of fresh vegetables to go with fish, thus making Salicornia europaea L more available to the average Dutch consumer. The species is also noted as appearing in the markets of the Mediterranean (El and Karakaya, 2004) as well as in the local shops, markets and roadside stalls in the United Kingdom (BBC Online, 2007). It is noted as one of the most popular wild edible vegetables in southern Spain (Guil et al., 1997). Ultimately, it appears that Salicornia europaea L is not only available in situ in the wild but is also available from markets in numerous countries. I have studied wild food plants a good deal (Price, 2006; Price, 2003; Price, 1997; MorenoBlack and Price, 1993) and this article is a result of my curiosity surrounding this vegetable. My questions are: 1) what is it?; 2) where does it come from?; 3) is it good for us to eat?; and lastly how has it become so available? Ultimately, I hope to enlighten the reader on these aspects and provide an indication of how this common folk wild gathered vegetable came to be a seasonal gourmet treat. 2. Botanical and environmental aspects of Salicornia europaea L. Salicornia europaea L (common glasswort) is an erect summer annual plant, but in subtropical environments the plant can live for more than one year and reaches to about 35 cm in height. It is fairly richly branched with jointed stems (Figure 1). It is dark green in its earlier growth period, then turning a yellowish green, then later turning pinkish, reddish or purplish. The plant is comprised of joints/nodes which are round and the plant is succulent. The roots are not very deep, reaching 10 or so centimeters into the soil (Davy et al., 2001). The species grows along the coast lines in tidal mud flats and in salt marshes inland. Salicornia europaea L is a plant that depends upon salt water to thrive and is restricted to saline habitats and is highly tolerant of flooding. Salicornia species are what is termed halophytes, meaning that the presence of sodium in the growing environment is necessary (Davy et al., 2001; Intellicrops, 2005).

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From pedestrian fare to gourmet trend

Figure 1. Salicornia europaea L. in natural habitat. Source: Glasswort (2007). Encyclopedia Brittanica on-line (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9036998/glasswort%22%3e%20gl asswort%3c/a%3e)

Salicornia europaea L has a large geographical range in which it is considered a native species, including the circum Mediterranean countries (Greece, Spain, Turkey, Albania, Egypt, Morocco), Northern European countries (Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, France, Poland, Estonia, Latvia) and Asian Countries (China, Japan, Korea, India) among others. It is documented as existing in the Americas but does not occur as a native species and is thus classified as a naturalized species (USDA, n.d.). Within Europe, it has a wide distribution (Figure 2).

Figure 2.The distribution of Salicornia europaea in Europe. Each dot represents at least one record in a 50-km square. Source: Reproduced from Jalas and Suominen(eds), Atlas Floraea Europaeae 5, (Map 567, pp. 69), 1980, by permission of the Committee for Mapping the Flora of Europe, and Societas Biologica Fennica Vanamo. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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3. Nutritional value of Salicornia europaea L. and traditional diets 3.1 Nutrition Guil et al. (1997) examine both the nutritional components (ascorbic acid, dehydroascorbic acid and carotenes) as well as the anti-nutritional and toxic components of 16 wild edible plants, including Salicornia europaea L, collected in southeast Spain. Their findings show that Salicornia europaea L has a very high ascorbic acid and dehydroascorbic acid content, with values over 100mg/100g (Table 1). Given that the recommended daily allowance for vitamin C is 60mg per person it could easily be reached by consuming 60g of the vegetable. Levels of oxalic acid, however, indicate caution in consuming high amounts. Nitrate levels were the lowest in Salicornia europaea L at a range of 47 to plus or minus 11 (5 independent samples) compared to the other 15 wild food plants examined by Guil et al. (1997). Similarly, Dragojević et al. (2006) performed an analysis of the nutritive value of a selection of wild grown edible plants growing in Croatia, including Salicornia europaea L. From the results of their analysis they conclude that these wild food plants can successfully be used in the daily diet as a substitute for standard cultivated vegetables. Research on radical scavenging (antioxidative activity) of some greens used in traditional dishes in the Mediterranean diet examining Salicornia europaea L reached similar conclusions: ‘The consumed amounts of these greens necessary for good protection against oxidation are easy to reach in a normal Mediterranean diet. In this respect, greens are highly recommended as an option for the increase in the consumption of vegetables’ (El and Karakaya, 2004: 73). Table 1. Vitamins and anti-nutrients per 100 g of edible leaves Salicornia Europaea L. from 5 sites in southeast Spain with independent analysis (mean ± standard deviation). Source: adapted from Guil, Rodriguez, and Torija (1997, pp.102. Moisture (g)

84.98±3.07

204 

Vitamin C Ascorbic (mg)

Dehydroa (mg)

101±19

21±6

Carotenoids Oxalic acid (mg) (mg)

Nitrate (mg) Erucic acid (%)

5.3±0.9

47±11

540±100

0.00

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3.2 Traditional diets Documentation of the use of Salicornia europaea L in traditional diets is somewhat scarce. Salicornia europaea L was perhaps an important source of vitamin C historically, particularly for the seaside dwellers in the colder climates of Northern Europe. While it may not have contributed to bulk food, it was in all probability important for what is termed ‘spring hunger’(Fenton, 2000) and in Norwegian ‘vårhunger’ (Riismøller, 1971). Spring hunger is comprised of the need (and consumption desire) for fresh vitamin-rich foods after a winter. It is also a period when food stores were reaching the low point. Fenton (2000: 186) states: ‘Diseases due to dietary deficiencies were no doubt exacerbated during winter when few or no kinds of green stuff were to be had, and it is little wonder that their body - especially in the case of young folks -began to cry out for what it needed, regardless of scientific explanations. This is where the concept of ‘spring hunger’ comes into its own’. While spring hunger may have been eased by Salicornia europaea L for seaside residents, it was also commonly eased for non-seaside dwellers through the use of other inland wild food species and even the practice of eating fresh green crop shoots of rye or wheat (Fenton, 2000; Riismøller, 1971). There is some additional evidence that Salicornia europaea L was used in other distinct situations historically. Van der Burg (2002) in her study of agricultural modernization and education for rural women in the Netherlands between 1863 and 1968 documents the promotion of wild foods through outreach on how to prepare them. In the Netherlands radio broadcast from VARA in 1940 two sea side greens were included in the cooking course program on the preparation of salty wild vegetables Salicornia europaea L (zeekraal) and Limonium vulgare (lamsoor) (Van der Burg, 2002; Van der Burg, 1941). In a paper on foods and dietetics of sixteenth and seventeenth century Britain, Newman (1946) notes that glassworts were not only eaten as food but also the ashes of burnt glasswort were used medicinally. The ashes were eaten as a salt as well as being applied as an ointment. Medicinal uses were also noted by Culpeper (1653) where the powder (ashes) or juice was taken in water and was thought to have anti-depression and diuretic activity. Newman explores the marketing of Salicornia during the periods stating ‘Most of the dieticians mention a considerable number of maritime plants used as food. This is quite unexpected as transport limitations of the time would make it difficult to convey fresh seashore plants far in land’ (Newman, 1946; Venner 1620 and 1650, cited in Newman, 1946). As of 1946, Salicornia was the only one of the sea vegetables still in extensive use and available on the markets of country towns in the east of England (Newman, 1946). Salicornia europaea L is currently included on the food list of the Voedingscentrum [Nutrition Center] in the Netherlands (Nutrition Center and product information website). The Voedingscentrum webpage on Groenten van a-z [vegetables from a-z] lists zeekraal and provides a physical description, when available for eating (April–July), how to store it and ways to eat it (such as in salad, with lamb or fish or in stir-fry dishes). There is no listing Changing families and their lifestyles 

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of the nutritional value (listed as unknown). The Voedingscentrum, however, does not list Salicornia europaea (zeekraal) as a wild gathered food plant but notes that it is cultivated and brought to the market (...geteeld en in de handel gebracht). The fact that zeekraal is a traditional gathered vegetable of the Dutch province of Zeeland, and is a food of cultural heritage and meaning is unfortunately lost on this website. 4. Saltwater agriculture: the growth in cultivation of Salicornia europaea L. There are a number of companies that are promoting and growing ‘sea vegetables’ of which Salicornia is an important crop. The website of Intellicrops bvba (Belgian company) describes how the company is engaged in the research and development of saline crops and agro-marketing of these crops (Intellicrops bvba, 2005). The rationale of the company brings together the quality of Salicornia as food (rich in omega 3 fatty acid and minerals), the increasing market demand for sea vegetables, and the transformation of unproductive saline farm lands into productive and profitable saline agricultural lands. In addition to the transformation of selected farm lands, other hydroponic conditions can be facilitated as well as sea water irrigation or saline water irrigation. There are currently saline crop installations in Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, Morocco, Hungary, Denmark and Israel. Farms for Salicornia also exist in Mexico, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and India. During field trials in the early years of these farms, the 6-year field trials at a Mexico site produced an average annual crop of 1.7 kilograms per square meter of total biomass (Glenn et al., 1998). Brief notes on the use of ‘salt worts’, sea vegetables other than Salicornia europaea, are also to be found. In a discussion of saline agriculture for developing countries (BOSTID, 1990) two species are mentioned. These are the common Indian saltwort (Suaeda maritima) that grows in saline soils on India’s eastern and western coasts which is culturally considered a wholesome vegetable and the saltwort (Basis maritima) used by the Native Americans as food in the southwestern United States. For Basis maritime, yields with the use of seawater irrigation reaching 17 tons (dry weight) per hectare have been obtained (BOSTID, 1990). 5. The growth in gastronomic and gourmet interest in the species This section of the paper examines a selection of websites in the English language to provide some examples of how Salicornia europaea L appears in the virtual world of gastronomic and gourmet mystery and delight. The growth in interest of the general public has been accompanied by some confusion and a need for clarification in the folk names and which species they actually refer to. One of the most prevalent points of confusion is with the term ‘samphire’ originating in the British Isles. The website Answers.Com from the Food Lovers Companion provides the following information on the definition of samphire:

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Samphire [SAM-fy-uhr] There are two edible, very similar plants known as samphire. The first is Crithmum maritimum (commonly referred to as rock samphire), which grows along the coasts of Great Britain and northwestern Europe and is available in the United States only through costly import. What we have in the United States is the second type of samphire known as salicornia, (also called glasswort, marsh samphire, sea bean and sea pickle). It’s abundant along both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts and has spiky green leaves that are so arranged as to make the plant look somewhat like a spindly, miniature cactus, sans needles. Both the leaves and stem are crisp, aromatic and taste of a salty sea breeze. They’re often pickled and can sometimes be found in jars in gourmet markets. Fresh salicornia can be found from summer through fall, though it’s at its most tender during summer months. Choose crisp, brightly colored sprigs with no sign of softness. Refrigerate tightly wrapped for up to 2 weeks — though the sooner salicornia is used the better the flavor. It’s best used fresh, either in salads or as a garnish. When cooked, salicornia tends to taste quite salty and fishy. The mixing up of Crithmum maritimum and Salicornia europaea is perhaps linked back to an earlier marketing deception. It is noted that ‘in the past, it was valued as a herb and used as a preventative against scurvy, samphire was pickled for taking on long sea journeys’ (BBC. Co.UK, Norfolk, accessed 14 March 2007). An on-line article in the British newspaper the Telegraph (Telegraph.co.uk, country notebook, dated 30 June 2001) informs us that it is in fact another species that went under the name of samphire (Crithmum maritimum) that was so popular and was pickled and shipped and sold on the streets of London in days of old. The Telegraph article noted above goes on to say that Crithmum maritimum became in such short supply by the early 1800’s, that the dealers then began to flesh out the content of the pickle with ‘golden samphire’ which is another species all together. While Crithmum maritimum is now sometimes referred to as ‘rock samphire’ (growing high on the sea cliffs), Salicornia europaea is referred to as ‘marsh samphire’. The generic term samphire, however, continues to be used in the UK in popularized gourmet recipes online (Figure 3 ). While there is no identification about which of the different species that comprise samphire they are referring to, their online glossary of food ingredients lists samphire only as Salicornia europaea (http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/glossary/s.shtml?samphire). Salicornia europaea L has also become linked with seaside tourism. The following text excerpt from an article written by Nigel Barden, a food critic for the BBC, illustrates how traditional foods become linked to tourism in what can ultimately be termed ‘food tourism’ or ‘culinary tourism’. In this way, the food and setting come together to provide the experience. Marsh samphire is a coastal plant and often served with fish. The green tip is about 3cm high and 2mm across and it’s a tender, salty mouthful.

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Warm salad of samphire, asparagus and crab

by Rick Stein from Seafood Lovers' Guide

Serves 4 Preparation time less than 30 mins Cooking time 10 to 30 minsπ Ingredients 1x1.25-1.5kg/2¾-3lb cooked brown crab 350g/12oz thin asparagus 225g/8oz samphire, picked over and washed ¼ garlic clove, finely chopped 2 tbsp/1fl oz/30ml extra virgin olive oil, plus extra for serving juice of ¼ lemon/2tsps 1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley sea salt flakes a few parmesan shavings, to garnish Method 1. Remove the meat from the crab. 2. Snap off the woody ends from the asparagus where they break naturally and discard them. Cut the asparagus stalks in half. Break off and discard the woody ends of the samphire and break the rest into 2.5cm/1in pieces. 3. Bring a pan of water to the boil. Add the samphire and asparagus and cook for one minute. Drain and refresh under cold water to stop them cooking and help set the colour. Drain well once more and then tip into a bowl. Add the garlic, olive oil and lemon juice, toss together lightly and season to taste if necessary. 4. Divide the asparagus and samphire between 4 plates and arrange pieces of the white crab meat and a little of the brown meat over the top. Sprinkle with the chopped parsley, drizzle over a little more olive oil and season with a few sea salt flakes. Scatter over the parmesan shavings and serve.

Figure 3. BBC online recipe for salad with samphire. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/ database/warmsaladofsamphirea_3290.shtml.

Now you might think I’m getting a bit poncy here and moving away from proper seaside grub, but like all things our diets are evolving and I first had samphire at a restaurant overlooking the sea, nestling up to a piece of smoked fish. I now make a regular pilgrimage to a favourite restaurant, the Butley-Orford Oysterage, in the middle of the ever-so-cute coastal Suffolk village of Orford, which is run by a family of fishing folk who happen to have a smokery next door. (Barden, 208 

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Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/5268732.stm Published: 20 August 2006) The ‘Visit Denmark’ website presents an article entitled New Scandinavian Cooking a culinary journey through wonderful Denmark. In this article local food products are promoted for their culinary delight to entice visitors. Marsh lamb is featured as one of these products: Marsh lamb The marsh is famous for its delicious lambs bred on open marshland all year round and which live of their mother’s milk and special grass crops such as spartina and glasswort. The salty grass gives the lamb meat its characteristic flavour and it is considered a delicacy. You can buy the lambs from farm shops or sample the meat at the local restaurants. (New Scandinavian Cooking - a culinary journey through wonderful Denmark. http://www.visitdenmark.com/international/en-gb/menu/ turist/inspiration/nydlivet/gastronomi/new-scandinavian-cooking-a-culinaryjourney-through-wonderful-denmark.htm). 6. Discussion and conclusions Salicornia europaea L. has a history which I have only been able to touch upon in this paper. Its nutritional and cultural importance is only coming to light both historically and under contemporary circumstances. While this plant is apparently still gathered from the wild in some locations in Europe, and perhaps elsewhere, it has increasingly become available on the market through cultivation. Some of the questions I had when starting the exploration of Salicornia europaea L come from my own curiosity upon seeing it and eating it for the first time a couple of years ago. While Salicornia is a traditional gathered wild sea-shore or salt marsh vegetable, in recent years there has been a growth in the cultivation of the species for market sale. Along with this we find a host of websites informing us about what it is and how to prepare it, and telling us that it is ‘special’. It is special in the sense that it is cultural and traditional, but to what extent the consumer truly knows the cultural traditions is highly questionable. It may only be considered traditional in some vague way by the masses. But there is also the creation of ‘tradition’ linked to tourism where the culinary aspects are promoted. The viewer is enticed to consume the culture as a tourist through an authentic experience where the consumption of ‘traditional’ foods such as the marsh lamb in Denmark becomes blended into the tourist experience thus culinary tourism emerges. What appears more so to be the case of the everyday at-home consumer is that Salicornia europaea L is made ‘special’ by the proliferation of websites where Chefs well known to the general public (such as Rick Stein) provide ‘gourmet’ recipes that are meant to be prepared Changing families and their lifestyles 

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at home. The incorporation of exotic ingredients is part of the appeal and food websites such as Epicurious.com (on-line home of Gourmet and Bon Appetit magazines) offer a food dictionary where one can look up the unknown ingredient in a recipe by its folk name. My conclusion is that the transformation of Salicornia europaea L from pedestrian fare to gourmet trend has ultimately seemed to be through a combination of forces, most notably availability through cultivation and then the marketing which has enhanced availability. Importantly, the concept of the ‘traditionally authentic’ comes to the fore in selling culinary tourism coupled with selling the exotic that anyone can have on their seasonal table. References Barden, N., 2006. What’s cooking at the seaside. Story from BBC News, Online UK version Published: 2006/08/20). Retrieved May 30, 2007, from http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/uk/5268732. stm BOSTID, 1990. Saline agriculture for developing countries. Report of a panel of the Board on Science and Technology for International Development, Office of International Affairs, National Research Council. [BOSTID]. Washington D.C.: National Academy Press. On-line publication. Retrieved June 6, 2007, from http://www.cd3wd.com/CD3WD_40/CD3WD/AGRIC/B12SAE/EN/ B1381_7.HTM#B1381_7_1 Culpeper, N., 1653. Culpeper’s complete herbal. London: W. Foulsham and Co. Davy, A.J., F.G. Bishop and C.S.B. Costa, 2001. Salicornia L. (Salicornia pusilla J. Woods, S. ramosissima J. Woods, S. europaea L., S. obscura P.W. Ball & Tutin, S. nitens P.W. Ball & Tutin, S. fragilis P.W. Ball & Tutin and S. dolichostachya Moss) Journal of Ecology 89: 681-707. Dragojević, I. V., B. Šebečić, I. Lončar and A. Šimić, 2006. ‘Nutritive value of wild growth eatable plant Glasswort (Salicornia europaea L.), Rock Samphire (Crithmum maritimum L.), Wild Leek (Alium ampeloprasum L.), Sow Thistle (Sonchus oleraceus), and Prickly Sow thistle (Sonchus asper L. Hill).’ Farmaceutski Glasnik 62 (10): 525-38. El, S.N. and S. Karakaya, 2004. Radical scavenging and iron-chelating activities of some greens used as traditional dishes in Mediterranean diet. International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition 55: 67-74. Fenton, A., 2000. Wild plants in hungry times. In: Food from Nature: attitudes, Strategies and culinary practices, pp. 182-94. Uppsala: Royal Gustavus Adolphus Academy for Swedish Folk Culture. Distributor: Swedish Science Press, Uppsala Sweden. Glasswort, 2007. In Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved May 30, 2007, from Encyclopedia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9036998 Glenn, E.P, J.J. Brown and J.W. O’Leary, 1998. Irrigating crops with seawater. Scientific American 279(2): 76-81. Guil, J. L., I. Rodriguez-Garcia and E. Torija, E., 1997. Nutritional and toxic factors in selected wild edible plants. Plant Foods for Human Nutrition 51: 99-107 Intellicrops bvba, 2005. Salicornia. Retreived January 12, 2007, from http://www.scrops.com/ salicornia.htm

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Jalas, J. and J. Suominen (eds), 1980. Atlas Florae Europaeae 5: Chenopodiaceae to Basellaceae. Helsinki: Committee for Mapping the Flora of Europe and Societas Biologica Fennica Vanamo. Moreno-Black, G. and L.L. Price, 1993. The marketing of gathered food as an economic strategy of women in Northeast Thailand. Human Organization 52:398-404. Newman, L.F., 1946. Some notes on food and dietetics in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 6(1): 39-49. Price, L.L., 2006. Wild food plants in farming environments with special reference to Northeast Thailand, food as functional and medicinal, and the social roles of women. In: A. Pieroni and L. L. Price (eds.), Eating and Healing: Traditional Food as Medicine, pp. 65-91. Binghamton, New York: Haworth Press. Price, L.L., 2003. Farm women’s rights and roles in wild plant food gathering and management in Northeast Thailand. In: P. Howard (ed.), Women and Plants: Gender Relations in Biodiversity Management and Conservation, pp. 101-15. London: Zed Books. Price, L.L., 1997. Wild plant food in agricultural environments: a study of occurrence, management, and gathering rights in Northeast Thailand. Human Organization 56: 209-21. Riismøller, P., 1971. Sultegrænsen (2nd ed.), Vårhunger (pp. 22-33). Cophenhagen: Nyt Nordisk Forlag. [in Danish]. Van der Burg, M., 2002. Geen Tweede Boer’: Gender, Landbouwmodernisering en Onderwijs aan Plattelandsvrouwen in Nederland, 1863-1968. PhD Thesis Wageningen University. Van der Burg, A., 1941. Typed manuscript by Aukje van der Burg on farm household education, radio reading VARA 17-1-1940,8 [referenced in Van der Burg (2002)]. Venner, T., 1620 [1st edition] and 1650 [expanded edition]. Via Recta ad vitum longam [cited and referenced in Newman, L. F. (1946)]. www.answers.com/topic/samphire. Retrieved 30 May. 2007. www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/taxon.pl?412197. Retrieved May 22, 2007. www.bbc.co.uk/food/glossary/s.shtml?samphire. Retrieved May 30, 2007. www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/warmsaladofsamphirea_3290.shtml. Retrieved May 30,2007. www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/your/a-z_norfolk/a-z_samphire.shtml. Retrieved March 14, 2007. www.gourmetsleuth.com/equivalents_substitutions.asp?index=G&tid=2498). Retrieved May 30, 2007, from GourmetSluth.Com. 2007. www.internationalrecipesonline.com/recipes/dictionary.pl?6075. Retrieved May 30, 2007. www.visitdenmark.com/international/en-gb/menu/turist/inspiration/nydlivet/gastronomi/newscandinavian-cooking-a-culinary-journey-through-wonderful-denmark.htm. Retrieved May 30, 2007.

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From citizen to consumer to citizen-consumer: the development of the welfare state and consumer society Anton Schuurman Abstract At the beginning of the 21st century we again face the questions: How is society to be organized? What role should the state play? What is the role of the market? A century ago these questions were firmly answered. At the beginning of the twentieth century it became clear that the state would play a large role in every aspect of social life. In the Netherlands the government proudly published three major laws: one on housing, one on health, and one on compulsory education. During the twentieth century first the welfare state was built up and later, in the last quarter of the century, it was challenged. It was challenged by such different developments as the process of globalization and the process of individualization. The welfare state had to be reformed. With the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, the answer seemed to be more market. This answer had already been prepared since the 1970s by liberal and conservative ideologues and by the actual development of consumer society in the twentieth century. Increasingly, people were addressed as consumers and less as citizens. When the Euro was introduced in the Netherlands and the Chancellor of the Exchequer was warned of rising prices, he was convinced that the market would take care of this problem and that the government had no role to play. If businesses raised prices, people would start buying from the competitor, so was his reasoning, and in this way the blind forces of the market would regulate the prices. The same holds for social responsibility with regard to child labour. If consumers abstained from buying products that were made using cheap child labour, it was expected to disappear automatically. As we now know this belief in the market was too naïve. Since then we have been looking at many levels for new answers in mixtures of the role of the state and the market, for new public/private arrangements, for new roles for citizens and consumers. In this article I want to contribute to this search for new answers by providing a historical background to the discussion. What were the reasons for the development of the welfare state? Why did it have to be reformed? How did consumer society develop? Where did it reach its limits? What can we learn from experiences with the consumer society in the twentieth century? 1. The development of the welfare state in the twentieth century As a result of social contention the brutal dynamics of nineteenth century capitalism have been regulated by the state since the end of the nineteenth century. In the nineteenth century rapid population growth, immigration, urbanization and increasing wage labour made it necessary for social arrangements to be organized at a national level and collectively. At the same time the development of printing, the extension of literacy, the fast improvement of infrastructure and communication, the increase in money circulation, and the better Changing families and their lifestyles 

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prediction of mortality figures, made this organization at the national level possible (De Swaan, 1988; Scott, 1998). The Bismarckian social laws of the 1880s are commonly seen as the beginning of the development of the welfare state in Western Europe. The experiences of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Second World War intensified this development, as did the new ideas of Keynesian economics and the ideological struggle with communism in the Cold War. The role of the state increased enormously in the different societies of Western Europe, albeit in different ways and at different levels. In all European countries the level of state expenditure and state employment grew to unprecedented levels (Allen et al., 1992; for the Netherlands, see Van Holthoon, 1985; Van Eijl et al., 2001). The welfare state seemed an undisputed success. The years after the Second World War witnessed strong economic growth. Politicians and the public alike were convinced they had found the key to sustained economic growth. There was great optimism in the air. People believed that modernization of society under the guidance of the state was bringing benefits for everyone. The state was seen as a neutral body, the advocate of the general interest who could arbiter in social conflicts. Within the nation state rules were made that applied to everyone and were therefore also acceptable to all parties. The government regulated working hours, closing hours of shops, labour circumstances, living conditions, provisions for education. Trust in national governments had augmented for two reasons. In the first place, they proved reliable in their functioning. In the second place, as the importance of the state for society increased the state became more democratized. The system of parliamentary democracy spread over Europe and became more inclusive thanks to the struggle and efforts of organizations and individuals. Ever more people were getting active and passive rights to vote. After the First World War in many countries came the introduction of a system of general male suffrage and later also female suffrage. In the same process political parties came into existence. In those parties parliamentarians were working together to realize programmes that they presented to the voters in order to be elected and to give a voice to their opinions. Next to political parties other civil organisations also came into being like farmers’ organisations, labour unions, employers’ associations and organisations for shopkeepers. In the Netherlands this organisation of society acquired a specific character because most of them were split according to religion and ideology, a phenomenon referred to as pillarization. Church and state had been officially separated since the nineteenth century, but church and society were more related than ever before. There was an active and flourishing civil society in addition to a strong state (De Rooy, 2002; Aerts and Van de Velde, 1999). Another reason for the optimism after the Second World War was the unshaken belief in science and the progress of science (Hobsbawm, 1994; Giddens, 1990). Science was no 214 

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longer mainly linked to the development of destructive forces of war like the atomic bomb that gave a dark gloom to the second half of the 1940s, the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, but to sending humans to the moon and providing society with better technologies. Doctors would continue to find cures for diseases. Psychologist would made progress in the workings of the human soul, sociologists in the functioning of society and economists in the running of the economy. The real successes these (social) sciences had or seemed to have in those years reinforced the confidence of the public in their significance. 2. The limits of the welfare state: globalization and individualization A euphoric mood developed that can only be compared with the recent one for the New Economy. Euphoria, however, is usually a sign that a development has reached its height. It is the last phase before things start to change again. And so they did. In the 1970s the nationstate system reached its limits through, as always, a mixture of incidental and structural causes. Self-confident, the different governments reacted to the downward economic trend. The familiar economic recipes, however, were no longer effective. And worse: the arrangements of the welfare state that were constructed over a long period of time and were the pride of the post-war generation of politicians, were no longer realistic. Unemployment rose quickly to high levels and so did the expenses for social support. Moreover, it appeared that the welfare state had unintended consequences. People expected solutions from the government instead of trying to improve their own situation. Furthermore, their view of the welfare state had changed over time. The support of the welfare state was no longer seen as a system of solidarity with those who unfortunately could not take care of themselves for a period of time, but as insurance. This implies that they had the right to social security benefits because they had paid for it themselves. The nation state had become an insurance-company and the Prime Minister its CEO. In other words: citizens started to behave like consumers. The welfare state had been an answer to the Great Depression of the 1930s, and functioned happily for a long period of time. However, the geographical, political, economical and cultural circumstances in which it flourished changed in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The reasons for this were twofold: the role of the nation state changed as did the relationship between the state and its citizens. Although after the Second World War the nation-state became more powerful than ever, its position started to change. Military cooperation, internationally political cooperation, migration, transnational environmental problems and transnational terrorism all undermined not so much the sovereignty as the autonomy of the nation-state. Not that the nation-states had been completely autonomous before the 1970s, but in the third quarter of the century the process of internationalisation had changed into the process of globalization (Held, 1995; Held et al., 1999; Sassen, 2006). This became most noticeable in France (Yergin and Stanislaw, 1998). In 1981 the socialists under François Mitterand had finally gained power. Great expectations were raised. Mitterand tried to attack the worsened economic situation with classical Keynesian and Changing families and their lifestyles 

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socialist means. However, although France was a very centralized country, it became visible that it was not an isolated state. Capital could flee to other countries and the economic stimulation measurements could not change the international economic climate on its own. The effect was therefore contrary to expectations: unemployment rose while the national budget deficit soared. Under the influence of his Prime Minister Mauroy and his Chancellor of the Exchequer Delors, in 1983 Mitterand changed his policy, worked more closely together with Germany and became a convinced European. Not only the role and position of the nation-state altered, but also the role and position of the citizens. People became more individualized. Because the church had less influence and people got better education, traditional views and values became less dominant (Felling et al., 2000). The character of primary relationships between family members altered, because they were less financially and economically dependent on each other. The state would pay for the education of the children, and the state would give support in the case of setbacks without asking anything in return but financial demands. This made it easier for young adults to have a different opinion from their parents (De Regt, 1993). After 1970 the life courses of people again started to diverge after a long period since 1920 in which they had become more similar (Liefbroer and Dykstra, 2000). Since 1920 events like leaving home, marrying, and having children took place for ever more people at roughly the same age and with only minor differences between the social classes. This synchronisation of the life course was caused by legal rules on labour and education. But social life was also synchronised by rules on drinking, movie going, and by the rules and norms of the churches (Selten, 2001). It was intensified by the weight of historical events like the World Wars and the Depression, and the Reconstruction Period. After the 1970s individual choices became more important (De Hoog, 2003). The generation after the Second World War was less organized than the generations before. The membership of political parties and unions was declining in various countries of the Western world (Putnam, 2000, 2002). This was in fact contrary to expectations, because it was thought that a better education would lead to higher social involvement. Not all organizations were hit by a decrease in membership. Organizations like Greenpeace and Natuurmonumenten underwent huge increases in membership. However, these organizations were different from organizations like political parties. They just wanted you to contribute your money, but not your time. That made a great difference to the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. In that period when people encountered problems they tried to solve it together and in a structural way, but sometime after 1980 the main reflex became: sauve qui peut. It is difficult to give the exact reasons for these developments, also because of the diversity between countries in these developments and in their causes. Generally, however, commercial television, two-career families, and urban sprawl belonged to the underlying causal factors.

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The changed attitude was stimulated also by the sustained economic growth. People felt secure in their existence thanks to the welfare state and economic growth. They developed a new attitude towards money. They were encouraged to spend it – it was for their own benefit and for the economy as a whole, as Mandeville had already taught in the eighteenth century: private vices were public virtues. As we will see shortly, consumption became more important in the life of people in the second half of the twentieth century. Individualization stimulated consumption, and consumption stimulated individualization (De Hoog, 1987). 3. Neo-liberalism This new course of society was translated into and strengthened by new directions in politics and economics. The new idea became that the state was inefficient, that society needed a small government and that people were responsible for their own life. In 1979 Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in the UK and in 1980 Ronald Reagan President of the USA. Both, under the influence of ideas of the economists Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, advocated a policy of a retreating state and a more important role for the market and took their chances to put these ideas into practice. They were very successful. As in the beginning of the 1970s in the heydays of the welfare state even President Nixon called himself a Keynesian, in the 1990s even democrats like President Clinton and social democrats like Prime Minister Kok of the Netherlands embraced the supply-side economics. And as with Keynesian economics supply-side economics also became distorted. Keynesian economics originally taught that public demand should be (temporarily) increased when private demand failed – it was meant as an anti-cyclical economic policy. After some time, however, it was also used for policies to stimulate economic growth as such and to take care of a well-balanced distribution of its fruits among the different social groups (Van der Wee, 1985). Likewise, the basic ideas of supply-side economics are that incentives matter, that high tax rates are bad for growth, and that inflation is fundamentally a monetary phenomenon. Permanent cuts in marginal tax rates would stimulate the economy. But nowadays politicians are saying that ‘you cut taxes and the tax revenues increase’ (Bartlett, 2007). In general since the 1980s the control of inflation has become more important than driving back unemployment figures. The politics formulated as a solution for the economic crisis of the eighties are still dominant. They include the following: financial deregulation, tax reform, competition policies, privatization measures, labour market reforms, reduction of subsidies (Woodward, 1999). In other words: the welfare state was and is under revision. The appeal of the market increased with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the decline of communism. Neo-liberalism could rename itself as TINA – There Is No Alternative. These policies appeared to have success. Confidence in the new policies increased when economic growth rates accelerated in the second half of the 1990s. At the same time that these policy changes were implemented, there were huge technological changes due to the massive use of personal computers, the introduction of the Internet, and other new communication devices. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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The digital revolution had begun. But also other new technologies like biotechnology and nanotechnology seemed promising and needed huge investments (Castells, 2001; Garreau, 2005). Together they were referred to as the New Economy. However, at the beginning of the 21st century the situation changed. In 2001 there was a recession that diminished the belief in the New Economy. Also economic scandals like the collapse in 2002 of Enron, a giant energy trading company in the USA, shed the marketoriented policies in a new light. The Enron company had misled shareholders by publishing over-optimistic and misleading figures of its performance. While the top management was enriching itself, many shareholders and especially employees of Enron lost their money. Enron played a role too in the many energy blackouts in California after the energy market was deregulated in December 2000. Power producers could cause prices to increase by withholding only small amounts of electricity. Prices of energy were going up and energy provision became less secure (Berenson, 2006). These became the new lessons of deregulation. They were reinforced by experiences with British Rail. The prices for travellers increased, while huge subsidies were still needed and railway maintenance was questionable, especially after the Hatfield rail crash in 2001. Despite the scandals and problems the trend towards deregulation and privatization will not soon reverse. In the USA it found new advocates with the George W. Bush administration, and it is applied even to fields that are usually considered to belong to the core business of the state, like defence, the modernization of the Coast Guard, and job training of new police forces in Afghanistan (Krugman, 2006; Weiner, 2007). It is in fact too early to draw a well-balanced conclusion from the new economic policies. Politicians and society are learning from the scandals. After the Enron collapse new measurements were taken to prevent a repetition of the events. It took a long time too to build the welfare state. At the international financial level, national banks also learned from the severe international economic turbulence in the wake of the East Asian financial crisis that started in Thailand in 1997 and spread to many other countries. The market can only function well when it is embedded in governance rules. It will take much longer to find a good mix between the role of the state and the role of the market. The retreat of the state implies the stepping forward of entrepreneurs and the consumers. In the wake of the triumph of supply-side economics, people are addressed more and more as consumers. By choosing products and services they can express their preferences and at the same time make choices not only for products, but also for the quality of the products, or the way products are fabricated. By buying products or not buying them they can even influence the policies of companies. A famous example became the Brent Spar case. The Brent Spar was an oil storage from Shell that had become obsolete. Shell wanted to dispose of it by sinking it into the deep sea. Greenpeace was in favour of the on-shore dismantling of the Brent Spar because of the less damaging consequences for the environment. They organised a world-wide media campaign against Shell, including calls for boycotting Shell 218 

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service stations. Eventually Shell gave in, although later it became public that their original plan was sound. They also gave in, not so much under the influence of the consumer boycott as the for reason for attacks on a service station in Germany (Van Nieuwstadt, 2001). How realistic is it to expect that the consumer will shape society through his consumption? What can we learn from the history of the consumer society? 4. The development of the consumer society The complement of the welfare state is the consumer society.37 Sometimes they are seen as twins, sometimes as opposites. It seems a long time ago that consumer society was a negative word. In the 1960s and 1970s it stood for plain materialism and artificial desires. Nowadays, we have a more nuanced and perhaps even positive view of consumption. Historians tell us that consumption already played an important role in the early modern period (De Vries, 1994; Brewer and Porter, 1993; Schuurman and Walsh, 1994; Schuurman et al., 1997). It was the dynamic driving force behind the economic development in the West. In the seventeenth and eighteenth century in Western Europe a real consumer society came into being. World trade brought new products to Western Europe that were willingly bought by a growing public. The new consumer goods were not only acquired by the economic and social elite, but also by the middle classes; not only by townsmen, but also by countrymen. The new products that came into the households – coffee, tea, tobacco, porcelain, cotton, mirrors, and clocks – had a great impact. They changed the living environment, but also the way people behaved. In the eighteenth century it was already clear that society could profit from the consumption by its citizens. Instead of criticizing the country people for their consumer behaviour the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D’ Alembert was praising them (Encyclopédie, 1765). As a consequence of their consumption the provision level in the countryside was high and they were prepared to work hard to earn money in order to buy new goods. Also in eighteenthcentury Scotland there was an encouragement for a ‘beneficial luxury’ based on the idea that it would stimulate economic growth (Nenadic, 1994). In the nineteenth century we see the same. Domesticity was propagated as a means to reconcile the labourers and middle classes with their hard work. A gendered division of labour developed where the man was earning the family income, while his wife took care of the children and the home. She was encouraged to embellish the house and make it comfortable. In the second half of the nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth many new furnishings and textiles found their way in the houses of common people (Schuurman, 1989). 37 This

section and the following are based on Cross, 2000 and Cohen, 2003. I also used Zunz, 1998 and Trentmann, 2006. For an overview of the historical literature see also: Trentmann, 2004.

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At the turn of the twentieth century the consumer society changed its character definitively. The relationship between producers and consumers had become more anonymous. Standardized, brand-name goods were advertised and distributed to reach the broadest possible public. Society as such became more anonymous because of the increase in large cities. In the first half of the nineteenth century population growth took place in the countryside, but from the second half of the nineteenth century cities were growing and became more numerous. In these cities consumption helped people to find their way. Americans joined ‘consumption communities’ that did not require an active citizenry but were composed of ‘people who have a feeling of shared well-being, shared risks, common interests and common concerns that come from consuming the same kinds of objects’ (Boorstin, cited in Cross, 2000: 21). By visiting amusement parks and dance halls and by wearing new clothes and adopting new foods, second-generation immigrants distanced themselves from their parents while participating in American society. Shops and shopping started to play a larger role in people’s life. These changes were enabled by the historic economic change that is called the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution heralded an era of unprecedented sustained economic growth per capita (Wrigley, 1988). In the nineteenth century it permitted a rise in the quality and quantity of the diet in Europe (Fogel, 2004). The growth of the number of potential consumers was made possible by high productivity growth that started at the end of the nineteenth century and continued in the twentieth century. This productivity growth also allowed entrepreneurs to think of a high-wage low-price formula that would expand the market. The same labourers that made the products, could become its consumers. This approach was pioneered by the car producer Henry Ford. In the 1920s mass consumption grew more prevalent. With the Great Depression economic hardship returned. In the USA the solution was not sought in the welfare state and in programmes of redistribution in the name of social justice, but in the strengthening of the consumer society. In the Fairs of Chicago, San Francisco and especially New York in 1939 emphasis was on the promise of betterment through consumer goods. The realisation of this promise had to wait until after the Second World War. In the 1950s and 1960s the consumer society was flourishing. Its favourite place became the suburbs. Consumption became centred on the house and the car. With the rise of income, consumption shifted from family to individual consumption. Divisions between men and women and between young and old were used by marketers to find new markets for products. A personalized form of consumption that had begun to segment gender and generation in the 1960s accelerated in the 1980s. The 1980s and 1990s saw not only expanded markets but also greater income inequality and with it a more dynamic and fragmented consumerism. ‘Markets were especially fragmented along the lines of choices women made regarding marriage, family, and career. By 1985, advertisers divided women into eight consumer clusters, up from four in the early 1980s. They found some forty 220 

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lifestyle groups, often identified by zip codes’ (Cross, 2000: 226). This fragmentation of the market changed the character of consumerism. In earlier periods consumers also used the goods they bought for distinction but at the same time it always implied participation in general society. Now, it became almost exclusively focussed on distinction. Groups in society became separated from each other. 5. The limits of the consumer society The history of consumption in the United States in the twentieth century has recently been written in terms of a struggle between the consumer citizen and the consumer purchaser. Out of this struggle after the Second World War the Consumer Republic was born in which ‘the nation’s economy was reconstructed and its democratic values reaffirmed through promoting the expansion of mass consumption’ (Cohen, 2003: 11). The citizen consumer was defined as ‘responsible for safeguarding the general good of the nation, in particular for prodding government to protect the rights, safety, and fair treatment of individual consumers in the private marketplace’ (Cohen, 2003: 18; see also Spaargaren, 2001). While the purchaser consumers were viewed as ‘contributing to the larger society more by exercising purchasing power than through asserting themselves politically’ (Cohen, 2003: 19). In the 1930s and during the War, the ideal of the consumer citizen was growing. There was a growth in consumer representation and the legal protections for consumers became stronger. Consumer education programmes in schools and communities expanded. Women’s consumer activism also increased. Consumer boycotts and other buyers’ actions were not new, but in the 1930s they became better organised and not only directed to the shop owners but also to city councils, state legislatures and Washington. However, already before the war some groups like organized labour and the captains of industry were more in favour of the consumer purchaser. This became the dominant theme after the Second World War. The Consumer Republic was attractive because it raised incomes and satisfied needs. The extra strength of this Republic was that it appeared to show a way to economic equality without requiring means of redistributing existing wealth. It was argued that an ever growing economy built around the dynamics of increased productivity and mass purchasing power would expand the overall pie without reducing the size of any of the portions. As long as economic growth persisted everyone would gain. And in fact they did. Economic inequality declined during the twentieth century until 1975. However, even during the period that economic equality was growing, not all social groups were enjoying the same benefits. The Afro-Americans in particular were excluded. It was also more difficult for women to participate fully in the Consumer Republic. After 1975 economic inequality started to rise again, first slowly and after 1995 it accelerated. In the same period consumer segmentation as a result of social science research and advertisers further disturbed the idea of economic equality. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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These developments were then strengthened by the changed economic policies of deregulation and privatization in major Western countries that were the topic of the preceding section. Next to the concept of the consumer purchaser came the consumer taxpayer who perceived himself as a customer for government products and services and asked from the government the same quality and service as from private companies. In this view the government was no longer seen as an institution that provided public services, but one that had to satisfy the private interests of a paying customer. The government had to be organized as a marketplace. At the same time the voters were treated increasingly as consumers (Schudson, 2006). Politics and politicians were advertised and sold as other products and services. Politicians used market research strategies in order to identify their voters and adapt their message. Interestingly, the application of mass marketing techniques to the field of politics dates back to the beginning of the twentieth century. The first company devoted exclusively to managing political campaigns was established in the 1930s. With the Kennedy campaign of 1960, in line with the general developments of marketing, attention was directed for the first time at voter segments. Not only did the experiences from the Consumer Republic teach that consumer society does not produce a just and equal society, they also show that other promises that neo-liberals expect her to fulfil, should not be taken too literally. In the 1960s criticism on the shadowy sides of consumerism was rather successful (Cross, 2000). In 1962 President Kennedy declared a Consumer Bill of Rights – the right to safety, to be informed, to choose, and to be heard. Also the environmental movement and the counterculture were critical about consumerism. In the 1970s, however, these movements were already on the retreat in the USA. Business interests regained their influence over the political process. The consumption desire itself was too strong. Although there was severe hardship in the 1930s, it did not shake the belief in consumption, and neither did the 1970s’ energy crisis change consumer attitude. The counter culture failed because it was directed too exclusively to middle class youths. It had no success among the working classes and lower middle classes who were just enjoying the new products of their rising income, and did not succeed in developing viable alternative lifestyles and lasting social practices outside the consumerist system. ‘Neither the Left with its appeals to expression and difference nor the Right with its celebration of markets and narrow moral concerns’ (Cross, 2000: 229) really knew how to handle the unintended consequences of the consumer society. Conservatives observed already in the 1950s that the consumer society was undermining their social and family values. However, it did not stop middle class families going to the suburbs and leaving their urban networks behind. Subsequently, they could not protect their suburban family life from a more individualized social life. Nor could the cherished idea of the weekend free from work and hurry be upheld neither (Cross, 2000; see also Sennett, 1998). 222 

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In the conception of neo-liberal economists and politicians the economy is amoral. In the economy the sovereign consumer reigns executing his freedom of choice, based on the rational calculation of interest leading to progress (Slater, 1997). Preferences and values are exogenous. Thatcher and Reagan were masters in connecting the amorality of a system based on individual preferences and the presumed need for collective cultural values as a basis for the social order. They were successful in binding together neo-liberals concerned with formal freedoms and neo-conservatives defending traditionalist substantive values. But they could not offer lasting solutions for its contradictions. The consumer society was under attack both from the Left and from the Right, but neither side really resisted it or knew how to control it. The influence of the developing consumer society on the family as an institution was great. The concurrent demographic trends were: higher divorce rates, fewer children, fewer marriages, more cohabitation, and more births out of wedlock (Offer, 2006: 362). 6. The new citizen-consumer What can we conclude? In the 20th century people learned to trust the national government to solve their problems. After the 1970s this system started to show deficiencies. From the inside (individualization) and from the outside (globalization) the power, autonomy and sovereignty of the nation-state were diluted. New answers were formulated based on the opportunities of the market, consumers and businesses. Nowadays, we are encountering the backlash of a one-sided orientation in the market. The market has some fundamental problems that we had already learned in the nineteenth century, but had forgotten. The market produces only for those who have money, and is therefore socially and spatially nearsighted. In the nineteenth century the market could not provide housing for the working classes. In time the answers that were produced to encounter this failure, were the establishment of housing corporations and public housing. In the future the same will happen. When the market has to choose between food production for poor households and bio-energy production for middle class households, make no mistake, it will choose for the middle class households. The market is especially good in short-term demands, but has problems taking long-term developments into account, and thus environmental problems and issues of sustainability. There are no supply and demand mechanisms that can simulate future demand or future costs. The market can only weigh the actual demands against each other. There are by now enough examples from societies in history that exhausted there environment. The archetypical example has become Easter Island (Ponting, 1991; Diamond, 2005). Finally, the market creates no society (Yergin and Stanislaw, 1998). The market does create life-styles and it enables participation in groups, but it does not create societies. However, markets are better at some things than the state. For example, politicians have to be re-elected. How can they deny a region its railway? How can they deny a patient her treatment? The answer from the market can be that it is too expensive. The government has Changing families and their lifestyles 

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to give objective arguments for its decision not to pay in one situation and to pay in another. Since the 1970s we have also learned that the public domain and the state are not synonymous. Public tasks can be executed by private organizations, although we have to be careful with this. On the other hand, it is a mistake to believe that the market does not need guidance and to underestimate the power of governments. In other words, we have to try to find new combinations of public private partnerships, and to re-invent the citizen consumer. I hope to have demonstrated with this article that it is important to realize that we should distance ourselves from thinking in fixed conditions. We should embrace a more historical way of thinking and start thinking in processes. Society is an institution that people make and shape. It is not a product that people can buy. Citizenship is about the public domain, democracy and security, or in Marshalls terms civil rights, political rights, social rights. These can not be bought; neither can they be given to people. These rights are the result of social contention and struggle. Society is always under construction (Tilly, 1995, 2004). Let us briefly look again at the example of the rise of supply-side economics. The ideas on deregulation and privatization did not appear out of the blue (Yergin and Stanislaw, 1998). Their success in the United Kingdom was the result of an agenda and a political program of a group of people around Keith Joseph and Margaret Thatcher. These people were dissatisfied with the economic politics of both conservative and labour governments alike. Keith Joseph was the main instigator. He was influenced by Ralph Harris, the head of the Institute for Economic Affairs. This institute propagated liberal economic thinking. The IEA provided a platform for Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman. Von Hayek won the Nobel Prize for economics in 1974, Friedman in 1976. Von Hayek is known for his book The road to serfdom published in 1944. It is a critique of the welfare state and collectivism. Friedman had predicted in the 1960s the unprecedented combination of rising unemployment and rising inflation in the 1970s. He was a champion of the role of the market from which the government should abstain, as he wrote in his popular book Free to choose (Noble, 2006). Joseph established a centre of his own, the Centre for Political Studies. From this centre he also disseminated the ideas of Von Hayek and Friedman. He travelled around the country to speak at universities and colleges and engaged frequently in the public debate in newspapers and magazines. At the same time the group around Joseph and Thatcher had to conquer the conservative party. In 1974 Margaret Thatcher challenged Edward Heath as leader of the conservative party after Heath had lost the general elections to Harold Wilson. In this manner, they prepared the way for their success, not only politically, but also ideologically. This formula has been copied since then by many groups. An example from the left is Policy Network, established in December 2000 with the support from among others Tony Blair and Gerhard Schröder. Anthony Giddens is active in this network and it appears he tries to play a role not unlike that of Keith Joseph.38 38 See his latest book: Giddens, 2007. In this book he tries to formulate a new program for Labour.

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Perhaps attention for civil responsibility will also increase as one of the unintended consequences of population ageing, because the elderly are relatively well educated and have a lot of leisure time as opposed to men and women in the age groups 20 till 60. Especially the workload of married women with children has increased in recent times. They have part-time jobs, are taking care of the children and the household, and also have to look after their own parents (Liefbroer and Dykstra, 2000). It is not realistic to expect them to spend more time on civic duties. A redefinition of the consumer society will be much more difficult. As the history of the twentieth-century consumer society demonstrated, consumption is a very strong passion. Apart from major changes and problems, people will persist in their willingness to consume. However, other trajectories may be tried. Consumption may be organized differently, as is demonstrated in experimental projects (Casimir, 2001; Van Vliet, 2002). It is also clear that our consumer behaviour has negative unintended consequences. By making people aware of them, there is a possibility for change. The same is true of making people aware that wellbeing is more than purchasing power alone. The value of friendship and family commitment are particularly underrated (Offer, 2006).39 Consumers in richer countries already appear to have a preference for well-being over more goods (Inglehart, 1997). We have to give up our naïve beliefs in the state as well as in the market and to develop new ways of public/private arrangements. In the process we will redefine and reposition the public domain and the role of civil society. We can not just go back to society as it was before the 1970s, because, as we have shown, the situation from before the 1970s no longer exists. We also should learn from the mistakes of the roaring nineties. We should continue the reform of the welfare state by acknowledging the very factors that weakened her: transnational cooperation and the agency of individuals. No more aspiring to grand designs, but still looking for realistic utopias that we monitor and can adapt in the light of the continuing flow of new information. Science may have lost its absolute value, but it still is our best possible guide. We should bear in mind that history is made step by step, partly by capable and knowledgeable agents, partly behind their back; partly through their coordinated actions, and partly through their desires.

39 The

suggestions from Offer for support for parents and for more attention for children as a redirection of the consumer society dovetail nicely with the reformulation of the welfare state by the Wetenschappelijke Raad voor het Regeringsbeleid, 2006. In this report they also advocate much more attention and money for children. This is also one of the major recommendations of Giddens, 2007.

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References Aerts, R. and H. van de Velde, 1999. Land van Kleine Gebaren. Een Politieke Geschiedenis van Nederland, 1780-1990. Nijmegen: SUN. Allen, J., P. Braham and P. Lewis, 1992. Political and Economic Forms of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bartlett, B., 2007. How supply-side economics trickled down. The New York Times, 2007-04-06. Retrieved April 6, 2007, from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/opinion/06bartlett. html?th&emc=th. Berenson, A., 2006. The other legacy of Enron. The New York Times, 2006-05-28. Retrieved May 28, 2006, from http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/28/weekinreview/28berenson.html?ex=117868 3200&en=4b92e4419e4cf7bf&ei=5070. Brewer, J. and R. Porter (eds), 1993. Consumption and the World of Goods. London: Routledge. Casimir, G.J., 2001. The Impact of Telecommuting on the Division of Labour in the Domestic Setting. PhD Thesis Wageningen University. Castells, M., 2001. The Internet Galaxy. Reflections on the Internet, Business, and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cohen, L., 2003. A Consumers’ Republic. The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Cross, G., 2000. An All-consuming Century. Why commercialism won in modern America. New York: Columbia University Press. De Hoog, C., 1987. Demografische ontwikkelingen en de gevolgen daarvan voor de consumptie. Wageningen: Vakgroep Huishoudkunde LUW. De Hoog, C., 2003. Opgaan, blinken, verzinken en uit de as herrijzen. Gezinnen, gezinssociologie en gezinsbeleid, 1946-2003. Wageningen: Wageningen Universiteit. (Inaugural address). De Regt, A., 1993. Geld en Gezin. Financiële en Emotionele Relaties tussen Gezinsleden. Amsterdam: Boom. De Rooy, P. (2002). Republiek van Rivaliteiten. Nederland sinds 1813. Amsterdam: Mets en Schilt. De Swaan, A., 1988. In Care of the State. Health Care, Education and Welfare in Europe and the USA in the modern era. Cambridge: Polity Press. De Vries, J., 1994. The industrial revolution and the industrious revolution. The Journal of Economic History 54: 249–70. Diamond, J., 2005. Collapse. How societies choose to fail or succeed, New York: Viking. Encyclopédie ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences des arts et des métiers, par une société des gens de lettres. Tome neuvieme, 1765. Main entry: Luxe. Neufchastel. Felling, A., J. Peters and P. Scheepers (eds), 2000. Individualisering in Nederland aan het Einde van de Twintigste Eeuw. Empirisch onderzoek naar omstreden hypotheses. Assen: Van Gorcum. Fogel, R.W., 2004. The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Garreau, J., 2005. Radical Evolution. The Promise and Peril of Enhancing our Minds, our Bodies. And what it means to be human. New York: Doubleday. Giddens, A., 1990. The Consequences of Modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press.

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The impact of horse ownership on activities in the domestic setting Gerda Casimir Abstract Riding horses, and moreover owning horses, is more than a hobby or a sport: it is a way of life. Horses need care and attention. Many amateur riders and breeders not only spend a lot of time on their horses themselves, they involve their partners, parents, children, and others as well. Daily schedules are adjusted to the horses, holiday destinations take the horses into account, and places of residence and types of car are chosen with the horses in mind. This article investigates to what extent the ownership of leisure horses influences daily life. Attention is paid to general developments in horse riding in the Netherlands and to the gender aspects of equestrian sports. Wageningen Family sociology and the household model serve as a theoretical framework for a survey among owners and riders of Icelandic horses. The outcomes of the survey show an impact of horse ownership on other purchases and activities, ranging from times of meals to holiday destinations, from cars and houses to tack and machines. Owning horses seems to be a way of life indeed. 1. Horses and horse riding as leisure activity Though there is controversy over the exact date horses were first ridden, the best estimate is that horses first carried riders approximately 5000 years ago. The earliest archaeological evidence of horses being ridden or driven was in the military service, pulling chariots, followed by the use of war horses as light and heavy cavalry (Wikipedia Equestrianism 2007). Also, horses were used for everyday transport, in agriculture – ploughing, pulling carriages and tending cattle – and for hunting. Since horses were both expensive and impressive, they served to impress the people as well. In addition, horses were bred for meat and occasionally for milk. Since the beginning of equestrianism, horse use was not solely functional. Races were organised to show which horses were the fastest, mounted knights tested their skills in martial competitions, and horse fights entertained the masses. Nowadays, in particular in developed countries, the horse is pushed aside by agricultural machines, cars, buses, and trains. In the Netherlands, functional use of horses is rare in comparison with leisure use, though horses still contribute to the business world. They are used in forestry, drawing trees out of the woods. The Ameland lifeboat is pulled into the sea by ten horses. There are police horses and horses for ceremonial purposes, such as those pulling the Golden Carriage on ‘Prinsjesdag’ in which the Dutch Queen rides to Parliament for the official opening of the parliamentary year. Also, horses are used in nature conservation, in therapy – for instance with handicapped children – and in training and coaching of managers. In the Netherlands, Changing families and their lifestyles 

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horses are not specifically kept for meat production but are slaughtered for that purpose, and horse meat is imported for use in meat products (Boonen et al., 2006). The number of horse dairy farms is increasing, since horse milk claims to have healthy effects for people with specific intestinal diseases (Bosma et al., 2006). For the rest, horse riding and driving is a recreational activity or a competitive sport with an attendant economic sector: horse breeders, trainers, instructors, professional riders and drivers (top-class sportsmen and women), stable owners, horse traders, feed companies and supply businesses, veterinarians, farriers, and others. In the Netherlands in 2006, the estimated turnover of the sector was 1.5 billion euros (LNV, 2006). This article focuses on recreational horse riding, including competition riding by amateurs. Professional riding is where possible – not all data draw a distinction between the two – left out of consideration. 2. Present-day equestrian sports Present-day equestrian sports still bare the traces of its origins. Dressage was mainly developed in the army, to teach the horses obedience and training muscular strength and suppleness for quick actions and optimal manoeuvrability. Didactics in dressage schooling are still based on army practices, like mounting from the left, which stems from swords being worn on the left. Show-jumping and races descend from the olden-days races. Rodeos – bareback bronc riding, calf-roping, barrel-racing, chuck-wagon races – developed in the USA to test the skills of cowboys and cattle tenders. Long-distance events – endurance – tested the staying power of horses and their riders. Many people practise equestrian sports like any other sport: to improve health, develop physical performance, relax, have fun, be part of a group, or be with friends. Also, improving self-esteem, taking up a challenge, achieving objectives, and developing new skills can be motives to practise sports (TNS Opinion & Social 2004). Being outdoors in nature is an important reason for 34% of riders. Additionally, horsemanship offers something other sports do not: contact with animals. For 67% of riders this is the main reason to ride a horse. This is significantly more so for women (72%) than for men (46%) (ZKA, 2006). Horse riding and driving is increasing. An estimate by the Equestrian Sports Federation in the Netherlands (the KNHS, reported in ZKA, 2006) shows that in 2006 more than 750,000 people ride a horse now and then, and 456,000 ride at least four times a year. In 2001, the latter figure was 392,700. Most riders (80%) ride recreational, with only 20 percent taking part in competitions. Dressage is the most popular discipline: 78 percent of competition riders and 48 percent of recreational riders practise dressage. Show-jumping is practised by 38 percent of competition riders and 28 percent of recreational riders. Driving

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is practised by 25 percent of competition riders, with 16 percent of recreational riders taking a seat on a carriage (ZKA, 2006). Active riders practise their sport 6.6 times per month on average in summer (April – September) and 5.6 times per month in winter (October – March). This is 14% more than in 2001. Competition riders spend more time than recreational riders. Approximately 20 percent of the households of horse riders own one or more horses. For a long time horse riding was an elite sport. In the Netherlands this is no longer the case. The distribution over different socio-economical classes resembles the average Dutch distribution. Still, horse riding is not cheap. Riders spend an average of 1035 euros per year (up from € 895 in 2001). Most of the money goes to horse-care products and feed (€ 343), followed by course fees (€ 310), clothing (€ 121), and tack (€ 76). Other horse-related products accrue to 156 euros. Horse owners spend substantially more: on average 2700 euros per year for horse owners, as opposed to € 600 for non-owners. Women spend more on lessons than men; competition riders spend more than recreational riders. Not calculated are the related costs of owning a horse: a bigger car in order to pull a horse trailer, a house with land to keep horses, etc. Riders are relatively young. Only 17 percent of Dutch riders are over 40 years old (51% of the total Dutch population are over 40) and 42 percent of riders are younger than 20. Older riders are more often horse owners, with men owning more often than women. Female riders are younger than male riders. Competition riders are commonly between 13 and 19 years old. Most riders (45%) spend one to two hours each time they go riding, excluding travel time, while 31 percent spend two to three hours, and 17 percent more than three. Competition riders spend more time than recreational riders; horse owners spend more than non-owners. 3. Horse riding is a gender issue Equestrian competitions are the only sports competitions without separate classes for men and women. The reason is obvious: the sport depends on the strength and suppleness of the horses, not on their riders’ muscular strength. This equivalence in the sport does not mean that the numbers of men and women are equal. Horse riding is a female affair: 80 percent of riders are women (ZKA, 2006). Being a rather new phenomenon – in the old days chiefly men rode horses – the female dominance is still increasing: in 2003, the proportions were 23 percent men and 77 percent women (SCP, 2006). In most sports, boys outnumber girls. This fact has historical grounds. A hundred years ago, physical training was supposed to be beneficial for both the physical and mental development of boys and men, but would be detrimental to girls and women. Sports was constructed as an area where boys were moulded to become men by stressing Changing families and their lifestyles 

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strength, speed, control over the body, achievement, and competition. Still, women lag behind men in most sports (Elling, 2003). Horse riding is an exception to this rule. In particular among youngsters, there are many more girls than boys. In Elling’s research, girls placed horse riding third on the list of sports they would like to participate in. The older the riders get, the smaller the differences become. The gender division differs per discipline. In four-in-hand driving and horseracing, almost exclusively men take part; Western riding is also male dominated. In show-jumping more women participate than men (41% female competition riders, opposed to 28% male competition riders). Dressage is typically a women’s department: 85 percent of female competition riders take part in dressage tests, opposed to only 47 percent of male competitors (KNHS, 2007). There has been much speculation over the causes of these gender differences (Maas, 1996; Brandt, 1997; McGinnis et al., 2003). Several studies note that boys and girls have different attitudes towards horses. As said before, women attach more importance to the contact with the horse than men. Women seem to be more sensitive to the subtle body language of horses; the hands of men appear to be too hard. Rumours suggest that women get sexually aroused from horse riding, but others contradict this and note that the bond with the horse is actually asexual (Volkskrant Magazine, 2002). Girls see horses more as an object of care – the horse as a living cuddly toy – while boys regard them more as a sports article (Klomsten et al., 2004; Klomsten et al., 2005). More generally, participation in sports is considered an important way to construct a masculine self-identity (McGinnis et al., 2003). Men are more competitive than women and thus also more ambitious in competitions, wanting to test their strength and skills. Following this line of argument, women choose judged sports, such as free style skating, synchronised swimming, gymnastics, dancing, more often than men, while men more often opt for contest sports with objective norms, in which speed or strength are tested (Klomsten et al., 2004). This might explain the preference of men for the races. Men, and in particular boys, take part in team sports such as soccer and basketball more often than women and girls (De Knop and Piéron, 2000). Fifty years ago, horse riding was more of a team sport than it is nowadays. Team dressage was the highlight of tournaments. At present, the sport is much more individualised (Breedveld and Tiessen-Raaphorst, 2006). Apart from any deeper cause, once a sport has the reputation of being a women’s sport, it will discourage boys from choosing it. Likewise, typical men’s sports are avoided by girls for this reason (Elling, 2003). So whatever causes there might be, the situation will be amplified because of this mechanism.

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4. The domestic context In the sections above, general developments in equestrian sports have been explored, in particular horse riding as a leisure activity. As with other leisure activities, these can be examined from the perspective of family sociology and domestic science, more specifically the Wageningen family sociology and household and consumer sciences. Family sociology in Wageningen traditionally studied changing rural families in relation to changes in rural areas (De Hoog, 2006). For our topic, two developments are relevant. First, the disappearance of farmsteads make houses available to city-dwellers, who become hobby farmers or horsekeepers. Second, the need for income diversification of farmers resulted in horse pensions and riding schools, thus offering more opportunities for riders. Within the group of household sciences (now sociology of consumers and households) at Wageningen University, a model of household activities has been developed (Zuidberg, 1981; Pennartz and Niehof, 1999; Casimir, 2001; Casimir and Niehof, 2007). Relevant concepts in this are household activities – consisting of productive activities and consumption – and internal and external resources. Internal resources are knowledge and skills, routines and habits, attitudes and interest. These influence motivations to engage in particular activities. External resources are available opportunities. Many authors call time an internal human resource as well. Others see it as a measure of activity: hours spent on a certain activity. Time can be both an input factor, time spent on household production, and an output factor, time spent on consumptive (leisure) activities (Zuidberg, 1981). Whether it is input or output depends on the experience of the actor. For example, scooping horse manure can be a leisure activity – enjoying the work, gaining physical strength – or it can be a productive activity, being necessary horse care. Another problem with time is that it seems to be elastic: by doing different activities at the same time, or by executing activities more or less efficiently, time can be gained. The aim of household activities is to achieve a certain level of care, resulting in the wellbeing of its members. The evaluation of the degree of experienced well-being functions as feedback: either the resources, circumstances, or ambitions will have to be adjusted when the level of well-being is not felt as satisfactory. Household activities take place within a household, definitions of which are disputable. Most definitions assume a collective habitat and sharing consumptive activities on a structural basis (Moser, 1993; Zwart, 1994; Pennartz and Niehof, 1999; Von Schweitzer, 2006). In this study, a self-definition of respondents is used: everyone they included in their household is regarded as being a member. Activities take place within a geographical, natural, political, economic, and socio-cultural environment, and are influenced by the state of science and technology. This environment influences the composition and characteristics of the household and the activities undertaken, not in the least because it determines to a large extent the availability of resources. On the other hand, the activities of households have an impact on the environment. Because there Changing families and their lifestyles 

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is a continuous interaction between households and their environment the household can be seen as a mediating agency (Pennartz and Niehof, 1999). Relating this framework to equestrian sports as a leisure activity, we can conclude that there appears to be more money available for riding and driving than fifty or even twenty years ago, as a result of better economic conditions in general. Women’s emancipation is mirrored in horse riding as a sport, to the extent that it became – apart from top-competition sports and some specific disciplines – a women’s sport. Developments in the countryside extended the possibilities for stabling horses. However, these macro developments do not give much insight into micro-level decision-making processes and activities. 5. A survey of the impact of horse ownership on other activities In comparison with other hobbies or sports, equestrian sports consume more time, money, and attention, in particular when riders own their horse. Thus, it is plausible that horse riding has a considerable impact on household budgets and time allocation. To analyse this impact in more detail, an empirical study was designed, which addressed the following questions: What is the impact of horse riding – and in particular horse ownership for private use – on family life? More specifically: are other leisure activities affected by the horse hobby of one of the members? Are other household members involved in the hobby, to what extent and how? Based on the literature discussed before, we assumed that horse riding – and in particular horse ownership – affects time allocation and leisure activities, not only of the person involved but also of other household members. Also, horse ownership would affect other expenditures, like the choice of vehicle people drive and their choice of residence. The study was carried out among owners of Icelandic horses. It was hypothesised that more girls and women ride Icelandic horses than men; girls and women spend more time on the horses than boys and men; competition riders spend more time on riding than leisure riders. 6. Target group The research question – the impact of horse riding and horse ownership for private use on family life and leisure activities – was addressed in a survey among Icelandic horse owners. The choice of this group has disadvantages, since Icelandic horse riders differ from the average rider in several aspects. Icelandic horses are rarely used in riding schools. Most riders own their horses. Judging by their size the Icelandic horses are ponies (130 – 145 cm), though mainly ridden by adults. It is possible to keep them outside summer and winter. This makes them relatively cheap to maintain; however, in comparison with more common breeds, they are expensive to purchase. On average an adult riding horse costs 4000 – 5000 euros, competition horses twice or three times as much. Despite these initial costs, most 236 

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Icelandic horse people own more than one. Many jokes circulate in this respect: ‘Having Icelandic horses is like eating peanuts: you can’t stop with one.’ Icelandic horses have special gaits – besides walk, trot, and canter/gallop they have tölt (a running walk) and some have pace (a lateral gait). To get the best out of the gaits, a special riding style is needed. Also, specific competitions are organised, with specific rules and special tracks. The international federation of Icelandic horse organisations (the FEIF), in which 18 countries are united, controls international training programs, certification of judges, determination of international breeding standards, and World Championships every other year. Icelandic horse riders are older than the average rider, and they have a higher income and a higher level of education than the average Dutch population. These characteristics were affirmed by an earlier study (Brünnemann et al., 1999). The choice of this particular group has advantages as well. As editor-in-chief of the Dutch Icelandic horse magazine IJslandse Paarden, the author had easy access to the readers of that magazine. As readers feel involved with their breed, a relatively high response could be expected. Since the respondents speak the same language, answers within the sample would be comparable. 7. Details of the survey The questions in the survey were derived from other sports surveys, in particular the Eurobarometer research (TNS, 2004). In addition, questions on improving the quality of the magazine were asked. The questionnaires were sent with the August issue of IJslandse Paarden 2006. This issue went out to 1671 readers, members of the Dutch Icelandic horse organisation NSIJP (Nederlands Stamboek voor IJslandse Paarden) or subscribers to the magazine. Readers were requested to mail back the form or complete it on the internet. The site www.icelandic-horses.com hosted the questionnaire. Respondents could win a lottery, in order to motivate them to respond. The Dutch publisher of popular Icelandic detective writer Arnaldur Indriðason offered five copies of his latest book for this purpose. The internet questionnaires were stored in an Excel file, which could be redirected to the statistical program SPSS. To analyse the open answers, the author made use of Atlas, a textbased analysis tool for qualitative data. With the automatic coding function codes were assigned to quotations.

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8. The Icelandic horse owners Over a quarter (27%) of the readers of the Icelandic horse magazine returned the questionnaire, two thirds of them on the internet and one third by post. In total, 428 questionnaires could be used. Since the survey was announced on the homepage of the website, it was technically possible that persons who did not strictly belong to the target group – readers of IJslandse Paarden – also filled in the questionnaire. Only 11 respondents indicated that their household did not count any readers of the magazine. Two of them knew the magazine, but had recently resigned as a subscriber because of the costs. The 428 questionnaires represented data of 1120 persons – respondents plus other household members – of whom 804 ride or drive a horse at least now and then. The average number of persons per household is 2.6; 67 respondents (16%) are single, 40 percent are couples (or a single parent of one). Three quarters of respondents were women. Together, 428 households own 1538 Icelandic horses, implying an average of 3.65 per household. A portion of these horses are young, not yet ridden, and often kept in herds, for instance in nature reserves. The total of riding horses was 926, an average of 2.22 per household, with one third of the households (145) owning only one horse. The high numbers of horses presumably represent professional trainers and breeders. However, the Icelandic riding club is too small to separate professionals and amateurs. Also, it is difficult to draw the line between professional riding and a hobby gone out-of-hand. If we exclude the households with more than 5 horses – being regarded as professional riders – we still have 357 households with zero to five horses in total, and 390 households with zero to five riding horses. Of Dutch horse riders in general, only 20 percent own their own horse. In the Icelandic horse survey, almost all respondents own their own horse. Only 14 respondents (3%) have no horse of their own. This is due to the fact that the readers of the magazine are members of the Dutch Icelandic Horse Organisation, which is originally a Studbook organisation and thus a breeders’ club. In addition, Icelandic horses are rarely used in riding schools, so most are in private ownership. The Icelandic horse owners are older than the average rider. The age distribution, in particular of the male riders, resembles more closely the Dutch population than the distribution of Dutch riders in general. Within the group of 50+ riders, the men outnumber the women: comprising 34 percent of the men they represent 54 percent of the 50+ riders (see Figure 1). The Equestrian Sports Research 2006 stated that horse riding is no longer an elite sport. The distribution over socio-economic classes does not much differ from the general Dutch population. For Icelandic horse owners this is different. Not all respondents answered the 238 

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Percentages per age group

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Figure 1. Distribution of age groups. Source for Dutch riders in general and Dutch population: ZKA Consultants & Planners 2006.

relevant questions: 95 percent gave their educational background, 79 percent indicated to which income group they belonged. Of Icelandic horse riders, 61 percent have either a disposable income of 40,000 euros per year or a higher vocational training or university education. For Dutch riders in general this is less than 50 percent (see Figure 2). 100%

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Figure 2. Socio-economic status. Source for Dutch riders and Dutch population: ZKA Consultants & Planners 2006. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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9. Motivations of Icelandic horse people Why do people ride horses, and more specifically, why do people ride Icelandic horses? It is fun to ride a horse, say 82 percent of our respondents, and to be outdoors (79%). Taking up a challenge, achieving objectives, and emotional release are also important motives. Less important is the fact that horse riding is healthy, sociable, and a nice distraction. To the open question: why horse riding and not another form of sport, 44 percent answered ‘contact with the animal’, ‘cooperation between man and horse’, and other similar descriptions. ‘I have a bond with my horse and you don’t have that with a tennis ball’, wrote one of the respondents. Somebody else said: ‘Working with horses needs no language and is therefore much easier for me than communicating with people’. As in the country-wide research of the KNHS (ZKA, 2006), women mention this argument more often (46%) than men (37%). The significance of this difference is indicative (p= 0.085). These figures are lower than in the KNHS research, where it was one of the answering categories of a structured question. In the Icelandic horse survey these were spontaneous answers to an open question. In most other questions, differences between men and women were small. ‘Doing something with friends or family’ was the only argument with a statistically significant difference (p=0.001): men 36 percent and women 21 percent. ‘Taking up a challenge’ showed indicative differences (p=0.086) between men and women: 33 percent of men found this an argument to ride, 43 percent of women. Many of the respondents grew up with the horses – 18 percent reported this as a motive for riding – and another 18 percent made mention of madness, love, or passion: ‘I am just a horse lunatic’, ‘It’s a virus’, ‘I am addicted to it’, ‘love for the horse’. Horse riding is seen not just a hobby or a sport, it is a way of life: ‘We see it as an extra addition to our life’. And why do they ride Icelandic horses in particular? The reason most mentioned is: because of their gaits (85%), followed by nice to ride (76%) and pretty looks (57%). Many respondents checked all answer possibilities, and added: nice character, close to nature, nice size, easy to handle. Also, many respondents grew up with them, or a lifelong dream came true. The motives are summarised in Figure 3. 10. Activities with and time spent on Icelandic horses In our survey, most riders (80%) ride recreationally as opposed to competitively. Almost a quarter participate in competitions sometimes, women more than men (29% women, 11% men). As with general riders, men more often drive a carriage than women: 17 percent of male riders and nine percent of female riders drive. A remarkably high number of riders in the sample trains horses for others: 75 of the respondents (65 women and nine men) indicated involvement in this discipline. If the respondents are representative for the total population of Icelandic horse riders, this would mean that ten percent is a – more or less 240 

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Why Icelandic horses?

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Figure 3. Why do Icelandic horse people ride horses and why Icelandic horses? Percentages of respondents (households).

– professional trainer. In Figure 4 the division of activities is given. People can participate in more than one discipline; therefore totals can be more than 100 percent. 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

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Figure 4. Activities with Icelandic horses; percentages of riders. Totals are more than 100% since respondents can participate in more than one discipline.

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Icelandic horse riders spend much time on their horses. The average of active riders is 10 hours per week, with peaks of 72 hours. Per household, the average is 20 hours per week with a highest total of 90 hours. Women spend 13.5 hours per week, men 9. Many riders (25%) spend only one hour per week per riding horse, but in this figure household members who ride only now and then are included. Forty-two respondents indicated spending 28 hours a week or more on their horses, an average of at least four hours per day. These people are either professional riders or their hobby has gotten somewhat out of hand. More than half of riders (60%) ride at least twice a week and fully three quarters of the female riders do so. It has to be said that the questionnaires were filled out in the summer; many riders will ride a bit less in winter. 11. Expenditures and activities in relation to Icelandic horses Many respondents spend all their extra money on their horse hobby. Not only on the horses as such, but also on course fees, books, clothing, etc. After visiting events, travelling to Iceland, or getting a trailer driving license, there is not much left for savings. It is interesting to see how the horses give cause to related activities, including acquiring machines, knowledge, or skills. The following were mentioned in this respect: taking a draught-horses course in order to be able to plough the land; purchasing a tractor and a mowing machine; using the horse trailer to move children and their friends; and learning how to sew in order to repair the eczema cover. This might need some explanation. Many Icelandic horses, in particular when imported from Iceland, suffer from a nasty ailment called summer eczema or sweet itch. It is an allergic reaction to the culicoides biting midge and causes severe itch, in particular from April through October. An effective way to prevent the midges from biting is to cover the horse with a special mosquito net blanket. These blankets get torn and have to be repaired now and then. Other respondents reported that they started taking photographs, writing for Icelandic horse magazines, and taught themselves web design. Some took up a professional training to become a farrier, a saddler, or professional horse trainer. And many riders are volunteers, active at different events. Some respondents think they got more friends because of the horses. Others remark that there is little time left for any other activity beyond work, family, and horses, as a result of which they lost friends. They abandoned other sports, and sometimes increased their working hours to be able to bear the costs of the hobby. 12. The impact of (Icelandic) horses on other activities and resources in the domestic setting As a result of the amount of time the horses take, it is obvious that other activities are influenced by the hobby. In particular, other leisure activities ‘suffer’ from it, according to two thirds of the respondents. Also the time people get up in the morning and the time of meals are affected by their horses. Even working hours are, by almost 20 percent of 242 

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respondents, adjusted to the horse hobby. For one third of the people the timing of holidays is dependent on their horses, and 14 percent choose a destination that fits with their horses. Ten percent takes horses with them on holiday, some go horse riding elsewhere on hired horses. Five percent decide not to go on holiday because of their horses, and six percent take only short holidays or holidays nearby. A substantial group of people – mentioned by ten percent in an open question – arrange their holiday around events such as the World Championships or the Landsmót, Iceland’s biennial breeding show. And many save for a holiday in Iceland. This seems to be specific to Icelandic horse people. Would an owner of a Frisian horse long for a holiday in Friesland, are Arab horse owners going en masse to Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates? The horses affect not only time budgets, but also other resources in the household. Slightly less than half (45%) made their place of residence dependent on the horses. Riding possibilities in the neighbourhood – horse tracks, woods, sandy roads – land near the house, or not too far from the stable, were all determinants of where to live. Many respondents have moved from cities in the western part of the country (the ‘Randstad’) to the south or east (Brabant, the Veluwe, Drenthe, or more generally to sandy soil). Some even moved abroad. A few answered: regrettably not yet. Also a few indicated that their horses kept them from moving closer to their work or partner. On the other hand, ‘You can have a horse almost everywhere’ and ‘I have a car that takes me there’, were arguments given for not moving. For a third (36%) it was even the other way around. Available resources, like living in a horse-friendly environment with land and riding possibilities nearby, were the reason to decide on buying a horse. More than half of respondents took the horses into account when buying a car, obviously to be able to pull a horse trailer, and to transport horse tack and feed. Some purchased a camper to sleep in at competitions and other events. A hindrance for those under 45 is that they have to get a special driver’s licence to allow them to pull a trailer (before, drivers automatically had this permission with their ‘normal’ licence). This costs money and effort, and is often mentioned as one of the bigger related expenditures. In Figure 5 the effects of horses on other activities and resources are summarised. 13. Involvement of household members We asked the respondents to what extent non-riding members of their household were involved in the hobby. For a hobby so time-consuming – an average of almost three hours per day per household – the support or at least consent of partners and children seems a condition of continuing. The survey collected data of 317 non-riding household members. One quarter of those do nothing at all with or for the horses; 43 percent help – sometimes – with feeding and watering; 39 percent come to watch the riders’ achievements in competitions or otherwise; 35 percent repair fences and stables; 22 percent act as driver. Other contributions Changing families and their lifestyles 

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100% 90% 80% 70%

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Figure 5. Icelandic horses affect other activities and decisions.

include: cleaning out stables and meadows, offering moral support, lodging horses, helping with transport of horses from one meadow to another, accompanying riders by bicycle, and, not unimportantly, being financier. But even when members of the household are not involved, they are confronted with the horses now and then. Be it to switch off the electric fence when they want to play a game of soccer or tripping over dirty shoes and smelly clothes. However, there seem to be few serious complaints by household members. Either they think the hobby of the other is nice, or they do not meddle in it. However, many of those 317 think the horses sometimes take very much time and attention. ‘Fewer horses would be better,’ wrote the partner of someone who has 24. Or: ‘Sometimes I hate the word Icelander. They can’t talk about anything else’. The friendly remarks are in the majority, though: ‘She’s happy, I’m happy’ and ‘It is fun that she enjoys it’. 14. Gender aspects in the Icelandic horse world Looking at gender aspects, the Icelandic horse riders hardly differ from riders in general in the sense that they are predominantly female. In our survey, 70 percent of all riders are women. The somewhat higher male participation (30% opposed to 20% among all Dutch riders) can be explained by the fact that Icelandic horse riders are older and own a horse (ZKA, 2006). As in the KNHS survey, in our survey women ride more often and spend 244 

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more time on the horses than men. Also, they ride more often in competitions. The only discipline in which men outnumber women is driving. However, when we look in more detail at the competition riders, the differences between men and women become more pronounced. The FEIF, the International Federation of Icelandic Horse Organisations, maintains a World Ranking list of nine different tests. In January 2007, out of 1000 ranked riders, 74 percent are female and 26 percent are male (FEIF, 2007), resembling the general distribution in the Netherlands. Three tests in the ranking are races: pace race 250m, pace race 150m, and 100m pace with flying start. In pace, a lateral gait, speeds up to 45 km per hour are reached. Flying pace is also required in the pace test. In all four tests, more than 50 percent of riders are male. In dressage – not very popular among Icelandic horse riders – only women take part. See Figure 6 for the distribution of men and women for the nine tests in the World Ranking. A remarkable observation is that men score relatively higher than women. If we calculate the overall ranking of those 1000 riders, the proportion male–female of the best 100 is 48:52. For the first 50 it is even 60:40. The average ranking of men is 130, the average ranking of women 223, a difference of almost 100 positions. This will be discussed in the following section.

Men Women Percentage of total

Pa c

e r Pa ace ce 25 Sp 0 r ee ace m P dp 15 1 as 0 s( mP 10 3 Pa 0m ) ce P2 t Fi ve est ga PP 1 it te st F1 Tö lt T1 F Fr Tö ee ou r lt g st yle ait T2 t e dr es st V sa 1 ge FS 1

100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0%

Figure 6. Percentages of men and women per test, and percentages of total number of riders per test in the FEIF World Ranking. N = 1000. Derived from www.feif.org, 11 January 2007.

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15. Conclusions and discussion Does horse ownership affect family life? With this question we started this study. We can conclude that it does. Horses, and horse-related activities, take time, demand attention, and use up money. Owning horses affects the time of rising, time of meals, and holiday arrangements. Horse owners acquire skills and knowledge related to their hobby. Household members of the horse owners are involved in feeding and other activities. The relation with the environment is obvious. Horsemanship as a leisure activity is increasing. Economic growth in general, leading to a higher disposable income, is one of the reasons. An increase in supply of horse pensions, teachers, and trainers, in combination with an expansion of bridle paths, stimulates the sport as well. For many riders, horsemanship counterbalances busy jobs. ‘Horse riding prevents me from getting Repetitive Strain Injuries’, said one of the respondents. ‘It is something completely different’, is the opinion of another. ‘In my job I am always indoors, therefore I want a hobby that takes me outside’. Horse riding is flexible in terms of time: ‘As a result of a lack of time, it is difficult for me to plan activities at fixed points of time. Horse riding can, basically, be done always, at any time’. More generally, horse riding can be performed individually, though many riders cooperating with their horse do not feel alone at all. Thus, it is an individual sport, concurring with individualisation in society in general, and at the same time paradoxically described as cooperative as a key characteristic. Most interesting are the gender aspects of horse riding. According to McGinnis et al. (2003), in the post-modern era differences between what is considered masculine and feminine will break down, since boundaries between masculinity and femininity are blurring. Consumption will no longer be constrained by those dichotomies. However, in contemporary Western culture, lingering aspects of modernism are still evident. Activities conducted at home, such as cleaning, eating, cooking, and child-rearing, have always been associated with women. Men used to be connected with activities in the workplace. For them, the home was essentially a ‘pit stop’ to re-energize them in their producer role. We see, says McGinnis, a similar separation in sports and leisure today. In cases where nontraditionally female leisure opportunities do exist outside the home, they have often been offered in such a way as not to interfere with household responsibilities (McGinnis et al., 2003). This study does not confirm these observations. As said, horse riding is a women’s affair, despite its historical roots of masculinity, connected with the military, cattle tenders, hunters, and the rulers of the earth. Women nowadays spend more time riding than men, and in more than one third of cases time of rising, time of meals, and daily procedures are influenced by the horses. Was women’s emancipation the cause of this gender distribution? Did the sport itself change, giving more opportunities for women to take part? Does horse riding have an emancipative effect?

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Nonetheless, in top-class equestrianism, the proportions are different. In speed tests more men take part and at the top of the rankings – as illustrated by the FEIF World Ranking figures – there are more men than women, with the exception of dressage. We can only guess at the reasons. A few of these will be discussed here. In general, men are more competitive and achievement-oriented than women. They perform sports to achieve objectives more than to socialise with others (Elling, 2003; McGinnis et al., 2003). However, when they are not able to score, men probably leave the active competition sport more readily than women, fulfilling their ambition elsewhere, for instance as a board member or in other organisational functions. Of course, many men keep on riding, but as a recreational activity. Women, on the contrary, seem satisfied with a modest position, being content with the performance of their horse at its stage of training. Public images of men and women can play a role here too. Perhaps a 223rd position in the world ranking does not sound bad at all for a woman, while a 130th for a man seems mediocre. Men participate more often in objective sports, where winning is decided by the stopwatch, number of goals, or measuring rods. They cast doubts on the justice of judged sports. Combined with their preference for sports testing strength and skills and representing power and speed, this explains their preference for pace races. Elling (2003) found that men are more involved in the organisation of sports, in boards of sports foundations, and in professional or semi-professional functions such as arbiters and trainers. This is also the case in horse riding. The Icelandic horse world is no different: there are five men and two women in the FEIF board of directors. At the FEIF delegates meeting in February 2007, more than half of the delegates were male; there are 21 male and 11 female international sport judges; the board of the Dutch organisation during 2005-2007 counted five men (no women). In 2007, a girl will be added to the board. Active Icelandic horsemen are, more often than women, professional trainers and riders. This seems to be even more the case in Iceland than elsewhere. In Iceland, this particular branch of sport is the only possibility for horse riding, because according to Icelandic law horses can never be imported into the country. The Icelandic team for the World Championships was until recently always composed of men. Icelandic riders in the World Ranking – i.e. marks gained in Iceland – count 58 percent men and 42 percent women, the only active FEIF country where men outnumber women. But leaving out the Icelandic marks does not change the picture. Assuming professionalism among men is higher than among women, this could be an explanation for their better performance. A problem with judged sports is that judges may be biased. Unconfirmed rumours circulate that well-known trainers and riders with good marks in the past are judged higher than unknown newcomers, regardless of their performance. It would be interesting to investigate whether images and looks of riders coincide with marks in judged tests. Just as with goodlooking people being more successful in their careers (De Volkskrant 2000; 2006), it could Changing families and their lifestyles 

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be that good-looking riders are judged higher than the less attractive ones. And if so, does this apply to women more than to men? Do judges – unconsciously – think men to be better riders, thus influencing their judgement? As is often the case with research, these observations leave us with more questions than we began with. Questions that could be very well addressed in interdisciplinary projects, for which Wageningen University offers the ideal context, involving the programmes of sociology of consumers and households, rural sociology, health and society, environmental policy, leisure, tourism and environment, and animal science. References Boonen, V., C. v. Brakel, L. Burki, R. Gemen and E. Waterham, 2006. Van paardenwei tot vleespastei. Academic Master Cluster YAM60312. Wageningen: Wageningen University Students’ Report. Bosma, M., A. Enneman, S. Geurts, H. Huang, P. Kerbiriou and S. Ott, 2006. Mare’s Milk for Human Nutrition: Purpose and Potential Health Benefits. Academic Master Cluster YAM60312. Wageningen: Wageningen University Students’ Report. Brandt, E., 1997. In plaats van jongens. De Groene Amsterdammer. Breedveld, K. and A. Tiessen-Raaphorst (eds), 2006. Rapportage Sport 2006. SCP-publicatie 2006. Den Haag, Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau. Brünnemann, J., Y. Man, M. van der Sluis and N. Wouterlood, 1999. IJslandse Paarden: een tevredenheidsonderzoek. School voor Communicatiesystemen. Utrecht: Hogeschool van Utrecht, Vak Onderzoekstechnieken. Casimir, G.J., 2001. The Impact of Telecommuting on the Division of Labour in the Domestic Setting. PhD Thesis Wageningen University. Casimir, G.J. and A. Niehof, 2007. A theoretical framework of Home Economics. Bonn: International Federation of Home Economics. De Hoog, C., 2006. Themes, theories and the thesis. SCH30306. Wageningen: Wageningen University: Contribution to the lecture. De Knop, P. and M. Piéron, 2000. Beheer en Organisatie van de Sport in België. Brussel: Koning Boudewijn Stichting. De Volkskrant, 2000. Loon naar lengte. De Volkskrant 27 November 2000. De Volkskrant, 2006. Mooie mensen. De Volkskrant 20 October 2006. Elling, A., 2003. Sekse en sport: bewegende beelden. Vrouw en Raad 1: 10-9. FEIF, 2007. FEIF World Ranking. Retrieved 11 January, 2007, from www.feif.org. Klomsten, A.T., H.W. Marsh and E.M. Skaalvik, 2005. Adolescents’ perceptions of masculine and feminine values in sport and physical education: a study of gender differences. Sex Roles: A Journal of Research 52(9/10): 625-36. Klomsten, A.T., E.M. Skaalvik and G.A. Espnes, 2004. Physical self-concept and sports: Do gender differences still exist? Sex Roles 50(1/2): 119-27.

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KNHS, 2007. Re: Paardensportonderzoek 2006. Personal communication to G. Casimir. Ermelo, Koninklijke Nederlandse Hippische Sportbond: Uitsplitsing naar mannen en vrouwen van deelnemers aan verschillende takken van de paardensport. LNV, 2006. Paardenhouderij krijgt volwaardige plaats in beleid ministerie LNV. Den Haag: Ministerie van Landbouw, Natuur en Voedselkwaliteit. Press release, DOI. Maas, C., 1996. Meisjes houden van witte paarden. de Volkskrant 15 November 1996. McGinnis, L., S. Chun and J. McQuillan, 2003. A Review of Gendered Consumption in Sport and Leisure. Academy of Marketing Science Review 5: 26. Moser, C.O.N., 1993. Gender Planning and Development: Theory, Practice and Training. London: Routledge. Pennartz, P. and A. Niehof, 1999. The Domestic Domain: Chances, Choices and Strategies of Family Households. Aldershot etc.: Ashgate. TNS, 2004. The citizens of the European Union and Sport. Special Eurobarometer. Brussels: European Commission: 65. Volkskrant Magazine, 2002. Alles wat een man/vrouw moet weten. De Volkskrant 25 May, 8, 15, 29 June. Von Schweitzer, R., 2006. Home Economics Science and Arts: Managing Sustainable Everyday Life. Frankfurt am Main etc.: Peter Lang AG • Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften. Wikipedia Equestrianism, 2007. Equestrianism. Retrieved 29 January, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Equestrianism. ZKA Consultants and Planners, 2006. KNHS Paardensportonderzoek 2006; profiel, gedrag en behoeften Nederlandse paardensporters. Èrmelo: KNHS. Zuidberg, A.C.L., 1981. Het Verzorgingsniveau van Huishoudens. Den Haag: SWOKA. Zwart, S.I., 1994. Gezin, huishouden en dagelijkse verzorging: enige conceptuele vingeroefeningen. In: K. De Hoog and J.A.C. Van Ophem (eds), Changes in Daily Life, pp. 155-73. Wageningen: Wageningen Agricultural University, Department of Household and Consumer Studies.

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(Leisure) time paths of Dutch families: a theoretical timespace exploration and a methodological exercise Jan W. Te Kloeze Abstract In many studies on recreation and leisure as a social phenomenon, leisure is regarded as the opposite of work, or as compensation for work. Leisure is also seen as being complementary to an individual’s line of work. However, a number of scholars question whether this is the most fruitful way of gaining insight into recreation and leisure. Philipsen (1963), Roberts (1981), Kelly (1983) and Te Kloeze (1985) believe a family or household approach to be more productive, which means that the theory should be directed at the social context of leisure both on a micro and a macro level. The social context of people refers to the primary life domains of leisure and family life – which are embedded in the wider context of society, both institutionally and socio-spatially. The work component, therefore, is one of the factors that constrains yet enables leisure and family life. An empirical study conducted in the mid-1990’s (Te Kloeze, 1996, 1999, 2001) referred to the mutual relationship between family and leisure, and the reciprocal meaning of family and leisure, and one of the aspects of spatial behaviour in particular. The partial findings of the spatial analysis have been published and discussed before (Te Kloeze, 2001, 2006). This contribution focuses on the theoretical time-space exploration and conducts a methodological exercise. In family research hardly any attention has been paid to the spatial aspects of leisure behaviour. This paper tries to fill this gap in the knowledge, mainly in terms of theory and methodology. This paper discusses time-space theory in general, focusing on family and household situations, gender, and their relationship with time-space behaviour including leisure. Some methods in time-space research are also discussed as well as our application of this theoretical and methodological knowledge. This exercise is an illustration of the theory and methodology, simply said: how does it work? The questions addressed are the following: how do (partners from) families behave in time and space and are there differences according to origin (urbanrural) and status? One of the techniques used was the Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis. Besides conducting an analysis on aggregate level, a time-space path on family level was also constructed for one case. 1. Introduction Time-space distancing, globalisation, and universality: this is what seems to be typical of life at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first. Indeed, we drive across Europe, fly all over the world, Internet brings everything even closer but, ultimately, we live our lives within the confines of a cocoon: encasing the town, the city, the neighbourhood, the office and the factory. Both actualities are true; we have had to learn more and more to live with this paradox these past decades. The hurried nature of these Changing families and their lifestyles 

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experiences has contributed to changes within families and the households. Within this respect, the sociologist Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim (Trouw, 2000) suggests – in reaction to the fact that the having of children has come into conflict with other goals in life – that life is becoming increasingly like a patchwork quilt, as far as fundamental relationships are concerned as well as on the professional front: neither partner nor job is for life anymore. In Germany, thirty per cent of women born after 1960 will remain childless. The majority preference for the combination of paid employment and the care of children is a huge problem, while at the same time, women are expected to be financially independent. In this respect, Catherine Hakim (Trouw, 2000), economist at the London School of Economics believes that women in Western countries can be divided into three groups: a 60 percent majority wants a job and a family, and among the 40 percent minority there is a clear preference for either work or a family. Having children has become a lifestyle choice. ‘We live in a luxury, leisure-oriented society with virtually unlimited opportunities for travel, hobbies and sport. […] Young women hesitate between a baby or a holiday in Thailand. A year later the indecision dangles between a baby and a new car.’ In this connection, others speak of the congested family agenda (Van den Broek, 1999). Do families still have time to be a family (Daly, 1996)? Based on time-budget research the legitimate conclusion would seem to be that in the last quarter of the twentieth century, family life in the Netherlands has indeed withstood the sharp rise in competition from other leisure pursuits. The diminution of family life could be the result of economising on time to talk to each other and time for eating together at home, especially if mealtimes are often combined with watching television. However, particularly in comparison with developments among the population at large – going out more and a higher frequency of leisure activities per time unit among single people and couples without children – homely family life has not lost much ground. A two-income household does not appear to get in the way of a homely family life (Van den Broek, 1999). We have done research among families for whom a combination of working and caring constitute part of the dilemma. We will highlight below one facet of family life: families and their spatial behaviour. Movement behaviour is accountable for a great deal of how people behave. To understand and explain this behaviour a much-used theoretical framework is the time-geography approach (Van den Heuvel and Tacken, 1986), although it will soon be apparent that ‘the’ time-geography approach is not (no longer) valid. Contrary to the prominent Swedish time-geography theoreticians Hägerstrand and Pred, Giddens – who bases his theory on the work of Hägerstrand – says that it is quite impossible for social theory to be formed without notions of time and space. To understand social existence it is necessary to have insight into how human activities are spread over time and space (Giddens, 1993). All interaction takes place in a certain place and has a specific duration. Our daily activities take place within a specific time-space and can be interpreted as the manner in which we move through this time-space. These movements – our daily path, the durée – that are a conglomeration of our various daily activities, are often routine in nature. Our daily paths criss-cross with our knowledge or unawares, thus forming a ‘coupling of paths in social 252 

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encounters’ (Giddens, 1979), or in other terms ‘activity bundles’ (Hägerstrand, 1975). Next, we explore time-space theory forming in general, splitting these into family and household situations using a gender perspective. Inextricably bound to this are the methods of timespace research, a few relevant elements of which will be delved into deeper. We will apply this theoretical and methodological knowledge to our own research (Te Kloeze, 1996), for the purpose of illustration and methodological insight, and we will explain the methods and techniques applied. In the conclusion and discussion we will reflect on the usefulness of this undertaking. Gender, social class and ethnicity constitute the significant structures that help to give shape and, at the same time, form to our daily activities (Kinnaird and Hall, 1996). These structures, therefore, offer limitations as well as opportunities, also with regard to time-space behaviour. We will return to this later. 2. Time-space theory I: a preliminary interpretation From a time-geography perspective, Hägerstrand (1975) explains that as people go about their daily business they are faced with time-space constraints. It then becomes clear (Pred, 1981) that people are apparently capable of converting some of the constraints into opportunities; the basis for social transformations. As people use time-space they experience constraints that vary in nature: physical, social and authoritative constraints. The first (capability constraints), has to do with limitations of the human body, for instance (while you sleep you cannot do anything else, and you need your sleep), and limitations of movement. On foot, by canal boat, by car, by plane: distances are bridged in an increasingly shorter time. Technological innovation dramatically opens up prospects for the mobility of man. Recent developments in information technology provide an entirely new notion of time, and space too; at times, physical closeness is even made to seem superfluous. Simultaneously, the vastness of the accessible information exceeds the capacity of the human mind: comprehensibility primarily accompanies the capability to select effectively. And, space is also a limiting factor. Social (coupling) constraints – Hägerstrand’s second differentiable point – have to do with working schedules. Pred (1981) has a nice example of how a change in the working schedule influenced the social lives of the families of American labourers at the close of the nineteenth century. New production ratios in terms of factory manufacture succeeding craftsmanship paved the way for a distinct dividing line between ‘production projects’ and ‘individual free-time projects’. ‘Free-time projects outside the home […] became subject to strict path synchronisation and synchronisation requirements, or stringent coupling constraints and time discipline’ (Pred, 1981: 25-6). Another limiting – socio-economic - factor could have been the availability of disposable income. Labourers’ families in Pred’s article could barely afford to go to baseball games, for instance. This third category of constraints, as far as authority is concerned (power; authority constraints), can be traced back to gender, social class or ethnicity. Here Changing families and their lifestyles 

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too in the American labourers’ families of 1880: if an opportunity to go to a baseball game ever arose, then it was the man and father who decided who went (he went usually). At any rate, Pred only deals with the coupling constraints concept. He does, however, describe the power of the factories at production level and of the man in the family, but – strangely enough – not in terms of authority constraints. Time-geography can be perceived as an example of changing conceptions within geography, whereby the emphasis on the physical comprehension of space is shifted to the social cultural. Dietvorst (2000: 6) says that ‘geographical space in its extreme human form, is meaningful space created in the human mind by subjective observation and interpretation. This space is rich in symbolism, qualities and characteristics […]: in this traditional sense the accent lies on the actual place and not on the abstract space.’ ‘Place is a sensitive demarcated area, often the place of residence, with which an individual or group maintains a strong emotional relationship’ (De Pater and Van der Wusten, 1996: 206). Thus, place offers people the opportunity of identification, recognition and safety and security. Naturally, infinite space begins outside the place familiar to the individual or the group, but where they do not feel comfortable in or have no effective links with. Honing in on the interpretation of gender as structuring agency, spaces and places could be seen as ‘both shaped by, and a shaper of, gender in a gender-space dialectic’ (Pritchard and Morgan, 2000: 116). This perception is in keeping with our own ideas of the reciprocal and dialectic relationship between family and leisure (Te Kloeze, 1998). Likewise, Pred also expounds on the meaning of the family, because ‘…behaviour and experience within the family are both shaped by, and the shapers of, institutional project participation, and the family almost always serves as a vital hinge between the individual, the workings of society, and societal change’ (Pred, 1981: 6). In the New Cultural Geography sense, place is more a physical spot, while space is given a social-cultural construction, although Pritchard and Morgan (2000) also say this of place. There is, therefore, a difference in how the core concepts of place and space are perceived when we examine the angle taken by De Pater and Van der Wusten and compare it with that of Pritchard and Morgan. Nevertheless, Pritchard and Morgan (2000) as well as Aitchison (1999) perceive New Cultural Geography as a theoretical framework for spaciousness, freedom, tourism and gender (and sexuality). Upon scrutiny of the texts of Pritchard and Morgan followed by that of Aitchison, it would appear that their idea about gendered landscapes are (as yet?) limited to how destinations in holiday brochures and travel articles about landscapes (and the residents) are described and written aided by connotations earmarked as ‘feminine’ or ‘masculine’. Gendered landscapes: the feminisation of nature and landscape as opposed to the ‘masculine gaze’. For example, where ‘black’ Africa is described in brochures as something that should be protected in all its innocence, British Columbia is described as an area that must be penetrated and conquered. Pritchard and Morgan have not provided an analysis of gender differences in time-space use of landscapes. Pred did this much earlier, in theory anyway, and at family level. His (hypothetical) daily path is as perceived from a hypothetical craftsman’s family and 254 

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a factory worker’s family. Two things are clear from the rendering of that path. First, is the difference between the daily path of both types of family (the members of the craftsman’s family are virtually all at home, and the husband from the labourer’s family spends much of the day in the factory while the wife is housebound because of the young child). Second is the difference between the daily path of the wife and husband within the confines of their historically-determined, socio-economic circumstances. In response to research on tourism and time-space done in Enkhuizen ( Jansen, 1991), Dietvorst (1995a) constructed a hypothetical time-space path for two different types of actors: a German (married) couple (wealthy; well educated), and a young couple with two children. In contrast to the cases of Pred (from the home situation), those of Dietvorst have not been specified according to members of the group. Presumably, Dietvorst assumed that both the German pair and the young family operated as a group (which is highly likely to have been the case, however not categorically so, especially in a tourist setting). Both timespace paths serve as good illustrations of the image of the potential use of an attractive tourist site with regard to time and space, and the variety of the type of visitors, which in this instance would be related to the composition of the group or household. Dietvorst (1995b) as well as Jansen et al. (1996) have described or constructed time-space paths from prior knowledge of path constructions of visitors of attractions. The time paths of Pred (1981) and Dietvorst (1995a) were hypothetical constructions; they did not provide images of the time-space behaviour of families based on empirical data from them. But, Karsten (1992) did. She did research on the control women have over their free time and how they spend their leisure. She divided them into five different categories, namely: married housewives, single housewives, women from the two-income group with young children, single-parent working mothers, and single women, and constructed model time paths for each of these categories of women. The search for coherence between a social-cultural typology of actors (in terms of authority) and their use of time-space is also of importance for our own project. In summary, in the literature time-space paths are mainly described by means of hypothetical constructions, or are based on data from individuals (with results that when studied in demarcated sites are sometimes represented on aggregation level). Pred (1981) did illustrate time-space paths of families, but these were theoretical constructions and not empirical path constructions. This is what we are going to do. 3. Time-space theory II: a refinement What can we actually do by analysing the time-space path? It can help us gain insight into various dimensions (frequency, duration, location and sequence) of the daily pattern of activities (Zerubavel, 1981; Van der Poel, 1999). A variety of different theoretical notions are relevant to the understanding and categorising (based on routine, for example) of the variation in the time-space paths of individuals and groups (in our case: households; see below). Gender, ethnicity and social class have already been mentioned. Time-space paths of women are bound to differ from those of men, and these differences are determined Changing families and their lifestyles 

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culturally. It can be assumed that the same goes for differences in ethnicity (Te Kloeze, 1998). The acquisition of all sorts of cultural skills (cultural capital) and the availability of financial resources (economic capital) (Bourdieu, 1984) varies according to social class. What are the sources of help available to households, what are they precisely, and how are they used to realise the time-space path? How far is this usage gender specific? Does this usage have to do with difference in the caring position? This concept implies ‘a set of rights and duties that accompany the means by which one sustains life or one is provided for’ (Van de Poel, 1999: 67). Examples of caring positions are: employee, unemployed, housewife and househusband, student. The time-space path of a housewife will differ from that of someone who has a job and colleagues. And, there are bound to be perceptible differences between those in one and the same caring situation, such as a housewife and househusband, which could be attributable to gender (Te Kloeze, 1990). An intertwining of the caring position and the availability of diverse sources of help can also develop into household management of sorts, like making it a means of monetary compensation. In this way two-income households have the means to have the caring tasks taken off their hands (social and economic capital), while they also need to be equipped with the talent for organisation (as a form of human capital). So, how can a desired time-space path be created, and (then) what are the constraints that a household would have to make? Returning to the amount of available (leisure) time (in terms of frequency and duration of activities), the analysis of time-space paths can provide indications for a ‘busy existence’ with or without being pressed for time (see Drooglever Fortuijn, 1993). So far we have been talking about the variation in time-space paths, but of equal relevance is knowing whether there are fixed patterns in time-space use; an ‘organised life’ (see: Gastelaars, 1985). Are time-space paths routine and are there sequences that can be observed? Are they such that we can speak of routinisation or even rituals? Routines are habits that ensure that contact between people does not involve reinventing the wheel (Berger and Luckmann, 1966). Consequently, the daily paths often look more or less similar. Breedveld (1999) proposes that perceived from a cultural (post-modernism), technical (modularisation), economic (work) and social (lifestyles) angle, the routinisation of our activities are pressurised. Research does indeed point to a decline in routineness (Breedveld calls this ‘de-routinisation’) thanks to job-sharing and part-time participation, although these processes have not yet led to any substantial changes. An example of these ‘family routines’ (Daly, 1996) have to do with parental control of bedtime or the time when the children have to be back home in the evening (Te Kloeze et al., 1996). Next, what is the spatial reach of households, how far does it extend with regard to time and going out? Here, particular reference can be made to the space-gender-leisure discussion as depicted above (thus, we choose the term space, also because of what comes next). What instantly should spring to mind is that space does not only imply ‘interior space’ but space that is claimed for ‘private use’ (Daly, 1996). Creativeness from within a caring situation is once again opportune if, on the one hand, we consider housewives with young children whose time-space use is restricted by their caring tasks and their being housebound (see also Pred’s 256 

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example above), while on the other hand they create domains within their home, which in some milieus with a traditional division of household tasks are taboo for others (‘Leave ‘my’ kitchen’). Haries and Norris (1986, in: Henderson and Frelke, 2000) speak of personal space (the immediate environment of individuals), familial space (the home), neighbourhood space (the daily environment), economic space (spatial patterns of the weekly interaction with the workplace), and regional space (for travel further away, but less frequent than travel for leisure, family or work), a somewhat vague specification. Strictly speaking, in traditional households ‘the kitchen’ would constitute the economic space for women. What is missing in the categories of Haries and Norris is space that can be called private space, for example someone’s ‘own’ room, as opposed to the personal space that they speak of, and as specification of familial space. In this connection: our research revealed that three-quarters of the housewives interviewed living in the urbanised countryside agree that inside a home people claim their own space (Te Kloeze et al., 1996). Haries and Norris have also missed leisure space, at least their regional space does not appear to denote it, whereas we can endorse the statement that ‘whereas space may be a container for leisure, it is the sense of place through the experience of a psychological state that gives the leisure space meaning’ (Henderson and Frelke, 2000: 22). Then we realise that space can have a multifunctional meaning, for instance, economic space and regional space can also cover leisure space. This is beautifully illustrated by research done by the Social and Cultural Planning Bureau from which it appears that, as far as space is concerned, road traffic for business purposes is becoming increasingly pressurised by travel for leisure pursuits (Batenburg and Knulst, 1993). This is because one of the most valuable aspects in defining leisure (space) as space is how to construct leisure space as meaningful space (concrete places (‘my own spot’) as well as the abstract spaces (feminised landscapes) of De Pater and Van der Wusten (1996). Space has to do with authority (over the space). Physical space and perceptions of places can create freedom or oppression. Spaces and places are not only gendered, they influence the way in which gender is construed. Massey (1984) suggests that confining women to the surrounds of the household is a kind of spatial control over women and, therefore, over their identity. Escaping the spatial confines of the house is threatening to the male-oriented society, especially because it is a way of tampering with the identity of traditional women. Rubin (1976) also expounded in similar terms: women from the American labourer’s families that she investigated perceive their homes as a prison, and their husbands see home as a ‘safe haven’. 4. Time-space paths of Dutch families: an empirical illustration In 1993 and 1994 research was done on the mutual significance of family and leisure, with regard to the question of the control that the actors in families have over their leisure and how they spend it (Te Kloeze, 1996, 1999, 2001). To get the desirable distribution of family situations the research locations chosen involved one village and one city: the village Driel in the Betuwe district (10 km west of Arnhem) and the city of Arnhem. Next, from within both research areas, one neighbourhood with a high and one with a lower socioChanging families and their lifestyles 

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economic status were selected. In Arnhem these were the neighbourhoods Hoogkamp and ‘t Broek, respectively. In Driel both types of neighbourhoods were distinguishable without having had to put a name to them. The research involved interviewing 37 families (married couples) at length, and both husband and wife also filled in daily schedules showing how they spent their time (Friday afternoon and evening, Saturday, Sunday and a weekday; total 81 hours). The problem statement had to do with control over leisure, the significance of leisure for family life, and the daily path. This contribution provided a preliminary analysis of the daily path of the interviewees. Useful day schedules of 29 couples are available. The daily schedules asked for the activities to be filled in, the time and place where this activity took place, with whom the activity was undertaken and the means of transport from home and back. During the interviews the partners were individually asked questions about their ideals and their perception of reality, their lives, their leisure activities and their opinions thereof. Supplementary to and building on Pred’s theoretical notions about time-space paths of families, are the partial results presented here from time-space research based on data at family level, of which one component of the analysis was aided by fairly sophisticated spatial research techniques. The partial findings of the spatial analysis have been published and presented before (Te Kloeze, 2001, 2006). The content of the problem statement for this contribution is as follows: how do (partners from) families behave in time and space, and are there differences related to their origin? Here, origin means: the difference between urban and rural areas, that between high and lower socio-economic status (neighbourhood), and the caring position and whether it is gender-oriented. The problem statement methodology reflects the question of what the analysis will achieve, as far as the approach is concerned. Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis techniques (Van der Knaap, 1998) were used to analyse the data of the daily schedules (the time-space paths). This meant that it was not possible to indicate beforehand precisely what was to be analysed – something that complied with the exploratory setup of the entire research project anyway – but this became gradually clearer during the analysis as a matter of trial and error. The process involved (in)direct selection and visualisation. For this analysis use was made of Arcview, a program package for interactive advice on and analysis of spatial data. It has the capacity to enable mapping of the patterns of movement of individuals (and family members). In view of the exploratory purpose of this contribution (and the available space) we decided to divide the analysis of the data and the presentation of the results thereof into two parts. The first one deals with one dimension of the activity pattern during the 81 hours of research: distance and location. This answered the question of which similarities and differences are observable through Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis of the spatial behaviour of all the families researched, as far as distance and location are concerned. The results are visually presented by way of maps. The second type of analysis and presentation has to do with the detailed representation of time-space paths of four (married) couples (the selection based 258 

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on the first analysis). In addition to the dimensions distance and location, we also included the three other dimensions in the analysis: frequency, duration and sequence. Comparisons were made between their accounts during the interviews about their time-space paths and their own descriptions of a (week) day. 5. The first analysis Figure 1 shows a distinct concentration of places and spots visited dotted around the vicinity of the postal code. Differences in the spatial distribution between families living in the two places (i.e. between urban and rural location) were barely discernible (Te Kloeze, 2006). It is indeed the case that families living in a neighbourhood with a high socio-economic status visit more places located further away than families from lower status neighbourhoods (Figures 2 and 3). If we combine the two categories (place of residence and status) and take into account the world of difference, we will still see (thus far) that status carries more weight than place of residence (these results are not presented here because of the lack of space).

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Figure 1. Spatial distribution behaviour of married (couples) in Arnhem and Driel (n = 58 husbands and wives).

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Figure 3. Spatial distribution behaviour of (married) couples from neighbourhoods with low socio-economic status (Arnhem and Driel; n = 34 husbands and wives).

6. The second analysis: an exercise Following the analysis on aggregation level, we zoom in on the time paths of one married couple. As already mentioned, insight into the different dimensions (frequency, duration, location and sequence of the daily patterns of activities) can be gained with the help of 260 

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analysis of the time-space paths. Here, this is done in combination with the caring position of the actors and where they live and their socio-economic milieu. Relevant components of the interviews serve to back this up. The analysis has taken the form of a case study, the intention being to show how time-space data and interview data can be presented, compared and analysed. The analysis of the case – in terms of a methodological exercise - involves the aspects mentioned above. Next, comes the time-space path during a weekday of a two-income family with school-going children in their teens (city; high socio-economic milieu), whom we will call Ans and Peter Rijpstra (their real names being withheld for reasons of privacy), living in Arnhem in the Hoogkamp neighbourhood. A description follows of how they see an ordinary weekday. She is 43, university educated, and is employed for 28 hours per week (in actual fact working out to 32 hours) as a research co-ordinator at a research institute. He is 42, also has a university background, and is a policy adviser at one of the ministries in the Hague. The Rijpstras have been married for 15 years, have two children aged 12 and 14. Ans says that she spends 15 hours each week on household chores and one hour a week on club activities. She has a total of 12 hours for leisure during the surveyed period (she follows a course on Saturdays which has to do with her work). Peter, whose job involves a formal 36-38 week (actually 45 hours) spends 6-8 hours on household chores. He has 23 hours of leisure time. Figure 4 presents an idea of what their time-space path looked like. The data for this diagram are derived from the diary Ans and Peter filled in. The wife’s answer to the question of her perception of an ordinary weekday (which is not necessarily the same day mentioned in the diagram): ‘At a weekday I get up at seven. By then my husband has already left or he is away anyway. And then I make breakfast, the boys come downstairs, help a bit, but not much. The three of us eat breakfast and then I make their sandwiches. (…) Then I clear away the breakfast things and well yes, what else can I do (…) let’s say I do some chores; make the beds, or put the washing machine on, or water the plants. Then I just make sure that I’ve left the place reasonably tidy. Sometimes my help has already arrived, she comes in three times a fortnight. And she gets down to her work. Now, then I go off to my work, (…) I’m usually in my office around nine, on average. I’m usually there till around two, on the days that I work (…) and I’m off all day Fridays, so that’s not the day that I describe now. (….) Look, I have a bit more time on Mondays so I can make up the beds, and that sort of thing, but on the other days, the childminder does that, good, the rest of the housework must get done when I get home, drink tea with the children, and such things, and on Mondays I can go into town, or make appointments or phone calls, the afternoon is usually taken up with helping with homework. Well, then I come home, from my work, and then cook and the dinner, sometimes the childminder has already done some preparing (…) On Mondays and Thursdays my husband doesn’t come home. But on Tuesdays Changing families and their lifestyles 

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sleeping household chores working telephoning household chores TV news household chores dinner cooking dinner

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Figure 4. Time-space path of a weekday in the life of a two-income married couple with two school-going children in their teens (city; high socio-economic milieu).

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and Fridays he’s home very late, and eats then. (…) Dinner, the boys lay the table and clear it away afterwards and then the things go into the dishwasher, well, by then it’s something like half past seven: time for coffee. Well the evenings, well, they pass…I always try to watch the news at eight. Afterwards I flip through the paper a little, to see if I find anything that I really ought to read and sometimes I read it then or later on, or whenever I can. The evenings are often occupied telephoning. And that too differs, sometimes a lot, but at times it is really hectic. And the boys would also gladly use some help with their homework or… …and I often also do something for my work. Read through something, or write something, or whatever, that sort of thing. (…) Well, we go out now and then. But not during the week actually, no not on weekdays, that’s impossible, not at this moment, no. I go out once in a while (…) around half past eleven. I try earlier, it’s often later, but half past eleven (…) Yes, getting children to bed, that is (…) a ritual. (…) Of course, family life is rigidly governed by unwritten agreements. And there are a few fixed agreements, like who lays the table and who clears away, but sitting at table and simply how a day runs, like a day that I can describe, is naturally… a ritual in itself, because it is an extremely set pattern. And I think that we as a family are also very accustomed to living according to a fixed pattern, our older son is greatly in need routine, and therefore there is always a time for breakfast and coffee and lunch and tea and dinner and these are very set routines.’ (AH1034, w) Her husband related the following: ‘For me an average working day begins at twenty past six. Get dressed, coffee brewed already in machine by setting timer, coffee in thermos, things in my bag, bike to the station, train at ten to seven, get installed, sandwich, cup of coffee, listen to a bit of the news, open bag, read, write, PC and arrange the day’s work, what needs to be done. Go through the day’s business. (…) Work lasts to about six o’clock. Then I usually go to the gym for an hour. Eat, chat, to bed. My week runs in blocks of two days, so I… I stay therefore in the Hague, the following day I work again from eight to about five. Train home. Mostly reading matter and some ruminating. Home at 7, eat, catch up on news with partner and children, check the homework, chase children to bed, have a chat and take myself to bed. If there is time I watch the news in between. That has no priority but I usually like to watch it at 8 or at 10. Then there is the following that there are never what one calls average days, so this is an average day. (…) Here at home the division of labour of the seven times we cook, Ans does five or six times of it and for the clearing up it is the reverse, clearing up of the kitchen and the dishwasher etc…, thus one cooks and the other cleans up. Comes from having lived in student flats I think. Then I always did the cooking. I do like to cook, but you have to get into the routine, when Ans was working before I did I always did the cooking it is a matter of routine and she’s just got it at the moment (And putting the children to bed?) That’s equal, we both do that just as much. (…) The same goes for helping with homework. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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That depends on who is asked and I know nothing about French, so…(And household chores?) All done in the weekend. Housework, I just bought a vacuum cleaner, those are huge expeditions. (…) Most of the housework that is done here in the weekend, that’s the shopping for provisions, and the shopping for the other things, clothes, paraphernalia, whatever. I think that from the shopping I get 30-40 percent of the provisions, my wife does the rest, other things going to town with the children etc. I do about 60-70 percent of it, Ans does what is left, every time. The laundry: 40 percent for me, 60 percent for Ans, change the bedding: 70 percent Ans, 30 percent me. Our house is cleaned for us. The technical things are all my department (…) Polishing the cars is something that we never do and I mean never ever. I also make the appointments to take the cars to the garage. This I also think is a household chore. Technical things for the boat maintenance I do too, but the maintenance like cleaning and polishing we do together, although I did it all last time round. Child care: that is checking the homework, that’s about equal. We cope well with the high-low tariffs because the machines all run at night or in the weekend. (That all fits in perfectly.) Which also makes us vulnerable.’ (AH1034,h) The story from this two-income couple nicely illustrates how the partners made use of the different sources of help at their disposal. To keep the house running smoothly, they made use of the services of a cleaning lady and a childminder (it is not clear whether this is the one and same person), and also of the necessary financial means to do so. They showed that they were equipped with the organisation talent needed, with a view to the vulnerability of their family system (like when the husband took over various household tasks when his wife was sick), thus deviating from the picture sketched of the path of a ‘normal’ weekday. Furthermore, it was apparent that during the week there was little time for leisure for this married couple: in her words, the newspaper for her, and coffee after dinner, and for him the news on TV, and lingering to chat. This two-income household has a busy existence, and a life of routines, with fixed patterns, virtually rituals. These seemed to be considered as essential, and that was (also) understandable in such a regulated life, simply for practical reasons. 7. Conclusion Two types of analysis have been done: one with the help of Arcview at aggregation level (of individuals), and the other at couple level, based on constructed time-space paths derived from the filled in day’s schedule and the interview sections. The second type of analysis is tentative in nature because of its exercise character. Different dimensions (frequency, duration, location and sequence) of the daily activity patterns have been made transparent. This has been done in this family research in close connection with the location of the residence and socio-economic milieu. This had mainly to do with the activities during one particular day – considering the nature of this contribution and the space available (we chose an ordinary weekday). 264 

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8. Discussion Both analytical methods came up with the potential for meaningful presentations of timespace behaviour at both aggregation level as well as at pair level. Although analysis (at pair level) of the remainder of the cases would be a mammoth task, it would appear that the approach presented here could prove to be very promising. References Aitchison, C., 1999. New cultural geographies: the spatiality of leisure, gender and sexuality, Leisure Studies 18(1): 19-39. Batenburg, R.S. and W.P. Knulst, 1993. Socio-cultural Rationale: Research on the Impact of Changing Lifestyle Patterns on the Growth of Mobility since the Nineteen-seventies. Rijswijk: Social and Cultural Planning Bureau. Berger, P.L. and T. Luckmann, 1966. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. Middlesex, England: Allan Lane The Penguin Press. Bourdieu, P., 1984. Distinction: a Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press Breedveld, K., 1999. Day in, day out. Routines in weekday activities. In: A. van den Broek, W. Knulst and K. Breedveld, Towards Different Times? Time Budgeting and Time Planning in the Netherlands, 1975-1995, pp. 123-56. The Hague: Social and Cultural Planning Bureau. Daly, K.J., 1996. Families & Time. Keeping Pace in a Hurried Culture. Thousands Oaks: Sage. De Pater, B. and H. Van der Wusten, 1996. The Geography House. The Making of a Science. Bussum: Coutinho. Dietvorst, A.G.J., 1995a. Introduction to Recreation and Tourism. Wageningen: Wageningen Agricultural University, Centre for Recreation and Tourism Studies. Dietvorst, A.G.J., 1995b. Tourist behaviour and the importance of time-space analysis. In: G.J. Ashworth and A.G.J. Dietvorst (eds), Tourism and Spatial Transformations. Implications for Policy and Planning, pp. 163-81. Wallingford: CAB International. Dietvorst, A.G.J., 2000. Space. In: www.owio.wau.nl/introOmgeving/begrippen/ruimte.htm Drooglever Fortuijn, J.C., 1993. A Busy Life: Time Budgeting and Time Use of Two-income Families with Children. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Gastelaars, M., 1985. An Organised Life: Sociology and Social Politics in the Netherlands, 19251968. Amsterdam: Sua. Giddens, A., 1979. New Rules of Sociological Method. London: Hutchinson. Giddens, A., 1993. Sociology. Cambridge: Polity Press. Hägerstrand, T., 1975. Space, time and human conditions. In: A. Karlquist, L. Lundqvist and F. Snickars (eds), Dynamic, Allocation and Urban Space, pp. 3-12. Farnborough: Lexington Books. Haries, K.D. and R.E. Nories, 1986. Human Geography: Culture, Interaction, and Economy. Columbus OH: Merrill Publishing Company. Henderson. K. A. and C.E. Frelke, 2000. Space as a vital dimension of leisure: The creation of place. World Leisure 3(1): 18-26.

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Jansen, M., 1991. More profit from tourism in Enkhuizen. Research on the meaning of the use of the relationships between tourist recreation facilities in Enkhuizen and ideas for higher profits from tourism. Wageningen: Wageningen University, Centre for Recreation and Tourism Studies. Jansen, M., J.W. te Kloeze and J.L.M. Van der Voet, 1996. Recreative use of The Hoge Veluwe National Park. Research on the time-space behaviour of visitors in 1995. Wageningen: Wageningen University, Centre for Recreation and Tourism Studies. Karsten, L., 1992. Women and Room for Play. Control over Leisure and Leisure Budgeting. Amsterdam: Sua. Kelly, J.R., 1983. Leisure identities and interactions. London: Allen and Unwin. Kinnaird, V. and D. Hall, 1996. Understanding tourism processes: a gender-aware framework. Tourism Management 17(2): 95-102. Massey, D., 1984. Spatial Divisions of Labour. London: MacMillan. Philipsen, H., 1963. Gezin en vrijetijdsbesteding in het sociaal-wetenschappelijk onderzoek. Sociologische Gids 10: 306-21. Pred, A., 1981. Production, family, and free-time projects: a time-geographic perspective on individual and societal change in nineteenth-century U.S. cities. Journal of Historical Geography 7(1): 336. Pritchard, A. and N.J. Morgan, 2000. Constructing tourism landscapes – gender, sexuality and Space. Tourism Geographies 2(2): 115-39. Roberts, K., 1981. Leisure. London: Longman. Rubin, L., 1976. Worlds of Pain: Life in the Working-class Family. New York: Basic Books. Te Kloeze, J.W., 1985. Recreatie en vrijetijd in verschillende leefvormen. Vrijetijd en Samenleving 3(2): 187-212. Te Kloeze, J.W., 1990. Housewives’ and househusbands’ leisure: A study of the experience and perception of leisure among women and men who stay home to run the house. Paper presented at The XII World Congress of Sociology of the International Sociological Association on Sociology for one world: Unity and Diversity. Madrid, Spain. July 9-13, 1990. Te Kloeze, J.W., 1996. Control over Leisure and Leisure Activities in Dutch Families: A Theoretical Framework for an Empirical Study. Loisir et Société 19(1): 41-64. Te Kloeze, J.W., 1998. Family and Leisure in the Netherlands: A Literature Review. In: J.W. Te Kloeze (ed.), Family and Leisure in Poland and the Netherlands, pp. 27-53. Leuven: Garant. Te Kloeze, J.W., 1999. Family and leisure: Between harmony and conflict. World Leisure and Recreation 41(4): 4-10. Te Kloeze, J.W., 2001. (Vrije)tijdpaden van gezinnen; een theoretisch tijdruimtelijke verkenning en enige empirische onderbouwing. In: J. Lengkeek and L. Boomars (red.), Producten van Verbeelding, pp. 193-217. Wageningen: Wageningen Universiteit. Te Kloeze, J.W., 2006. (Leisure) time paths of Dutch families: a theoretical time-space exploration with some empirical backing. Paper for RC13, session 4, Managing for the Quality of Life. ISA, XVI World Congress of Sociology, Durban, South Africa, 23-29th July. Te Kloeze, J.W., C. De Hoog, M. Van Bergen and M. Duivenvoorden, 1996. Between Freedom and Commitment: The Post-modern Family Discovered. A Sociological Exploration into Typologies of Families and Leisure Domains. Leuven: Garant.

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Trouw, 2000. Population Policy, 21 October 2000, 19. Van den Broek, A., 1999. The family agenda. Social aspects of family life. In: A. Van den Broek, W. Knulst and K. Breedveld (eds), Towards Different Times? Time Budgeting and Time planning in the Netherlands, 1975-1995, pp.157-182. The Hague: Social and Cultural Planning Bureau. Van den Heuvel, M. and M. Tacken, 1986. Movement Behaviour of Working Women. An Analysis of Characteristics of Movement. Delft: Delft University Press. Van der Knaap, W., 1998. The paths of a tourist; analysis of time-space behaviour of tourists. Contribution for the NVK Theme day Away with Maps. Utrecht, 27 November 1998. Van der Poel, H., 1999. Time for Freedom. Amsterdam: Boom. Zerubavel, E., 1981. Hidden Rhythms: Schedules and Calendars in Social Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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Paradise by the hurricane lamp: a theoretical and empirical investigation into primitivism in nature camping40 Jaap Lengkeek Abstract This paper investigates the background and development of nature camping in the Netherlands and the motives and attitudes of the people engaging in this. What moves people to trade comfort for primitivism? The approach of the research can be placed in the tradition of phenomenological sociology. To answer the research questions the results were used of a survey among 400 respondents and of in-depth interviews with 25 persons. 1. Introduction The desire to go back to nature seems to resemble a quest for paradise lost. This quest manifests itself in many leisure activities. Outdoor recreation in the countryside may highlight nostalgia for a place where time passes slowly and where cosmic time defines the rhythm of day and night as well as the rhythm of the seasons. Amateur biologists spend a great part of their spare time in nature. This is a way for them to express their love for plants and animals as elements of a natural habitat from which most human beings have been cut off. Camping out in a natural environment under primitive circumstances is also a way to re(dis)cover the road to paradise lost. The Dutch Tourist Camping Club (Nederlandse Toeristen Kampeer Club or NTKC), an association of approximately 9,500 members, has offered an infrastructure for nature camping ever since the beginning of the twentieth century. To NTKC members camping-out is an activity that should include a responsible attitude towards nature and a shared appreciation of simple or ‘primitive’ camping. The association owns 22 campsites, located in nature areas. Responsibility for the layout and management of each campsite is in the hands of the members on a voluntary basis. Volunteering has its foundation in commitment and enthusiasm and a strong ideological concept of nature camping. A camping style of primitivism in particular provides the frame of reference for a real nature experience: safe, but shivering around the hurricane lamp. In order to understand and interpret the experiences of this nature camping group the theoretical approach goes back to a phenomenological tradition, a fundamental understanding of tourist experiences and even to the pilgrimage metaphor used by an early theorist such as Victor Turner (1973). Particularly the concept of centre-out-there 40 This paper was presented at the International Conference The rhythms of the sacred: time of the monk, time

of the tourist on the global scene. Abbey of Farfa, Italy, March 22-24, 2007.

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in pilgrimage offered inspiration for this research, reformulated into another concept that of counter-structure - based on the phenomenological structures of the life-world as formulated by Alfred Schutz (1975). The study on nature campers focuses on member experiences and attitudes, camping styles, club commitment and voluntary participation. This paper puts the concept of counterstructure into position and the way it helps to gain a better understanding of the ideal of primitivism in camping. In-depth interviews and a questionnaire-based survey provided the empirical data for this paper. The survey included 202 men and 215 women. Qualitative interviews were held with 25 people. The actual research took place in 1999, but its data still seem up to date and theoretically relevant. The paper starts with a historical overview of the camping organisation. The next section introduces the concept of counter-structure and the ‘parameters’ it contains. The following one offers an insight into the structure of the camping organisation and the backgrounds of the members. In the next two sections empirical data illustrate the concept of counterstructure and the particular primitivism of camping it entails here. The first is based on qualitative interviews, the second on the questionnaire. Both parts lead to a reconsideration of the counter-structure concept. The concluding section contains the answers to the research questions and some perspective on further research. 2. A brief history At the end of the nineteenth century tourism and outdoor recreation started to develop in the Netherlands. The Grand Tour of the former elites melted into trips by commoners with lower ambitions, a Romantic attitude, worship of nature and developing sportive ideals. The invention of trains and motorcars speeded up this process and enabled the new middleclass to escape the booming cities. Dutch society developed from agrarian to industrial. Aquatic sports became a growing pastime on the Dutch lakes. Many sporty activities became popular at the end of the nineteenth century, in particular the ones originating in England. The bicycle created a furore in the Netherlands. The enthusiasm of two British young men living in the Netherlands, C.N. Bingham and D. Webster, became the basis for a Dutch bicycle club in 1883. This club eventually became the ANWB (General Dutch Cyclist Union), nowadays the most important association of car owners in the country (Linders-Rooijendijk, 1989). The ANWB initially organized cycling competitions, but soon turned to providing maps, routes, tourist information and suggestions for nature attractions and camping material. Cycling and an interest in nature brought people together who established the NTKC in 1912, after first having copied the British Association of Cycle Campers (two young Dutch men were members). One of the initiators was a man called Carl Denig, who knew how to experiment with cotton and lightweight materials in the construction of tents. After the First World War he bought large quantities of army tents. The name Carl Denig still exists

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as a brand of camping gear. Another source of inspiration was Baden Powell’s ‘Scouting for Boys’ (1907), which propagated camping out in nature. The early history of the club shows a development of the organisation into committees, sections, regional divisions, regulations and a system of balloting, as well as an interest in creating new suitable models and materials for tents and camping equipment, such as cookers, pots and pans, light weight chairs, and camping guide books, etcetera. Balloting became a strict policy after World War II, when a rush into the countryside manifested itself. In 1949 a separate section for caravans came into life. This section soon became a new, independent club. Strong antagonisms grew between tent campers – with high ideals about the true and pure camping experience – and the caravan campers. The last were seen as soft and not resistant to influences from advancing commercialism. The growing percentage of holiday participation of the Dutch population (in 1954 18 percent made travels abroad; in 1966 the percentage was 26 percent and in 1978 it had gone up to 60 percent) influenced the popularity of the NTKC. The greatest boom in numbers was between 1975 and 1985, stabilising at almost 10,000 members. Apart from the average tent dwellers, caravan dwellers are allowed on some of the campsites under strict conditions. There is an active Youth Section. The section of the ‘Roamers’ is considered that of the most fanatic and best campers. In the post-war period campsites on a commercial basis appeared everywhere. From here the NTKC retained a special profile of primitivism compared to new camping styles of mass leisure and comfortable holidaying. As one of the oldest tourist organisations in the Netherlands, it has faced a gradual change in the economic and cultural environment, which challenged its survival. Changing standards for modern conveniences, a rapidly growing international holiday market, competing nature camping opportunities and leisure pursuits on top of diminishing family ties threatened socialisation within club traditions and the loyalty to club activities. Nevertheless, the club still perseveres, offering a special experiential way of camping. In the next sections we will explore the nature of this experiential world of the NTKC.

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3. Counter-structure Many leisure activities encompass some primitivism in comparison with everyday luxury, when they offer a radical break from the common course of life. A break from routine is apparent in play, leisure, tourism, even in the opposite extremes of a casual joke versus addiction to drugs or alcohol. Urry (1990) describes tourism as an experience and as a free-time activity that contrasts with the daily routine. It can chiefly be identified by means of ‘signs’ bringing senses to the attention of the tourist (for example, beauty, romance, nature). In this way tourism is primarily a sensation of place and the social world, at a distance from the normal home environment. The question is whether these aspects are the only influences on the construction of the tourist experience. In the concept of counter-structure the following aspects are assumed to play a key-role in the experience of being distanced from everyday life: • bracketing; • tension of consciousness; • proprioception; • sociality; • time; • space. In our theoretical analysis we follow Alfred Schutz (1971, 1975, 1990) where he describes the construction of a paramount reality based on some structures of the life-world. Place (space) and the social world (for example, norms/values, language, culture, status, but also organisations and roles) are, certainly, important determinants of our reality. However, a sense of time, the observations of our physical selves, and the tension of consciousness with which we meet the external world also play a crucial role (Schutz, 1990; Lengkeek, 1996). The tension of consciousness or, in Bergson’s words, the ‘attention à la vie’, is low when we are lazy or inactive, and high when we exert ourselves to do our best. This high level of tension is reflected in the production of hormones such as adrenaline. The tension of consciousness can have different orientations: of the moment (the experience of here and now), the retrospective (memory and reflection), the prospective (anticipation) and the projective (intention). Our trusted everyday reality, which is built around these parameters, reflects a high tension that comes mainly from our working lives but also from the acceleration of the processes of exchange, made possible through the media of communication. Schutz also mentioned the finiteness of the self. The self is closely connected with the social world and reflects mutual interpretations and expectations. Basically, the self is also physical. We have only one body, we grow older, we can only see through our own eyes and have one brain that produces all our perceptions and thoughts. We grow greatly accustomed to 272 

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our own face and we are unaware of our procedural memory that directs our motions. It is this physical self and its self-evident presence in particular that I would like to rename as proprioception, a term used by Oliver Sachs (1986) to indicate the self-evident control and feeling of our own body. An interesting approach to this concept of reality, which derives from Husserlian Phenomenology and Ethno-methodology, is that of bracketing. The reality that we perceive to be normal does not contain everything that we can experience or all our knowledge. The high tension, the projective and the prospective, force us to leave things out of consideration when these stand in the way of the reproduction of everyday things. Fear of death (the finiteness of our own body and mind), respect for the immeasurable, bodily conditions and doubts concerning the framework on which we base our sense of meaning, can all fall into parenthesis. It is mainly free-time which diverts us from this specific ‘normal’ tension and which has a far greater significance than the simple fact that we are not engaged in work. In leisure, the normal bracketing itself is placed in parenthesis. Some aspects are pushed into the foreground, some into the background. Consciousness of time is evened out by dolce far niente. Whether the tension of consciousness is directed to one activity, for example stamp collecting, mountain climbing, or breaking a time limit, being away lessens the substance of the reality of the everyday world that we left behind. The central argument here is that our everyday reality is organized around these six ‘parameters’: bracketing, tension of consciousness, proprioception, sociality, time and space. The experience of distance from everyday reality may result from any variation on these parameters. In his work on pilgrimage Victor Turner (1973) described the various stages of the journey as distancing ourselves from ordinary life, by moving to a different place (space), joining a particular kind of sociality (communitas of fellow pilgrims) and removing brackets in order to contemplate the supernatural (the holy being), putting brackets around ordinary conditions (work, family, house, et cetera). Some pilgrims even flog themselves in order to be fully aware of the sinful body (I would suggest: proprioception) and concentrate their consciousness on the ultimate goal: the centre-out-there. On the way to his destination, the pilgrim undergoes a rite de passage (Turner borrowed this concept from the anthropologist Van Gennep) and returns from the centre-out-there to the centre of everyday life. Between the two destinations he describes the existence of an anti-structure, the spatial network of holy places, the roads, the people who support the pilgrims, the community of travelers, even the thieves and robbers. Up to this point the theoretical picture is well known in the world of tourism studies. Turner’s concept of anti-structure has never been elaborated sufficiently, but is inspiring nevertheless. I prefer to speak of counter-structure, comparable to the musical concept of counterpoint (different melodies going together in harmony). Counter-structure is not Changing families and their lifestyles 

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anti, but goes together with other realities, for example of people who watch the pilgrims go by. They do not share the same perception of reality, but meanwhile the pilgrims give a different meaning to the daily world of these people. This concept of counter-structure asks for more explanation. Cervantes’ story of Don Quixote might be able to illustrate the concept of counter-structure quite well. The sad knight lives in the same world as his fellow people, but perceives the same objects and persons from a completely different perspective and attaches completely different significances to them. (see also Schutz’s essay on Quixote, in Schutz, 1971: 135-58). Everything that is present seems to support his perception of reality. His servant alternates between the different realities, that of his master and that of the people in their paramount reality of everyday life. Serving his master in his master’s perception of the world is the ultimate example of counter-structure. The tourist, whether he or she is a camper, a cyclist, an angler, a hiker, an explorer or even mass holiday maker, enters into a leisure state of mind, bracketing normal life. In order to serve this state of mind (in proprioception even state of being), travel agents help, trains run, waiters bring Bacardi-Colas, chamber maids make beds and so on and so forth. Sometimes the tourist has Quixotical proportions: dressed with sunglasses, a baseball cap, a loud coloured shirt, shorts, a camera around one’s neck, unusually noisy, or recklessly sunburnt. But the tourist is less mentally disturbed than the knight errant. Counter-structure of tourism is the supporting system of the tourist experience from the perspective of the tourist in which the tourism production plays an important role. From the perspective of the tourism production system itself tourism appears in many people’s normal life, not as counterstructure, but as their everyday routine (being travel agents, waiters, guides or whatever). From this perspective tourists are only Don Quixotes or, more adequately: consumers, known by their preferences and consuming behaviour. Here, two or even more ‘melodies’ go well together, but they sound different. In tourism we can distinguish between the world of tourism products, industry and even actor networks of people and things (Van der Duim, 2005) involved in creating tourism. The tourist as consumer is part of this actor network exchanging money for services and products. Nevertheless, the tourist is at the same time an individual who enters ‘an experiential world’. This implies that the tourist feels detached from everyday constraints and rules. The tourist picks out of the tourist world those elements that fit into an experiential and consistent structure. In this process, parts and elements of the tourist world of products receive a particular ‘interpretational relevancy’ (Schutz, 1975:127). The experiences do not only originate from situational stimuli such as the tourist industry, but also from the pre-existing knowledge, values and beliefs of the tourist. Socialisation processes play an important role in fabricating a mental (cognitive and emotional) framework that pre-disposes a tourist to this particular experiential world. Clear enough this framework is 274 

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far from static, but changes again and again in the process of building up new experiences. The structure of the experiential tourist world then arises from the mental framework that responds to the external stimuli of the tourist products and is organised around the parameters of reality as presented here before. To find out whether this theoretical perspective applies to the world of the NTKC nature camper and helps to understand the camping experience, I will present data from a survey and qualitative interviewing in the following section. The questions here are: how do the parameters appear in the perceptions of the nature campers; and can we distinguish from their perspective a counter-structure offered by the NTKC organisation and the particular campsites? And, most importantly, how did they come to enter into this world of nature camping? 4. Leaving home and being ‘there’ Membership histories reveal that many members are active participants because their parents were members of the NTKC too. Membership is not the only thing that is passed on, so is a more encompassing family culture, reflecting a back-to-nature ideal and a strong preference for free camping. Most respondents personally indicated that they had become members because of someone else. From the survey we learned that parents (26%), partners (13%), other family relations (10%) - together half of the respondents - and friends or acquaintances (36%) had been the main reasons for becoming a member. The average age of the NTKC members is around fifty. Members are relatively well educated and their income is above the national average. The most important reason given for remaining a NTKC member is the tranquillity and beauty of the campsites (63 percent of the respondents of the survey). In order to find out why people actually use the opportunity for camping on the NTKC grounds, we carefully interrogated campers vis-à-vis. We also developed a set of questions in the survey, based on earlier research in different contexts and for different types of tourists, following the modes of experience of Erik Cohen (1979), but updated and reformulated (for an overview of our efforts over ten years, see Elands and Lengkeek, 2000). Campers expressed great differences in the way of camping and the distance one feels from everyday life. One person confessed to planning everything in advance, even what is to be done during the day. Others spontaneously decided to gather their camping gear and just go in an instant. Out of the interviewed people 21 percent indicated going camping three to five times a year, while 22 percent even declared going camping more than five times a year.

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‘.... when we thought, well the weather is nice, we just packed three crates into the car and left. It is impulsive, not really planned ahead. We always go on the off chance….’; ‘It can be very impulsive. Chore weekends are always planned of course, or there can be a special occasion or you can plan something with friends but it can also be very impulsive’; ‘We don’t have anything planned for this weekend, we could go camping’. Some campers have to ‘get out’ now and then. For others it is a way to come across interesting places. Still others consider campsites as their own favourite retreat. There are also differences in the activities: some campers are mainly nature-oriented and go hiking or cycling, others visit neighbouring villages or explore the surroundings and again others mainly remain at the premises. There are people who cook on one hot plate and find that ‘real life’, others go and get French fries, eat simple macaroni or go out for dinner. Some people stay on one campsite, others travel around. There is not just one NTKC camping pattern. From the survey it appeared that for the majority (53%) of the NTKC members the main motive to go camping is the search for distraction from daily routine, which is considered a primary stress inducer. Another considerable percentage (33%) favour being active and bivouacking in a primitive setting, avoiding touristy places. They like to experience unexpected or surprising natural phenomena. Both categories reveal the importance of bracketing, to remove the boundaries of routine life in a rather radical way. There are two other categories. One is a group of 21 percent with a primary motive to satisfy a general interest in the ‘other’, the world beyond their everyday horizon. The second group of 20% expresses being dedicated to certain campsites and their surroundings. The vacation area is seen as ‘my place’, where people would, preferably, like to live, a place to learn how to re-discover their ‘other personal self ’. In addition, they express no obvious need for change or diversion. Respondents in this experience type wish to absorb themselves in other cultures and take part in their habits. These types of campers would like to freeze that moment in time, when they engage in authentic experiences and/or extend their visit as long as possible. The smallest proportion (9%) represents a need for ‘cosiness’ (in Dutch very typically: ‘gezelligheid’), Dutch sociality with very little interest in the details of the vacation region. Being there is being home, but in a setting different from normal life. What people actually find on the campsites is peace and quiet, a lot of freedom in choosing their own spot in an almost hidden place far from the outside world. The campsites offer only marginal provisions: often only cold running water, often no electricity, no canteen, hardly any playground for children and no parking place near the tent. There is a voluntary camping master (the first one of the season to put up his tent on the field), there is a key276 

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guardian living near the campsites, there are toilets, and there is a box in which people can find a register to fill in their names. Guests pay directly to the camp master or by cheque. Cleaning toilets and the maintenance of the campsites is a task for members. Special days or weekends are organized for doing the chores. Of all the respondents in the survey 38 percent admitted to doing some chores now and then. NTKC members are not only consumers, but many of them are producers too. Volunteering is important in order to keep the price for leisure provisions low (see also Lengkeek 2000). Interestingly, only a very small percentage (3%) indicated that the low price was a reason for being a member. Nevertheless the price is extremely low: 38 euro a year and 15 extra for a partner. For one night members pay 2 euros. The impression from the semi-structured talks with 25 people is that many of them are not really interested in doing things with other campers. The idea of communitas is valid to only a certain degree. Nobody mentioned a club spirit as a reason for joining the NTKC. Only ‘our kind of people’ feelings played some role: 11 percent mentioned people of the same kind, quiet, decent, aware of nature. As one person explained: ‘We contact other campers if we need something, a corkscrew, pins, or something else. No need to take care of your neighbour’s belongings. Each terrain is so hidden, nobody knows it’s there from the outside.’ Another person said: ‘It depends on the campsites and the number of campers. Most of the time it is the children that start an activity. It happens spontaneously. A campfire at night, baking bread together or playing Jeu de Boules. You can go past the tents and just ask people. You take care not to bother people with hindrance from activities. It is all easy going. You take the time for each other.’ According to the survey data 51 percent favour some contact with other campers, 47 percent have a neutral attitude. Only 12 percent indicate liking joint activities, while 67 percent are neutral in this respect. There are sub-groups among the members with a more specific character. There are different ‘sections’: the Roamers, the Caravan group, the Youth Section and the Sing-a-song group. Half of the members participate in one of these sections and as a member of the board or other committees of the club. The Roamers represent the spirit of primitive and adventurous camping. They are widely considered to be the ‘real campers’. The Caravan people are mainly elderly people or long-time members with some physical disabilities that prevent them from camping in a small tent on the ground. The admission Changing families and their lifestyles 

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of caravan owners on the campsites has been contested for many decades. A decrease in the number of members in the second half of the eighties has led to a relaxation of the strict rules for admission. For the same reason the tradition of balloting candidate members has been abandoned. The Youth Section organizes events such as rallies, international contacts, cycling tours, contests and last but not least parties ( Jeugdsectie, 1997). This section plays an important role in binding young members to the organisation. The younger members often leave the club after some time, get married, start careers et cetera. Later on in life many of them return, possibly thanks to good memories of the Youth Section. The members of the committees transcend the practices of actual camping. They become officials, managers and devoted volunteers. They devote themselves to policy and management. There is one important unwritten, but very outspoken rule concerning the types of tents allowed. There is a choice of brands, types, size and quality: Carl Denig, Erdman Schmidt, Mentora, De Waard and Slee. Tents have to be below 1.80 meters in height and can only be green, brown or beige.

Using another size or deviant colour spoils the ambiance of the campsites and the surrounding nature. For the same reason caravans have been looked at with a great deal of suspicion for as long as the NTKC and caravans have existed together. Furthermore, there is a list of written rules for behaviour on the campsites. These are widely accepted, but no one applies them in a very strict way. Most informants deny that status plays a role. One criterion is the membership number: the lower the number, the older the membership, and the higher the connected status. Most consider the other members as people of the same kind. Balloting does not exist anymore, but new applicants have a special status as applicant member for two years before they can become full members. There is a periodical. However, none of the informants declared a great interest in it, except for the schedule for working weekends. There are many other magazines and periodicals covering nature camping, which people can read and digest if they wish. 278 

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The actual social contacts on the campsites are modest and depend on ‘spontaneous combustion’. There are some tendencies to similarities in backgrounds of the members. They are predominantly ‘leftist’ (50%) and the majority is not connected to a religious community (67%, compared to 40% not religious nationwide). Most members (76%) are also members of a nature organisation. 5. Different realities: the interviews The survey offered strong evidence for something like ‘bracketing’ or putting things between parentheses, which in this case means breaking away from everyday life. The characteristics, such as backgrounds, social position, reasons for being and staying a member and so on, are not unequivocal. There are tendencies in the data pointing at an important role for socialisation and family relations, nature orientation, leftist political sympathies and above all a need for peace and quiet. This world of people is kept together by an organisation in which many members play an active role in maintaining it. There is a certain ‘communitas’ in the sense that social status is unimportant, there is a feel of ‘us’. Interactions take place on the campsites over many things such as maintenance, borrowing things, social chats and so on. On the small grounds social contacts are inevitable. This communitas transcends the social differences that exist and are acknowledged. The qualitative (phenomenological) research provided an insight into the experiential world of the campers, which very much underpins the theorized counter-structure. Most of the statements made by respondents came spontaneously, sometimes gently induced by the researcher. In this article it is impossible to note all statements made by the interviewed campers, but I will quote some selected examples, following the different parameters. 5.1 Bracketing The idea of bracketing is often mentioned, of course in the personal formulation of the respondent. One respondent sees camping out on the terrains of the NTKC as going back to nature. ‘Society is too stressful and too hurried. Camping is so different from being in a house. It is nice to distance yourself from luxury for a while, no television, no radio, no newspapers, no dishwasher, not even a chair. It is like refuelling.’ ‘My husband is much more meticulous in doing it correctly: keeping the laundry out of sight, bringing only the necessary goods, the simple way. I agree: it has to be primitive. In normal life, one is so spoiled with all kinds of possessions. It is good to do with less during your holiday.’

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‘I like closing the door behind me. There’s no need for planning ahead. Your stuff is close at hand and it doesn’t take you long to get there.’ ‘As a member you don’t have to prepare much. You can decide to go whenever you feel like it. You just pack your things and go. There is always a place for you. And you don’t need to take much with you.’ ‘Camping at a farm brings you closer to the normal world. Here you are further away. This simple life is a conscious restriction, forcing you to do nothing but just being around the tent, going for a few walks and such.’ ‘You are away for a while, but in a familiar place. You know what you can find there. And you know what is NOT there and what you have to adjust yourself to.’ ‘I pack in 10 minutes.’ 5.2 Tension of consciousness One respondent who compares her camping out to meditation makes a reference to tension of consciousness. The condition of relaxation is the most oft-heard reason for enjoying camping out under these simple and quiet circumstances. ‘I see, hear everything’. The world shrinks to small proportions. Attention is focused on only a few matters, for example handling a gas lamp. In the small world of the tent everything has to function well. Because of the shrinking world and a somewhat different sense of time, it is all very much about here and now. No worries about the future. It is the basics of living: you get up, eat, do something, eat, and go to bed. 5.3 Proprioception Being away and staying on the campsites provides a cure for being overstressed. But in the tent people become aware of their body for more reasons. ‘I had problems with my back. Crawling in and around the tent is not that easy for me. If you have to go to the toilet at night, it is quite a problem, crawling over the other on your way out. Finding your way in the dark with a torch.’

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There is a group who is absolutely opposed to hot water and hot showers on the campsites. ‘If you don’t like a cold shower, there are black bags you can hang in the tree for a while. They absorb sun or warmth. You can shower with the water from the bag. That is definitely not cold anymore. The issue whether to provide only cold or also warm water is a hot item.’ Washing next to the central tap arouses some embarrassment. To undress in front of strangers can be an item. The sight of naked breasts caused some problems at one of the campsites. ‘Sometimes you see people sunbathing in the nude or topless, sometimes you see naked children playing, but this is exceptional.’ A few statements concerned bodily locomotion. People can do as they please, walk around, take it easy. Most campers dress differently compared to normal. Clothes are easy to wear, multi-purpose and easy to fold away. The old fashioned knickerbockers are very practical, but they betray the members of the early years. 5.4 Sociality Camping out in this primitive way provides time and attention for having good conversations with the partner. There are no other claims on people from work. ‘We contact other campers if we need something, a corkscrew, pins, or something else. No need to take care of your neighbour’s belongings. Each terrain is so hidden, nobody knows it’s there from the outside.’ ‘Many people know each other, at least by face. You have seen them before, on one or the other campsites.’ ‘You get to know a lot of people, which is very nice. You do things together, play Jeu de Boules, have a few beers, a party is organised in a minute, it’s wonderful.’ Others underline their need for privacy. One person explicitly stated hating campfires. But there is always some relationship between the campers. ‘People watch each other. That gives a good control. You immediately see if someone does not belong here. When people violate the rules, the camp master (a volunteer) can write it down in the log-book. When things add up, people can be thrown out of the club.’

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Some informants said they like to look at the old, real nature lovers and campers, fiddling around their tent. Watching them, says one, you don’t need television. ‘The board of the club is a bit eccentric. My husband is more like them. He has a background in the socialist youth movement. There is this hard core within the club, which organises weekends, events et cetera. That is not our way. My daughter finds it a sect-like group. They are also a bit old-fashioned, the elderly with knickerbockers.’ ‘In some way many people on the campsites are somewhat odd people, a bit world reformers…I don’t know how to explain...’ ‘There are different groups, such as hikers with backpacks, bikers, caravan people. Sometimes there are ‘groups’, but I do not join them.’ People indicate that a person has to learn how to camp out. Here the role of the parents is important. They provide the examples and demonstrate how to do things properly. The camping situation even provides a concentrated context for raising children well. These camping behaviour patterns create a visible social rule, which is not easy to violate. ‘I learned everything from my parents and put up my own tent as soon as I could manage that.’ ‘You can’t walk around the campsites with a normal pillow in your hands. You’d make an idiot of yourself. Nobody is supposed to use a normal pillow.’ 5.5 Time This parameter is not mentioned explicitly in the interviews except in a general sense. People express that they follow their own schedule, taking walks in the evening, going to bed at ten, being aware of the break of day and fall of night. The importance of a different sense of time comes back in the other parameters, such as bracketing and tension of consciousness. Time is a much more simple sequence of events than in hectic normal life. ‘We go to bed when it gets dark, with a torch, do some reading and talking.’ 5.6 Space The campsites are more or less hidden and isolated from the surroundings. Nature is close by. Yet, the different feeling of space has a lot to do with being close to the ground.

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‘You have to enter the tent on all fours. Low chairs, a cooking set: it all brings you close to the ground. My preference for a particular landscape depends much on my moods. I find the woods a bit depressing nowadays.’ Tents are not allowed to have a height over 1.80 meter. This places many activities low to ground. ‘We do everything on the ground. That gives a pleasant atmosphere. A plastic rug serves as a table.’ Some respondents say they are outside as often as possible and do not go inside the tent unless it is absolutely necessary; being outside triggers the senses. Someone mentions how nice it is to smell the earth and nature. And listen to the birds of course. ‘Our tent is surrounded by a huge garden so to speak; you can be in the forest within two minutes. Camping is sitting outdoors, listening to the birds.’ ‘In spring and autumn, when you hear the singing of the birds, you become really peaceful and think to yourself: ‘is this still possible in the Netherlands?’’ Nature is important. Campers are careful with trees and plants. When kids climb into an old tree, they correct them and ask them to show more respect. ‘Nature is God’s creation. It’s good to be close to nature. You’re careful where to put up your tent, so it isn’t placed in front of a blossoming plant or anything like that. You have to move your tent every couple of days in order to save the grass.’ So far we were able to fill out the parameters of reality quite well. But there is another possible parameter, which is not sufficiently covered by the others. This additional parameter, that came up after collecting the data, is materiality. It appears that not only space or sociality changes, but also the material goods that surround the people. Life in and around the tents is simple and involves fewer belongings, things and stuff than everyday life does. There are fewer goods and they are small or conveniently adapted to the situation. There is considerable social control on maintaining the material simplicity and using the correct colours. 5.7 Materiality A small tent is appropriate on the NTKC nature campsite, with an intersection of no more than 2 meters. All campers sleep on the floor, on nothing more than a thin foam rubber mattress. Many respondents possess a bigger tent, but this one is only used on longer trips, particularly abroad and not within the context of the NTKC. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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‘You can do just as well with only a few belongings. The device is to reduce the volume as much as you can. Some people put their sugar in a plastic bag, in order to safe space.’ ‘I made a list of things we did not use. Next time we’ll leave them at home.’ ‘We use club periodicals such as the one from Carl Denig for orientation, not the periodical of our own club. They offer no advice. The best information comes from specialised magazines. We chose an Erdman Schmidt tent and a Coleman burner.’ ‘We have self-inflating chairs and mats, sleeping bags and simple cooking utensils. A primus is even better than a gas cooker.’ ‘The tent can only be brown, beige or green. Your clothes should not have glaring colours either.’ ‘You need clothes that do not wrinkle. You need easy clothes, and hiking shoes.’ Because the material world is as simple as possible, there is hardly any room for goods that have a function in social distinction. There is no particular status connected to material goods. All are simple and functional. 6. Different realities: the survey The interviews in the foregoing paragraph can only approach the phenomenological experiential world of the nature campers to a certain degree. Participant observation and experienced self-reflection of the researcher could have brought more content to the distinguished parameters, particularly difficult states of consciousness such as the subjective perception of time. Nevertheless, the conversations with the respondents gave many clues to understanding camping out as an experiential reality. In order to gain a more complete insight into this camping world, we designed a questionnaire structured around the same parameters, except for materiality (the concept which came up afterwards). The assumption was that the experiential world and stored memories induce answers that at least reflect something of the parameters. The advantage of the survey was that over 400 respondents could be questioned instead of only 25, as was the case with the qualitative interviews. In Table 1 we present the percentages of answers on items related to the different parameters. In the same table we reproduce the results of a factor-analysis on the same data. By doing so we hoped to find out how the experiences on the different parameters of reality interfere with each other.

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During a camping trip I like to be as lazy as possible. At the campsite, I can do what I like, without having to think about it. During a camping trip I am so busy, that I have no time to think about anything else. I still have long dreams about my camping experiences afterwards. Bracketing During camping trips, it seems as if my normal life has become very distant and unimportant. During a camping trip, I am not interested in the news or the newspaper. At the campsite, I can completely be myself During camping trips, I finally do things I rarely get to do normally, such as reading a book, bird watching, and having good conversations, et cetera. Proprioception Camping outside makes personal needs such as showering and brushing your teeth less important. I like to be hungry and sleepy after being outside the whole day. When I am out camping, I feel like I am in another world. During a camping trip, when you’re lying down on the camping mattress, it is nice to feel every muscle in your body. Sociality I am not interested in the other campers; I only go camping for myself alone. At the campsite, I like to meet new people. I gladly participate in joint organised activities, such as a campfire or a barbecue. I like it when the people at the campsite have similar interests.

Tension of consciousness

Items

Table 1. Experiences of nature campers with respect to the reality parameters (percentage).

33 20 23 33 26 13 21 29 35 35 40 28 34

27 24 40 17 25 62 21 22 41 32 20 48 23

Disagree 32 34 23

Neutral

44 23 59

Agree

Changing families and their lifestyles  33 40 24 43

58 49 24

25

37 50 49

41 56

24 43 18

Factor 1 .653 .745

.660 .592

.562 .570

Factor 2 .639

.679

.662

Factor 3 .635

Factor 4 -.784 .774 .616 .574

Factor 5 .499 .685

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Space

Time

During a camping trip, I often forget which day of the week it is. During a camping trip, I do not live by the clock, the time for getting up and eating is different every day. While I’m camping my rhythm follows nature: I get up when the sun rises, eat when I’m hungry and sleep when I’m tired. The time flies during camping trips. I never take an alarm clock with me when I go camping. It gives me a wonderful cosy feeling to hear the rain tapping on the roof. Being so close to the ground and smelling the earth is what makes camping so special. I prefer to have a clearly defined campsite so that I know precisely where mine is. I’d rather have a campsite in a wild natural area.

Items

Table 1. Continued.

21 28 15 15 28 19 21

27 19 34 24 23 62 25

Disagree 19 14

Neutral

28 21

Agree 19 54

53 51 61 49

52

53 65

Factor 1 .527

.505 .686

.543

Factor 2 .577

-.511

Factor 3 .583

.570

.544

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Factor 5

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To check the underlying relations between the items, a factor analysis (with Varimax rotation) was conducted. This analysis yielded five factors that explained 54 percent of the variance41. The factor loadings of the 24 items on the five factors are given in the last columns of Table 1. As can be seen in Table 1, the results of the factor analysis did not directly confirm the existence of six parameters of reality as measured with these statements. It must be noted that the statements translate the original theoretical parameters into the specific reality of camping out. The results from the survey suggest that primitive campers’ experiences can be described in terms of five factors that combine different aspects of our original parameters of experience. These five factors can be interpreted as follows: 1. Another reality close to nature. This factor consists of ten items from four of our original scales, except for sociality. The common theme of these items is the experience of leaving daily reality far behind (bracketing) and being close to the earth and natural phenomena such as rain, surroundings et cetera (space). In addition, this factor represents the experience that time seems to fly and an enhanced consciousness of the body and physical needs for food and sleep (proprioception). 2. At home at another place. This factor consists of five items from four of our original scales. The common theme in these items is the feeling of being at home at another place. This factor represents a preference for one’s ‘own’ clearly marked campsite (space) and the retention of a consciousness of time. On the other hand, it also represents the notion that there is less need for personal care and the appreciation of feeling your muscles because of a lack of sleeping comfort (proprioception). Thus, this factor represents the transitional experience of being totally absorbed in the camping activity to the point were you start to let go of the worries of daily life obligations (bracketing). 3. Forgetting time constraints and daily life. This factor consists of four items from the originals scales of bracketing and time. It mostly represents a changed perception of time during vacation. This includes the experience of forgetting which day of the week it is and the sensation that one’s rhythm is determined by nature and that one no longer needs an alarm clock. In addition, this factor reflects the experience of leaving the worries of the world behind with little or no interest in the news or reading the newspaper. 4. Enjoying social contacts. This factor consists of the four items of our original sociality scale. It represents the experience of enjoying contact with other campers. Meeting new people, getting to know others with – preferably – similar interests and the opportunity to take part in jointly organised activities is appreciated. 5. Need to do nothing. This factor consists of two items from our original tension scale. The common theme of these two items is the feeling that one needs to do nothing and has no obligations.

41

With special thanks to Dr Birgit Elands of Wageningen University who did the statistical analysis.

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The advantage of factor-analysis is that it unravels the underlying dimensions of the campers’ experiences as they were measured with the different statements. It thus suggests how counter-structure is actually ‘structured’ within the experiential world of nature camping. In the research project we were able to relate campers’ scores on the five factors to many other characteristics of these factors such as motivations and the use of facilities, but the results of these analyses lie outside the scope of this article and will not be discussed. 7. Counter-structure reconsidered: conclusions How do the parameters appear in the perceptions of the nature campers? The empirical material supports the importance of the parameters. The role of the nature camper, the tourist or the consumer gets more relief than generally in tourism marketing research. Tourism marketing shows a tendency to understand the consumer according to preferences as indicated by behaviour or expressed wishes or needs. The way the consumers are usually approached is a consequence of the organisation of the tourist industry or production system in general. The system needs information on variables that it is able to control. In this particular case of the NTKC we see a world that is primarily constructed and maintained by the users of its opportunities themselves (see also Lengkeek, 2000). In terms of economic theory: it is produced by its own consumers for reasons of direct (pleasure) or indirect utility (doing voluntary work in order to obtain access to the organisation and its campsites). The concept of counter-structure implies that the experiential world of tourists – whether they are organised campers, adventurous explorers or mass tourists – temporarily reshapes the outside world. The parameters of reality define which elements in the outside world – tourist or not – lighten up and get ‘interpretational relevancy’ for their leisure pursuits. Can we distinguish from their perspective a counter-structure offered by the NTKC organisation and the particular campsites? The tourist industry or, in this example, the NTKC camping organisation provides important conditions for the counter-structure, but it does not define the tourist world. Even the discourses within the NTKC concerning correct behaviour, tents and the ideal camping style, influence the experiential world only to a certain degree. Members pick up ideas from a much wider context and bring these into the experiential reality of two weeks on the campsites. In the meantime, social control on the sites keeps the different experiential worlds of all the participants within a certain order. The other side of control is mutual respect, as many respondents pointed out. In the example of the NTKC there seems to be a balance between subjective or directly shared experiential worlds (for instance of couples), social control on the spot and the organisational structure of the voluntary club.

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An additional concept or parameter to the pre-defined parameters of bracketing, tension of consciousness, proprioception, sociality, time and space is materiality. Materiality plays an especially dominant role in the tourist industry and industries related to it. Selling goods and services (as their derivates) is quintessential in the productive success of the tourist sector, one of the three largest economic sectors in the world (next to oil and automobiles). Materiality on the one hand offers variables that can be controlled in the production sector. The logic of production constantly creates new materials, new fashions, and more sophisticated goods. On the other hand it definitely helps to complete the counter-structure in its experience of being in a different state of mind. Look at cyclists with glaring outfits, amateur long distance runners with froglike leggings, anglers with flashing gear or ocean sailing enthusiasts with long-distance communication devices. Writing these examples down also illustrates how the parameters are interrelated. Material goods can be perceived for what they are, but they derive meaning or significance from their particular context of sociality. Life-style studies couple the material goods, their social meanings and their social functions in distinguishing identities in the everyday social reality (see Bourdieu, 1984). Leisure clothes combine the feeling of relaxed tension of consciousness, a bodily feeling of ease, keeping it private and separated from particular sociality, in a private place and during a certain time. 8. Some final remarks Counter-structure is a relational concept. It presupposes a paramount daily reality to which it offers a counterpoint melody. Both worlds are structured around these parameters, but for each parameter the signs can point in another direction. In fact, everyday reality probably consists of many different realities between which social individuals are able to alternate freely. The assumption here is that certain leisure activities such as tourism can offer a rather radical – although within a certain time and space – break with the complex world we may simplify as everyday life. This concept and particularly its constituent parameters are intended to create a better understanding of the tourist experiential world, although it offers a particular approach or perspective. It enriches the predominantly spatial approach to tourism where the centre-out-there is in another place. The concept of counter-structure encompasses much more than only the spatial part and completes it with a social-psychological perspective. It transcends the sociological boundaries of an actor-network and its implied discourses. It also completes a consumer approach that mainly reflects the logic of the production system and its emphasis on goods and services. Empirically this research is based on both qualitative interviews and a pre-structured questionnaire. The construction of questionnaire statements for the parameter measurement has been limited to this research project on nature camping and has not been validated yet. This could be the explanation for the discrepancy between the six parameters and the five factors. There is work to be done for the development of a good survey research tool.

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The world of the NTKC campers is a relatively small world. Still it appeared worthwhile studying its phenomenological and conceptual significance. The theoretical conceptualisation offers a perspective on experiential reality or even realities. On the other hand there are more approaches to tourist experiences. There is a behaviouristic approach linking evaluative responses of tourists to their personal and cultural backgrounds and to characteristics of the environment. In other research we developed the conceptualisation of different modes of experience (Elands and Lengkeek, 2000). Another approach is that of people – environment interactions with regard to use, perception, narratives and appropriation (Van Marwijk et al., 2007). There is still a great challenge in linking different theoretical perspectives to each other in a more encompassing framework. The counter-structure concept and the parameters offer some practical implications for tourism product development and the conditions to offer an experiential product. Instead of promoting ‘the big five’ of elephants, rhinos, buffaloes, lions and leopards, after the idea of putting the feeling of home between parentheses, the offering of ‘a big five’ of particular feelings of self, sociality, space, time and tension of consciousness could be considered. The initiative for our research didn’t come from the promotion of any ‘big five’ but from the concerns of the organisation for its own survival (Van der Kooij and Lengkeek, 1998). The research took place some ten years ago, but its relevance is still unchallenged. The analysis of the counter-structure parameters indicated that there is a solid basis for its future as long as the counter-structure of primitivism, being physically close to the ground and nature continues to be valid. According to recent information the organisation is still able to provide for paradise with its exclusive, hidden campsites, even when the weather is bad, and the hurricane lamp has to be raised. References Bourdieu, P., 1984. Distinction: A SocialCcritique of theJudgement of Taste. London/Melbourne and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Cohen, E., 1979. A phenomenology of tourist experiences. The Journal of the British Sociological Association 13(2): 179-201. De Lathouder, A., I. De Lathouder-Bouma and H. Lagrouw, 1992. Leven onder een linnen dak. Tachtig jaar kamperen in de NTKC. Utrecht: Nederlandse Toeristen Kampeer Club. Elands, B. and J. Lengkeek, 2000. Typical Tourists. Research into the Theoretical and Methodological Foundations of a Typology of Tourism and Recreation Experiences. Mansholt Studies. Wageningen: Mansholt Graduate School. Jeugdsectie, 1997. Met z’n veertienen in een tweepersoons tentje. Veertig jaar Jeugdsectie. Utrecht: Nederlandse Toeristen Kampeer Club. Lengkeek. J., 1996. On the multiple realities of leisure: A phenomenological approach to the otherness of leisure. Loisir et Société / Leisure and Society 19(1):23-40.

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Lengkeek, J., 2000, Commercial and club marinas: pay money or do the chores. Loisir et Société / Leisure and Society 23(2): 369-86. Linders-Rooijendijk, M.F.A., 1989. Gebaande wegen voor mobiliteit en vrijetijdsbesteding. De ANWB als vrijwillige associatie 1883-1937. Dissertation. Katholieke Universiteit Brabant: Berlicum. Sacks, O., 1986. The Man who mistook his Wife for a Hat. London: Picador Pan Books. Schutz, A., 1971. Collected Paper: Studies in Social Theory. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Schutz, A., 1975. Collected Papers: Studies in Phenomenological Philosophy. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Schutz, A., 1990. Collected Papers: The Problem of Social Reality. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff. Turner, V., 1973. The center out there: Pilgrim’s goal. History of Religions 12(3): 191-230. Urry, J., 1990. The Tourist Gaze. Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Society. London: Sage. Van der Duim, V.R., 2005. Tourismscapes. An actor-network perspective on sustainable tourism development. Dissertation. Wageningen: Wageningen University. Van der Kooij, M. and J. Lengkeek, 1998. Terreinwinst. Onderzoek naar kansen voor een duurzame Nederlandse Toeristen Kampeer Club. Fonds Wetenschapswinkel. Rapport 151. Wageningen: Landbouwuniversiteit. Van Marwijk, R., B. Elands and J. Lengkeek, 2007. Experiencing nature. The recognition of the symbolic environment within research and management of visitor flows. Snow, forthcoming.

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Hygiene, health and society

Lifestyle and health Maria Koelen Abstract The leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the Western world have changed remarkably in the past decades, shifting from acute, communicable diseases to chronic and non-communicable diseases. It is generally acknowledged that many of these new diseases are influenced by health-related behaviour. Hence, influencing people’s lifestyles became a focus in the promotion of health as well. However, the meaning of the concept differs amongst, for instance, epidemiologists, health education specialists and sociologists. Some (social) scientists refer to lifestyle as a consciously chosen behaviour of individuals as it relates to health, such as diet, physical exercise, and unsafe sexual practices. To others, lifestyle is seen as influenced by cultural and environmental factors as well. In this contribution the different meanings of lifestyle are discussed, as well as the consequences of these differences for the approach in health promotion. There is ample evidence that lifestyles are associated with individual health and with the health of others. However, putting too much emphasis on the individual responsibility for certain lifestyles may lead to healthism. We will advocate the need for a broader approach. 1. Introduction The promotion of individual and population health has for many centuries been the domain of medical science. Not surprisingly, because until the first half of the 20th century, mortality and morbidity were strongly related to communicable diseases. High mortality rates could be attributed mainly to infectious and highly contagious (epidemic) diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis and the plague. Medical science has provided new knowledge about diseases and their control, and it has led to advances in medicine that have been of enormous benefit to many people. Together with improvements in housing and sanitation standards, the provision of bacteriologically safe water and foods, improved living conditions, and improvements in income and education, great progress has been made, especially in the last century, in the improvement of health. The demise of epidemics, declines in both maternal and infant mortality rates, and the increasing proportion of the population living into old age are just a few examples. Nevertheless, a large part of the world’s population still suffers from ill health, and the levels of untimely mortality remain too high. However, the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the Western world have changed remarkably, shifting from acute, communicable diseases to chronic and non-communicable diseases. Morbidity and mortality rates increasingly relate to health problems such as cancers, cardio-vascular diseases, obesity, diabetes, respiratory diseases, addictions, and mental disorders such as depression and dementia. It is estimated Changing families and their lifestyles 

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that these non-communicable diseases currently account for approximately 60 per cent of the global disease burden (WHO, 2006). There is ample evidence that human behaviour, such as diet, substance abuse (e.g. alcohol and drugs) and sedentary work and leisure, contributes to the development and maintenance of these disorders. The recognition that individual behaviour plays a pivotal role in the development of these health problems gave momentum to the development of health education as a professional and scientific field. It is an approach in which individual behaviour is seen as a cause for contemporary health problems. Health education aims to make individuals aware of the negative consequences of their behaviour for health and it is expected that changes in such behaviour can have a major preventive and health-enhancing effect. The concept of lifestyle is often used as synonymous for a single behaviour with a negative influence on health, such as lack of physical exercise, smoking, alcohol abuse, unhealthy eating, and unsafe sexual practices. These behaviours are often referred to as ‘risky lifestyles’. But, is this the real meaning of the lifestyle concept? In this paper the different meanings of lifestyle are discussed, as well as the positive and negative consequences of these different usage for the approach in health promotion. 2. Lifestyle in health education Lifestyle is one of the key concepts in the promotion of public health promotion, but the meaning of the concept differs amongst for instance epidemiologists, health education specialists, psychologists and sociologists. The notion of lifestyle has gained wide attention in the health field, however without an adequate conceptual analysis (Coreil et al., 1985). From an epidemiological point of view, lifestyle is most often used to refer to a specific, consciously chosen behaviour that involves risks to health. Indeed, there is ample evidence that individual behaviour contributes to health and disease. McGinnis and Foege (1993) calculated the major external (nongenetic) factors that contribute to death in the United States, based on articles published between 1977 and 1993. They concluded that the most prominent contributors to mortality in the USA were tobacco, diet, exercise and alcohol. Data from the Netherlands Public Health Forecast (RIVM, 2006) show that in the Netherlands, 31.8 percent of the mortality rates in 2005 were caused by cardio-vascular diseases, and 29.6 percent by cancers. These diseases typically are related to health behaviour. It is estimated that about half of the deaths due to lung cancer and cardiovascular disease in the adult population (20 years and older) can be attributed to smoking. Of all adults, 28 percent of the Dutch were smokers in 2005. Unhealthy nutrition is also related to these diseases, and statistics here are even worse. Only 8% of young adults (19-30 years of age) comply with the recommended intake of polyunsaturated fatty accids (< 10 en%), 2% comply with the recommended vegetable intake of 150-200 grams a day, and 78% satisfy the recommended amount of 200 grams of fruits a day. Moreover, 75% of the adolescents (12-18 years of age) and half of the adult population (18-55 years of age) do not reach the recommended standard of half an hour of physical activity a day (RIVM, 2006). Clearly, 296 

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health-related behaviours contribute considerably to the public health burden. It is perfectly acceptable to persuade individuals to change behaviours in a more healthy direction. And this is the focus of many health education efforts. Cognitive theories of (health-related) behaviour and behaviour change are applied to specify the cognitive and motivational antecedents of health behaviour. Leading theories in this regard are the Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen and Madden, 1986), the Health Belief Model ( Janz and Becker, 1984), and the Social Cognitive Theory (Bandura, 1986). Peoples’ knowledge about the risks of a certain behaviour, their attitude towards the behaviour, perceived expectations of others and perceived self-efficacy are measured and based on that, interventions are developed that intend to change unhealthy, single behaviours. Several studies, however, show that changes in such determinants of health risk behaviour scarcely lead to significant enduring changes in behaviour (see for example Radius et al., 1980; Dielman et al., 1984; Contento et al., 2002; Flay, 2002; Albarracin et al., 2005). In addition to the problem of such weak results, there are other concerns related to this approach. 3. Snake in the grass With its focus on individual behaviour, health education emphasises personal responsibility for health. Individuals are held responsible for their own health condition as a result of the choices they have made. It is emphasised that most diseases are the result of unhealthy habits, and the prevention of illness is associated with personal choices and willpower. As Hodgetts et al. (2005: 124) put it: ‘To be healthy is to live a balanced and controlled life, valuing vigilance, self-restraint and the avoidance of risks’. According to Minkler (1999: 126), this notion is based on the principle of autonomy, the idea that individuals have a fundamental right to choose health-related behaviours. With this right, comes a responsibility to make wise choices. In governmental public health policies in many countries, explicit reference is made to individual responsibility for personal health. For example, in the Dutch policy document ‘Opting for a healthy life’ (MOHWS, 2006: 11-2), it is stated that: ‘Diseases of affluence can now be largely prevented: unhealthy lifestyle increases disabling illnesses. [...]. People do not have to smoke or drink too much, but many do. People can take sufficient exercise, but less than half of the population exercise for half an hour a day. You can live three years longer by taking part in sports. Healthy food such as vegetables and fruit is readily available, but many people prefer to eat fat, sweet or salty products. The public therefore can opt for a healthy lifestyle’. The snake in the grass is not personal responsibility itself, but the overriding emphasis that is sometimes put on personal responsibility. Such emphasis may lead to what is called ‘blaming the victim’. When someone gets ill, the ‘victim’ must have done something wrong for a long time and the person is seen as being guilty for this illness. ‘We informed you, we warned you for the consequences of your risky behaviour, but you did not listen, and therefore you are guilty’. An overemphasis on individual responsibility for health may lead to stigmatisation and prejudice against people with ill health or disabilities. In a qualitative study amongst 60 Changing families and their lifestyles 

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patients with chest pain, Richards et al. (2003: 711) found that these patients recognised the causative links between the cardiac risk factors (e.g. cigarette smoking, poor diet) and heart disease. Individuals blamed themselves for their heart disease and general ill health, and many also believed that doctors would blame them for their behaviour and health problems. For some of the respondents, self-blame and fear of blame appeared to contribute to a reluctance to seek care. Apart from this personal burden, ethical issues can be raised. For example, in the Netherlands, as in several other countries, discussions take place on whether a smoker or an obese person is entitled to heart surgery if a non-smoker is also waiting for the same surgical treatment. Also, some advocate the position that people who fail to live a healthy life have to pay additional premiums for the health insurance. This is a serious ethical issue, which we do not want to solve but merely mention in this paper. Another consequence of an overemphasis on the individual responsibility for health is healthism. The term ‘healthism’ has been introduced by Crawford (1980) to describe a new form of health consciousness that arose in the 1970s and 1980s in the United States. People increasingly became concerned with good health and a good body shape, especially in the middle-class population. People started visiting gyms and fitness centres, followed ‘Jane Fonda programmes’, went jogging before going to work, and practiced aerobics. Health was elevated to a super value, and concern for health became a way of life. Healthism thus refers to a preoccupation with personal health as the primary focus for the achievement of health and well-being, and healthy behaviour has become the paradigm for good living. There are societal expressions of healthism as well. Skrabanek (1994) argued that healthism begins when the government begins to use propaganda and coercion to establish norms of health and begins to attempt to impose norms of a healthy lifestyle. Many examples of this can be found. Maybe no more than ten years ago, in the Netherlands it was common to have ashtrays on the table in meeting rooms. Today, smoking in public buildings, trains and airplanes is not only prohibited by law, but also by the new ‘nonsmoking norm’. Smokers are increasingly stigmatised as outcasts. Also today, discussions are taking place about fat-tax, sugar-tax, etcetera, in the battle against overweight and obesity. The point to be made here is that in the most common use of the term, the meaning of lifestyle is reduced to individual behaviours that are seen as risk factors. Health has been redefined as a private issue and illness as ‘a failure of individuals who refused to fight the good fight’ (Howell and Ingham, 2001; cited in Rail and Beausoleil, 2003). Of course it is good to take care of one’s own health. However, an overemphasis on individual responsibility has negative consequences, both personal and societal. As Benjamin Franklin, who lived from 1706-1790, stated, ‘Nothing is more fatal to health than an overcare of it’. We agree with Ashton and Levine (2005: 370) who warn ‘Beware of healthism: For most people, health is not life’s goal. Public health is not a religion [...]. health is a journey, not a destination. Health 298 

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is a means to an end, it is a resource for living the full life, not something to be pursued in an obsessive way that denies risk enjoyment and testing limits’. 4. Towards a broader perspective of health and lifestyle Next to running the risk of victim blaming and healthism, there are at least three more reasons why lifestyle defined in terms of individual (risk) behaviour is too narrow. Firstly, health risk behaviours do not occur in isolation. An individual is not ‘just a smoker’ or ‘just a healthy eater’. For example, Lytle et al. (1995) found that smoking, poor food choices and lower activity patterns cluster. We (Koelen, 1988) found similar results in a study amongst adolescents in the ages of 11 to 16: non-smokers practice sports more often and consume alcohol less often. Interestingly, we also found other differences between smokers and non-smokers regarding preferred music, clothing styles, and appreciation of school. In a review study, also Flay (2005) provided evidence that positive and negative (health) behaviours, such as alcohol use, drug use, criminal behaviour and sexual behaviour are highly correlated. Based on such studies, the conclusion seems to be valid that, instead of a single behaviour, lifestyle is more a composite of a variety of behaviours. Secondly, the narrow approach gives the impression that performing a certain behaviour is an individual matter and that a lifestyle is an individual choice. However, people do not live in isolation, and both the social and physical environment facilitate or inhibit choices that are made. Many behaviours are learned and performed in a social context, in a context with family, friends, colleagues or neighbours. In line with this, Coreil et al. (1985) proposed applying the lifestyle concept to behaviours that are shared by a social group in a specific context. For example, family type is associated with eating patterns (De Hoog, 2007) and smoking youngsters tend to have more smoking friends than non-smoking youngsters (Koelen, 1988). Moreover, many behaviours which are considered to have a negative influence on health do have a social function as well. Evening meals in families offer a great opportunity to discuss the experiences of the past day. We ‘wine-and-dine’ if there is something to celebrate. And, people may enjoy going to a bar and having some drinks with good friends. Also, watching TV, playing computer games with friends, sexual practices, and even smoking may have personal and social meanings that are not directly related to health. That is to say: not directly related to the physical side of health. Our experience in research projects (Wagemakers et al., 2007) is that many health professionals consider health from this narrow perspective, even though they can easily reproduce the definition of health as provided by WHO (1948; 1986) as a state of complete physical, social and mental well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. The previously mentioned behaviours however can have (and often do have) a significant positive influence on social and mental well- being, which are both important aspects of health. Interestingly, in the update of the WHO Health Promotion Glossary (Smith et al., 2006) a new definition of wellness is provided. In this definition ‘the fulfilment of one’s role expectations in the Changing families and their lifestyles 

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family, community, place of worship, workplace and other settings’ is seen as one of the focal concerns. Next to the social environment, a person’s lifestyle is strongly affected by the physical environment. The physical environment includes the availablity of (safe) food, hygiene and shelter, but also factors such as quality of housing, working conditions, availability of green space, traffic and air pollution. There is ample evidence that such physical environmental factors affect health (WHO, 2002). This idea is also in the mind of people. In an anthropological study of health beliefs, Davidson et al. (1991) found that dominant ideas about what influences personal health are related to, for example, personal differences, such as hereditary factors; to bad luck and personal destiny; to influences from the social environment, such as occupational risks and loneliness; and to influences from the physical environment, such as climate and pollution. These all are aspects that are out of the control of the individual. Moreover, factors in the physical environment constrain or enable healthy behaviour. How can you let children play outside if there are no safe playgrounds? How do you go to work or school by bike if there are no safe bicycle tracks? How do you stimulate the eating of healthy meals if healthy foods are more expensive? Moreover, regulations and laws (e.g. on traffic, smoking prohibition in public places) give direction to behaviour c.s. lifestyle. 5. Conclusion To conclude, lifestyles are not based merely on individual choices. They are the result of an interaction between personal, social and environmental factors. In our opinion, lifestyle should be considered as a composite expression of the social and cultural circumstances, as well as laws, regulations, taxes, subsidies, and the pressure of commercial enterprises. People can improve their health by choosing to change their lifestyle, but such changes are more sustainable if they are supported by changes in the social and physical environment. That is, changes that make the healthy choice the easy choice. References Ajzen, I. and T.J. Madden, 1986. Prediction of goal directed behaviour: attitudes, intentions and perceived behavioural control. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 22: 453-74. Albarracin, D., J.C. Gilette, A.N. Earl, L.R. Glasman and M.R. Durant, 2005. A test of major assumptions about behaviour change: a comprehensive look at the effects of passive and active HIV-prevention interventions since the beginning of the epidemic. Psychological Bulletin 131: 856-97. Ashton, J.R. and L. Levin, 2005. Aphorism of the month. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health 59: 370. Bandura, A., 1986. Social Foundations of Thought and Action; A Social Cognitive Theory. Englewood Cliffs, New York: Prentice Hall.

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Contento, I.R., J.S. Randell and C.E. Basch, 2002. Review and analysis of evaluation measures used in nutrition intervention research. Journal of Nutrition Education and Behaviour 34: 2-25. Coreil, J., J.S. Levin and G. Jaco, 1985. Life-style – an emergent concept in the socio-medical sciences. Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry 9: 423-37. Crawford, R., 1980. Healthism and the medicalization of everyday life. International Journal of Health Services. 10(3): 365-388. Davidson, C., G.D. Smith and S. Frankel, 1991. Lay epidemiology and the prevention paradox: the implications for coronary candidacy for health education. Sociology of Health & Illness 13: 119. De Hoog, K., 2007. Het gezin in de fuik: overgewicht en het moderne gezinsleven. In: H. Dagevos. and G. Munnichs (eds), De Obeseogene Samenleving. Maatschappelijke Perspectieven op Overgewicht. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Dielman, T.E., S.L. Leech, A.T. Lorenger and W.J. Horvath, 1984. Health locus of control and selfesteem as related to adolescent health behaviour and intentions. Adolescence 19: 935-50. Flay, B.R., 2002. Positive youth development requires comprehensive health promotion programmes. American Journal of Health Benaviour 26: 407-24. Flay, B.R., A. Biglan, R.F. Boruch, F. González Castro, D. Gottfredson, S. Sheppard Kellam, E.K. Mościcki, S. Schinke, J.C. Valentine and P. Ji, 2005. Standards of evidence: criteria for efficacy, effectiveness and dissemination. Prevention Science 6(3): 151-175. Hodgetts, D., B. Bolam and C. Stephans, 2005. Mediation and the construction of contemporary iunderstandings of health and lifestyle. Journal of Health Psychology 10: 123-36. Howell, J. and A. Ingham, 2001. From social problem to personal issue: the language of lifestyle. Cultural Studies 15(2). Janz, N. and M.H. Becker, 1984. The health belief model: A decade later. Health Education Quarterly 11: 1-47. Koelen, M.A., 1988. Tales of Logic: A Self-presentational View on Health Related Behaviour. PhD Thesis Wageningen Agricultural University. Lytle, L.A., S.H. Kelder, C.L. Perry and K.I. Klepp, 1995. Covariance of adolescent health behaviors: the Class of 1989 study. Health Education Research Theory and Practice 10: 133-46. McGinnis, J.M. and W.H. Foege, 1993. Actual causes of death in the United States. The Journal of the American Medical Association 270: 2207. MOHWS, 2006. Opting for a Healthy Life. Public Health Policy in the Netherlands 2007 - 2010. The Hague: Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports. Minkler, M., 1999. Personal responsibility for health? A review of the arguments and the evidence at century’s end. Health Education & Behavior 26: 121-40. Radius, S.M., T.E. Dielman, G. Becker, I.M. Rosenstock and W.J. Horvath, 1980. Health beliefs of the school-aged and their relationship to risk-taking behaviours. International Journal of Health Education 23: 227-35. Rail, G. and N. Beausoleil, 2003. Introduction to ‘Health panic and womans health’. Atlantis 27: 2. Richards, H., M. Reid and G. Watt, 2003. Victim-blaming revisited: a qualitative study of beliefs about illness causation, and responses to chest pain. Family Practice 20: 711-16.

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RIVM, 2006. Zorg voor gezondheid - Volksgezondheid Toekomst Verkenning 2006. [in Dutch]. In: A.E.M. Hollander, N. de Hoeymans, J.M. Melse, J.A.M. van Oers and J.J. Polder (eds) RIVM rapport 270061003; Volksgezondheid Toekomst Verkenning. Houten: Bohn Stafleu Van Loghum. Skrabanek, P., 1994. The death of humane medicine and the rise of coercive healthism. Social affairs, 1994, Available for download: www.medicine.tcd.ie/public_health_primary_care/skrabanek/ Death-of-humane-medicine.pdf. Smith, B.J., K.C. Tang and D. Nutbeam, 2006. WHO health promotion glossary: new terms. Health Promotion International 21: 340-45. Wagemakers, A., M. Koelen and L. Vaandrager, 2007. Research Tools for Health Promotion. REFKA Research report, Wageningen University. World Health Organization, 1948. Preamble to the Constitution of the WHO. Official records of the WHO (No. 2, p. 100). Entered into force April, 7, 1948. World Health Organisation, 1986. Ottawa Charter of Health Promotion. Copenhagen: WHO. World Health Organisation, 2002 The World Health Report 2002: Reducing Risks, Promoting Healthy Life. Geneva: World Health Organisation. World Health Organisation, 2006. The World Health Report 2006: Working Together for Health. Geneva: World Health Organisation.

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On the interference between sustainable domestic technology and home hygiene Paul M.J. Terpstra Abstract In the seventies the magnitude of societies increasing their consumption of energy and materials became a global concern. Excessive consumption leads to depletion of resources and pollution of the living environment. Therefore, the achievement of a sustainable level of consumption became an international target. As a substantial part of consumption originates in the domestic domain many actions have been undertaken to stimulate sustainable development in this field. Examples being, high-efficiency central heating systems, lowenergy washing machines and water-saving showering heads. As a result the energy, water and material use of many domestic processes has been lowered. In some cases energy saving has been achieved by a lowering of process temperatures and/or reduction of water use (implying less water to heat e.g. laundering and water-saving shower head). There are, however, indications that a number of these changes may have undesired side effects, one of them being the increased stress on the conditions for domestic hygiene. In this paper two studies on sustainable domestic processes are elaborated. In each study the assessment of the level of hygiene was part of the study. The first study focuses on domestic laundering. It appears that the hygienic effect of laundering is limited, in particular when compared with the traditional technology. The second study focuses on household machine dishwashing. The level of hygiene of the dishes before and after domestic dishwashing is studied. In this case it appears that, although the health risks are not absent, today’s dishwashing delivers an appropriate level of hygiene. The outcomes illustrate that the conditions for appropriate hygiene can become stressed due to sustainability measures. 1. Sustainable development in the domestic domain In the seventies awareness of the environmental impact of society increased and this environmental impact became an international concern. The use of resources was such that future depletion of resources became evident, waste materials accumulated in the environment and biodiversity decreased rapidly. Therefore, the achievement of a sustainable society gradually became a new target. According to Brundtland (1987) a sustainable society implies that no more resources are used than the eco-system can supply without depletion. And that the level of emissions is such that no accumulation in the environment will occur. The initial environmental measures in the seventies and eighties were relatively easy and very effective (Humala, 1999; Tweehuizen et al., 1982). They concerned the prevention of energy waste, water and materials and substitution of harmful and persistent chemicals. Examples Changing families and their lifestyles 

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are thermal home insulation, prevention of detergent waste and water loss. When more sustainable technologies were introduced the additional measures became more complicated and less beneficial. As a result of this drive for sustainability domestic technology in Europe has changed considerably. Today’s domestic appliances for example use substantially less water, energy and consumables. Savings on energy and water use can be more than 50% on process level (Hakvoort and Terpstra, 1999; NOVEM, 2001; Tweehuizen et al., 1982). Consumables like fabric and dishwashing detergents have been optimised for lower temperatures and have acquired a higher mass efficiency. Due to these adaptations the detergent use per process has been reduced. In addition, a number of persistent ingredients have been banned. In total it may be concluded that the environmental impact of domestic appliances and consumables per functional unit has been steadily lowered. On the other hand recent research revealed that these changes have their side effects. One example is that there are indications that the conditions for appropriate consumer hygiene may have become stressed. In this paper the latter will be illustrated by two studies. The examples concern domestic laundering and domestic dishwashing. 2. Domestic machine textile laundering Currently, domestic washing requires less detergent, energy and water than in the past (Terpstra, 2003). This has been achieved by lowering the process temperature and suds levels, improving the detergent efficacy and reducing the number of rinses. As a result of this, European consumers can and do wash at lower temperatures and with biodegradable detergents (Arild et al., 2003; Terpstra, 2001a). These changes are likely to influence the functional performance of laundering. Therefore, several institutions have investigated various performance properties of these changed laundering practices (Warentest, 2006b). From these studies it may be concluded that the level of functional performance can still be considered appropriate. But the afore-mentioned modifications are also likely to influence the level of laundry hygiene. During usage, textile articles are contaminated with visible soil and invisible microorganisms. These micro-organisms may, under certain conditions, pose a health risk. By textile laundering, the number of micro-organisms can be substantially reduced (Terpstra, 2000; 2001b). At a wash temperature of 85°C germs reductions of 4 to 6 log units are measured. When process temperatures and water levels are lowered and detergents made biodegradable the level of hygiene may be affected. Several laboratory scale studies have shown that a lower wash temperature reduces the overall level of hygiene of the washed laundry (Arild et al., 2003). Since textile hygiene is a major benefit of laundering, more insight into the hygienic implications of modern wash practices in real life situations is needed. To date however, little attention has been paid to the evaluation of hygienic 304 

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properties of sustainable laundering practices in the real-life situation. In the present study, the level of hygiene of today’s sustainable laundering practices is assessed. The objective is to assess the hygienic effect of the washing practice that is common in four different regions in Europe. 2.1 Experimental set-up The hygienic effect of the laundering process is assessed by measuring the level of contamination of soiled household laundry before and after a washing process. Block et al. (2001) published a test method to determine the antimicrobial effect of laundry detergents in a washing process. In this test, artificially contaminated micro-organism carriers are washed together with sterile ballast fabrics in a normal washing machine under realistic conditions. After a complete washing cycle the surviving test organisms on the carriers are determined. The objective of the present research is to assess the hygienic effect of a complete washing process in real life conditions. Therefore, in this study the reduction and cross-contamination are assessed with the aid of naturally soiled domestic laundry. In Europe there is a distinct difference between the practices and technology in northern and southern countries. Therefore, it was chosen to include the situation of one country from north Europe, one from central Europe and two from the south in the study. The selected countries are Norway, the Netherlands, Spain and Greece. In an initial study in each of the countries an enquiry among one thousand households was held. This enquiry supplied information about the washing programs most used, type and brand of detergents, detergent dosage per cycle, degree of machine loading and the average water hardness to be used the research. It appeared that the washing conditions in Spain deviated from the other countries, with lower wash temperatures (40°C and 15°C). The micro-organisms in the study should be known to be found on laundry and should be pathogenic or members of a group with pathogens. They are selected on the basis of a literature survey. The germs selected are: Enterobacteriaceae, Bacillus, Staphylococcus aureus and yeasts and fungi. In addition, it was decided to assess the overall hygiene level of the textile articles by means of a total plate count. Laundry items have been chosen on the bases of expectations with respect to the presence of the micro-organisms. The occurrence and amount of micro-organisms on the laundry items hereafter have been determined in a pre-test. • Handkerchiefs; because a large percentage of the human population are carriers of Staphylococcus aureus in the nose, • Diapers; as many pathogens occur in faeces; Enterobacteriaceae, Bacillus and Staphylococcus aureus, • Socks; foot moulds, yeasts and fungi are likely to be found in socks,

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• Dishcloths; studies (Finch et al., 1978) (Speirs et al., 1995) reveal that a dishcloth is a highly contaminated piece of laundry. To obtain the same level of initial contamination in the different wash tests the samples were cut into pieces and subsequently mixed. Sterile cotton test cloth was used for the assessment of cross contamination in the washing process. Before and after the wash treatment the contamination of the samples was assessed. 2.2 Results The contamination, total plate count data, before and after a washing process is shown in Figure 1 for each process. In addition, the contamination of the sterile cloth after the washing process is shown. The level of hygiene after a washing process is higher then before the treatment for all processes under investigation. But the amount of germs removed differs significantly. The germ reduction of the washing processes in Greece, Norway and the Netherlands are more or less comparable. For the 40°C processes the total plate count reduction amounts to ± 0.5, 3 to 5, ± 2 and 2 to 3 log units for handkerchiefs, diapers, socks and dish cloth respectively. The germ reduction of a 60°C wash programme is 1 to 2 log units higher than for the 40°C

Handkerchief

Diaper

Sock

Dishcloth

Sterile sample

9

log CFU/4.7cm2sample

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

S 40 pain Ne °C th er la Th 40 nd e Ne °C s th er la 60 nd °C s Th

e

S 15 pain °C

w Be as fo hi re ng Gr e 40 ece °C Gr e 60 ece °C No r 40 way °C No r 60 way °C

0

Figure 1. Germs on washed textiles; total plate count.

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programme. A higher wash temperature has a positive effect on the germ reduction; this was confirmed for the comparison between the 15°C and 40°C programs and for the 40°C and 60°C programs (ANOVA-One Way, α < 0.05). The results from the Spanish washing processes seem to be out of line. The difference between the Dutch and the Spanish washing processes was confirmed by statistics (ANOVA-One Way, α < 0.05). Because no explanation was found for the good hygiene properties of the Spanish processes, a further analysis was performed. In additional tests it was found that because of the foaming properties of the detergent the washing machine added additional rinses. These rinses appear to supply the additional hygiene effect. In an additional experiment this effect of an extra rinse was confirmed. After the wash process all sterile samples were contaminated. The degree of contamination was comparable with the other test samples. This implies that germs are redistributed during the washing process. This cross-contamination is shown for the different germs for each process in Figure 2. In general, the cross-contamination of the sterile samples in the 60°C programs tends to be lower than in the 40°C program. The situation in Spain again differs from the other countries. When the hygienic effect of the Spanish 15°C program on the sterile test cloth is compared to the 40°C programs of the other countries it appears that the cross-contamination level in Spain is low. Additional tests show that the extra rinses in the Spanish programs that deliver the better hygienic level are also responsible for the lower cross-contamination.

TPC

Entero

Bacilli

St.aureus

yeast

9

log CFU/4.7cm2

8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

S 40 pain e Ne °C th er la Th 40 nd s e Ne °C th er la 60 nd °C s Th

S 15 pain °C

Gr e 60 ece °C No r 40 way °C No r 60 way °C

Gr e 40 ece °C

0

Figure 2. Cross contamination; Germs on washed sterile test cloth.

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Summarizing, it may be concluded that the hygienic quality of laundry washed in a domestic washing process is lower than it was with traditional 85°C wash programmes in the early eighties. This is in particular true for the 40°C processes. It is unknown to what extent this reduction will pose a health risk. 3. Domestic machine dish-washing As is the case for domestic laundering, the environmental impact of a machine dishwashing has also been reduced substantially in the past few decades. Water and energy use have been lowered by more then 50% compared with the consumption in the early eighties (Tweehuizen et al., 1982). The detergent dosage per process has been lowered in the same period also. Various studies have been run in order to assess the level of primary performance that is achieved with today’s dishwashing processes. In general, the result is that an appropriate performance level is still obtainable (Warentest, 2006a). As for laundering, the lowering of process temperatures, suds and rinse levels combined with the use of biodegradable detergents are likely to affect the level of hygiene. As no research in the real life situation was run on this topic a research on the level of hygiene of household dishware before and after dish-washing has been run. The research is divided into two parts, phase Ι and phase ΙΙ. In phase I, the contamination of two soiled items in households is assessed, thus establishing the level of contamination before a dishwashing process. In phase II, the microbiological situation after dishwashing is assessed. Comparing phase Ι and ΙΙ will enable conclusions about the contribution of the dishwashing process to the level of household hygiene. On the basis of residual bacteria levels an explorative quantitative microbial risk assessment is performed. 3.1 Experimental set-up Because of lack of sound knowledge about the level and nature of the microbiological contamination of dishware in European households it was chosen to use samples that were soiled in the normal household practice. In phase I, 100 households were visited at the time their dishwashing machine was full and/or was about to be started. All households were situated in Wageningen or the surrounding area. The demographic composition of households is representative for the Netherlands with the exception that the share of oneperson households is lower (CBS, 2004). Two soiled items were taken as a sample in each household. The sampled items were selected according to predefined categories of selection criteria. Subsequently, the samples were analyzed for the number of micro-organisms per surface unit. For the total plate count the

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number of Enterobacteriaceae, Staphylococcus aureus, Baccillus cereus, and Pseudomonas spp. were assessed. Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas spp were not analyzed in all samples. One part of the samples was analyzed for the Staphylococcus aureus count and the other part for the Pseudomonas spp. count. This change was implemented during the investigation because little Staphylococcus aureus was found on the items. After enumeration of the micro-organisms there was a confirmation procedure. The micro-organism counts found on the items are expressed in log N/25 cm². In phase ΙΙ, 97 of the 100 households of phase Ι and 3 other households were visited after a planned dish-washing process. The households were asked to load and use their dishwasher as usual and to start their dishwasher at a particular moment. After the washing process, the dishwasher was not opened until a researcher came to take samples. In each household again two washed items were taken. Due to practical reasons, the items that were sampled in phase ΙΙ were not from the same dishwashing process and not necessarily the same items as those in phase Ι. As in phase Ι, the samples were analyzed for the amount of micro-organisms present. For the total plate count the amounts of Enterobacteriaceae, Bacillus cereus and Pseudomonas spp. were assessed. 3.2 Results The number of germs that are found on the dishware before the dishwashing process (phase I) is shown in Table 1. No relationship is found between the presence of micro-organisms on the items and the presence of visible food residues. Table 1. Number of micro-organisms on soiled items (logN/25 cm2). Micro-organism

Total plate count Enterobacteriaceae Bacillus cereus Pseudomonas spp. Staphylococcus aureus

Mean

St. dev

Number of observations

soiled

cleaned

soiled

cleaned

soiled

cleaned

3.7 1.6 1.2 1.8 1.1

2.3 1 1.4 1 -

1.9 1.2 0.5 1.4 0.5

0.9 0.1 0.7 0.3 -

186 175 194 47 134

194 164 185 198 -

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The number of germs that are found on the dishware after the dishwashing process (phase II) is shown in Table 2. The germ reduction by the dishwashing process for the different micro-organisms is assessed by subtracting the mean number of micro-organisms in phase ΙΙ, from the mean number of micro-organisms in phase Ι. The thus calculated mean germ reduction on the items is small for all germs; it ranges from 0 to 1.4 log units. In a substantial number of cases the number of micro-organisms on the washed items is reduced to the detection limit. This implies that the germ reduction might increase with a higher initial contamination. Table 3 shows the number of items for each micro-organism where this is the case. 3.3 Explorative quantitative risk assessment An important hygiene parameter is the number of micro-organisms that remain on the items after dishwashing. If these micro-organisms are pathogenic, there could be a risk of food infection for people using the items. To estimate this health risk of remaining germs, a ‘worst case’ approach is applied to the results. This approach assumes that all germs found on an item are of one specific pathogen and that all germs on the contact surface are ingested by one person. It is first estimated how many germs a consumer ingests when using a cleaned Table 2. Micro-organisms on washed items (logN/25 cm2). Micro-organism

Mean

St. dev

Number of observations

Total plate count Enterobacteriaceae Bacillus cereus Pseudomonas spp.

2.3 1 1.4 1

0.9 0.1 0.7 0.3

194 164 185 198

Table 3. Items with maximum achievable reduction.

Total plate count Enterobacteriaceae Bacillus cereus Pseudomonas spp.

310 

Number of items

Percent

0 161 126 189

0% 98% 68% 95%

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item. Then it is considered if this amount is above or below the minimum infectious dose (MID) for the micro-organism that it concerns. A number of micro-organisms in the Enterobacteriaceae group are pathogenic. The minimal infectious dosages (MID) known for various Enterobacteriaceae are (Scott and Bloomfield, 1999): • Salmonella typhi 102 - 105 • Salmonella paratyphi B 104 - 106 • other Salmonella 105 - 109 • Shigella dysenteriae 102 - 103 • E-coli O157 10 - 103 The maximum allowed level of Salmonella in food as stated in the Dutch Food Law is: nontraceable in 25 g or 25 ml of food (Francken and Beer, 1998). The highest amount of Enterobacteriaceae found on the items was 2/cm2. The item was a plastic cutting board that was used for raw meat. Taking into account the usable area of the cutting board, a person that consumes all food prepared with the cutting board after cleaning would ingest 600 Enterobacteriaceae. Assuming that the germs are all of the type Shigella dysenteriae, Salmonella typhi or E-coli O157, then this number is above the MID and thus could pose a health risk. One other item had a contamination that could lead to exposure above the MID of one of the Enterobacteriaceae types. 3.4 Bacillus cereus The reported infective dose of Bacillus cereus is 106 (Public Health Agency, 2007). The maximum level of Bacillus cereus in food, according to Dutch Food Law, is 105 in one g or ml of food (Public Health Agency, 2007). The highest amount of Bacillus cereus found on the items is 1.6 x 103 /cm2. This was found on a plastic container that was used to store prepared food. Taking into account the contact surface a person that consumes all food that is stored in the container would swallow 440000 Bacilli. This amount is below the infective dose of Bacillus cereus. 3.5 Pseudomonas spp. Nine items were contaminated with Pseudomonas spp. In the literature, no MID has been found for Pseudomonas spp. It can therefore not be determined whether the nine items involve a risk to people eating food that has been in contact with the items. The consequences are unknown. Summarizing it may be concluded that the hygienic quality of dishes washed in the dishwasher is appropriate; the dishwashing process reduces the number of micro-organisms Changing families and their lifestyles 

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on the dishes to levels that will rarely pose a health risk. In the research 2 items were found that could pose a health risk if the found organism would be a pathogen from the group of the considered species and if all germs on the item would be swallowed by one and the same person. 4. Conclusions and discussion In the past few decades technology in the domestic domain has been adapted to sustainability requirements. This has led to a substantial reduction of energy and water use for domestic processes on process level. In a number of cases this has been achieved by lowering the process temperatures and water use. In addition the cleaning agents have become biodegradable. In several studies the impact on the primary function has been evaluated. It has been shown that in general an appropriate performance level can be achieved with this technology. There are however indications that the measures mentioned may affect the level of hygiene. This paper addressed the question of the extent to which the present environmental-efficient laundering and dishwashing deliver an appropriate level of hygiene. For domestic laundering it may be concluded that measures to reduce the environmental impact of the textile cleaning have stressed the conditions for appropriate hygiene. The level of laundry hygiene of today’s common washing practice in Norway, the Netherlands, Greece and Spain is lower then the traditional processes. It is unknown to what extent and under what conditions the lower level of hygiene may pose a health risk in the real-life situation. Realising this, care should be taken in situations with immunocompromised persons in combination with contagious diseases. For domestic dishwashing it may be concluded that the level of hygiene of the dishes after cleaning is such that no major health risks are to be expected. Nevertheless, for three out of four cases germs are found on the washed dishes and the amounts are not far below the level that is assumed to pose a health risk. As the effort to attain sustainability continues, additional environmental measures will be needed. Further lowering of the wash temperature and water consumption will be considered. If no ways are found to restore the level of hygiene, the previous measures are likely to endanger the level of hygiene in private households. Scientists dealing with hygiene or processes that may affect hygiene should be aware of these phenomena. They should search for ways to solve these problems, before they affect the quality of public health. In the future these specialists will be faced with the challenge of creating household and industrial processes that are fit for use, sustainable and that do not deteriorate the level of hygiene.

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References Arild, A.-H., R. Brusdal, J.T.H. Gunnarsen, M.J. Terpstra and I. Van Kessel, 2003. An investigation of domestic laundry in Europe -habits, hygiene and technical performance (European Commission - Consumer policy programme No. 1-2003). Oslo: Statens Institut for Forbruksforskning, Wageningen University. Block, C., C. Ten Bosch, B. Hartog and P. Lemaire, 2001. Determination of the microbicidal effect of laundry detergents. Tenside Surf. Det. 38(3): 130-46. Brundtland, G.H., 1987. Our common future. Oxfort: Oxfort University Press. CBS, 2004. Statistisch Jaarboek. Voorburg: Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek. Finch, J.E., J. Prince and M. Hawksworth, 1978. A bacteriological survey of the domestic environment. Journal of Applied Bacteriology 45: 357-64. Francken, M.J. and B.J. Beer, 1998. Teksten Warenwet 1998/99. Hakvoort, L. and P.M.J. Terpstra, 1999. Optimising energy efficiency conditions for household appliances - results of a SAVEII project. Paper presented at the 39th International Detergency Conference, Luxembourg. Humala, I.E., 1999. Optimising energy efficiency conditions for household appliances (Save II Project No. Save II project No. XVII/4.1031/Z/97-218). Helsinki: TTS. NOVEM, 2001. Revision of energy labelling & targets washing machine (clothes) (Study for the DG TREN of the Commission of the European Communities). The Netherlands: NOVEM. Public Health Agency, 2007. Material safety data sheet infectious substances. Infectious agent Bacillus cereus. Section II. Scott, E. and S.F. Bloomfield, 1999. Investigations of the effectiveness of detergent washing, drying and chemical disinfection on contamination of cleaning cloths. Journal of Applied Bacteriology 68(3): 279-83. Speirs, J.P., A. Anderton and J.G. Anderson, 1995. A study of the microbial content of the domestic kitchen. International Journal of Environmental Health Research 5: 109-22. Terpstra, M.J., 2003. Energy Labelling of laundry appliances; setting the future standards. In: P. Bertoldi, F. Conti and R. Pagani (ed.) Energy efficiency in Domestic Appliances and Lighting: EEDAL. Terpstra, P.M.J., 2001a. Assessment of the cleaning efficiency of domestic washing machines with artificial soiled test cloth. In: P. Bertoldi, A. Ricci and A. de Almeida (eds), Energy efficiency in household appliances and lighting, pp. 95-105. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. Terpstra, P., 2001b. The impact of changing sustainable technology and changing consumer habits on infectious desease transmission in the domestic setting. Journal of infection, 43: 99-102. Terpstra, P.M.J., 2000. The impact of changing sustainable technology and changing consumer habits on infectious desease transmission in the domestic setting. Paper presented at the Preventing infectious intestinal disease in the domestic setting: a shared responsibility, London, UK. Tweehuizen, R., B. Stork, M. Verwoerd and P.M.J. Terpstra, 1982. Energy saving for household appliances: a compilation of possible/impossible future technical developments for refrigerators, freezers, washing machines, tumble dryers and dish washers (SWOKA Research Report No. no. 12 ISBN: 9065730249). The Hague: SWOKA (Institute for Consumer Research). Warentest, S., 2006a. Geschirspüler; Automatisch einfacher. Test 7: 76-9. Warentest, S., 2006b. Waschmaschinen: Front- und Toplader im Härtetest. Test 9: 76-79. Changing families and their lifestyles 

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Running people, healthy people? Lenneke Vaandrager Abstract It has become a common scene in the street: groups or individuals on the public highway with tight outfits and shiny running shoes, running themselves into a sweat. A first so-called running-wave took place in the seventies and after a slight dip, popularity and social status of running has increased. This current attractiveness of running occurs simultaneously with a number of societal developments. Lack of exercise due to automation of working environment, travel facilities and household activities, and the pursuit of (artificial) physical perfection have had a large impact on lifestyles and well-being. Slimming, muscularity, fitness and health nowadays have an important social meaning and appreciation. There are a number of positive aspects attributed to running. It is healthy, it is a good way to get rid of stress hormones and the body produces endorphins resulting in a ‘runners-high’. At the societal level some believe that running solves problems such as isolation of Moroccan women or crime in the streets of South Africa. But running is also extremely boring for a lot of people and can cause injuries. In this paper different explanations for the growth in running are discussed as well as the critics on sport and exercise propaganda. Since physical activity clearly has health advantages, this chapter is concluded with the notion that creating environments supporting exercise as a routine daily activity also deserve sufficient attention. 1. Introduction You see them everywhere: on the street, in the park, along the beach, people running for their daily fitness. Men and women, people with athletic bodies and people with moderate or even serious overweight, young and old, running has become a fashion. In the popular literature the described advantages of running are numerous. For example, Amy Burfoot (2004: 5) describes a long list of 44 reasons why we should start with running. Remarkable is that most reasons refer to making us better human beings through running: e.g. ‘running improves your time management’, ‘running helps us setting and achieving new goals’ or ‘you learn what discipline is’. The Dutch Mulier Institute has carried out research for the Royal Dutch Athletic Union (KNAU) about running trends in Netherlands and the background of Dutch runners. The percentage of runners in The Netherlands has increased from nine percent in 1999 to 13 percent in 2003. In 2005 there were 3.9 million runners and 1.6 million people who were running more than once a week. Not only has the number of runners increased. Runners are also running for longer. (Bottenburg, 2006). In a study specifically carried out for Amsterdam, running is also at the top of the list of popular sports. Fitness, another sport Changing families and their lifestyles 

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which is very popular at the moment, is in at first position (19% in 2003 and 26% in 2006). Running and swimming are both in third position (both 13%). In 2003 6% of Amsterdam residents practised running; by 2006 this had grown to 13% (Klein Wolt et al., 2006). Runners can be categorised in three groups: athletes (approximately 5%), performance (‘prestatie’) runners (20%) and fitness runners (75%). Six out of ten runners are male. Although running is characterised as an individual sport, a lot of people join running groups (such as Like2run or Start-to-run) to have the support of a trainer or fellow-runners. For women it is more common to join sporting clubs to run in groups than for men. When compared to sportsmen and women in general, runners have a higher education and a higher income and amongst immigrants running is far less popular than amongst the native inhabitants of the Netherlands (Van Bottenburg, 2006; Breedveld and Tiessen-Raaphorst, 2006). Of all types of exercise, running is fairly easy: you only need a pair of running shoes and some time. You just have to change your clothes at home, you can start at your front door, run around in your own neighbourhood, and when you come back you can jump in your own shower. You can choose your own time and you can go on your own or in a group. Furthermore, running is no longer just for the purely athletic types training for a marathon, but also for the more recreational non-sportive types. Or in other words, running is socially accepted for all groups in society and even stronger: if you do not take part in running or if you don’t like running there is a good chance that you are often told what the wonderful advantages of running are! Running has become a status symbol. As a runner you show that you live healthily, that you have a good work-life balance and that you belong to a certain social class. Finally, running is a part of the hard-working image. On the other hand, that running is fairly easy is not the case for everyone. When you start with running for the first time you have to slowly build it up to prevent yourself from getting injuries and it takes quite some time before you are able to run for half an hour or more. Running is also extremely boring for some people. And it can be a very lonely sport. Finally, running costs a lot of time. During the hour that you sweat you can also read a good book, watch a movie or have a nice dinner with friends over a good glass of wine. What are the explanations behind the fact that running has become so popular? The aim of this chapter is to attempt to explain why running has become so popular in the Netherlands. Different explanations from biological, medical, historical and sociological perspectives are discussed as well as the critics on the sport and exercise propaganda. The line of reasoning is mainly based on the empirical work of others.

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2. Health benefits From a biomedical perspective running (or physical exercise in general) has many health benefits. According to the WHO (2005) physical activity is a health enhancing behaviour which seriously deserves attention in health promotion. It is associated with reduced risk for cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, some forms of cancer and diabetes. In general many people are not taking part in physical activity to the level recommended to protect their health. Still only 50 percent of the Dutch adult population reaches the exercise norm of 30 minutes of regular, moderate-intensity physical activity each day (RIVM, 2004). According to biologist Midas Dekkers (2006: 212) the strong belief in the health advantages of exercise is built on quicksand. In his book Physical Exercise he describes the contemporary cult of fitness. All those hours spent in gyms and sports clubs he sees as ‘a complete waste of time. They will not make your life any better or longer. In fact, sport causes injuries and heart attacks and is therefore likely to shorten your life.’ Also various mental advantages are described in literature: reduced stress and depression and increased emotional well-being, energy levels, self-confidence, and satisfaction with social activity (Sherwoord and Jeffrey, 2000). Nowadays especially the mental health advantages get a lot of attention. According to Schnohr et al. (2005), mechanisms for the associations between physical activity and mental stress and life dissatisfaction have not been clearly identified. Several proposed mechanisms are plausible, including biochemical, physiological and psychological. Possible biochemical and physiological mechanisms of exercise include an increase in core body temperature resulting in short-term tranquillising effects. Reduction in resting muscle activity following exercise causes tension release. Regular exercise increases adrenal activity, which facilitates stress adaptation, and exercise enhances noradrenalin, serotonin, β-endorphin and dopamine, which improves mood. The body produces them in large quantities and for running this results in the so-called ‘running-kick’ and people can become addicted to these hormones. Other hormones that rise in blood during and after exercise are: thyroid hormone, cortisol, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone and leptin. Insulin levels decrease during exercise. Schnohr et al. (2005) concluded that men as well as women who are physically active in leisure time are less prone to stress and life dissatisfaction than sedentary persons. They recommend that increased well-being should be the keyargument in campaigns for leisure-time physical activity. A similar way of reasoning related to the mental health advantages of exercise (e.g. running) can be found in the book by Servan-Schreiber (2006). Pointing to the stark statistic that more than 11 million Americans currently take antidepressants he describes seven natural treatments for stress-related disorders in his book ‘The instinct to heal: curing stress, anxiety, and depression without drugs and without talk therapy’. The increase in taking antidepressants is not only a phenomenon in the States. In the Netherlands one million Changing families and their lifestyles 

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people use antidepressants and the intake has tripled in the last ten years. The medicines were originally developed for people with serious depression but are nowadays also used by people who feel down. If exercise (running) is also effective for treating depression, than this can have a large cost-saving effect. In the chapter ‘Prozac or Adidas’ Servan-Schreiber describes a study by Babyak et al.(2000) which has shown that taking exercise three times a week has clear advantages over taking antidepressants. The purpose of this study was to assess the mental status of 156 adult volunteers with major depressive disorder (MDD) six months after completion of a study. Participants were randomly assigned to a 4-month course of aerobic exercise (e.g. running), sertraline therapy, or a combination of exercise and sertraline. After three months, in all three groups improvements were found of comparable size. With an immediate important difference between the people taking pills and the exercisers: the antidepressium had serious side effects which exercise did not have. The known side effects are that the antidepressium can cause sleeping disorders or serious shortcomings in the sex life: it can be harder to get an orgasm or the sex drive disappears totally. However, the most important finding was not found after four months of treatment but after a year of treatment. Whereas, after four months there were no differences between the medicine group, the exercise group and the combination group, after a year there were. After a year, nearly a third of the people who had taken the antidepressium had become depressive again, whereas nearly 90 percent of the runners still felt very well. And the runners continued running after the research had been completed (Baybak et al., 2000). To return to the bad side effects of antidepressants, running is described as having the opposite effect: in comparison with people of the same age, exercisers report a better sex life: more sexual contacts and of a better quality. And according to Bakker (2006) runners of the marathon of London with the best results were the ones who had sex the night before! 3. Injuries Although running might be promoted as being very healthy, it is also has a bad reputation because of injuries and because of one or two deaths in every marathon due to heart failure. Let us first look at the injuries. Many starting runners get injuries. Running puts enormous pressure on the tendons, joints and muscles. It takes quite some time before the body is used to this burden when people start with running. And once runners have an injury it is important that they take time out for healing. And most people do not have the patience to do so or never start running again. Clearly the number of injuries in The Netherlands due to running has increased over the last two years because of the increased popularity. Running is third on the list of injuries (7.8% of the total number of injuries). Soccer and tennis are first and second on this list. Most victims with running injuries are men (64%), two-thirds are between 20 and 49 years old (68%) and main causes are falls (75%). Furthermore, the number of injuries due to acute physical strain is remarkable (Consument en Veiligheid, 2004). But is running more injury318 

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sensitive than other sports? If we look at the figures this does not seem to be the case. Every year 1700 runners are treated for an injury in the ER of a hospital. In other words, 2.5 ER treatments for 100,000 hours of running. In sport in general, this is 10 ER treatments for 100,000 hours of sport. Thus, the chance of becoming injured while running is apparently relatively low compared to sport in general (Breedveld and Tiessen-Raaphorst, 2006). 4. Heart failure During vigorous exercise such as running, a person who already has a damaged heart or an underlying heart disease is more likely to die than if he or she were walking or resting. In exercise, the heart may develop an irregular beat, blood pressure can rise to a dangerous level or plaque from a partly-clogged artery can break off and stop blood flow. The arteries supply blood to the heart muscles, bringing to them oxygen and nutrients. Nevertheless major cardiac events during endurance sports in well-trained athletes are very unlikely. Belonje et al. (2007) found that only one out of 15,000 well-trained athletes has a chance of having a heart attack. The underlying causes of most heart attacks are therefore high blood cholesterol level, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and undue stress. Regular physical exercise counters every one of these risk factors. 5. Sociological explanations for the growth of running The first expansion of running occurred in the seventies. At that time early adopters, the young urban professionals in the United States, started with running. This was at the same time that unhealthy behaviour (smoking, unsafe sex, eating fat food, lack of exercise etc.) as a determinant of health attracted a great deal of attention because this behaviour was pinpointed as a major avoidable health risk. Health was no longer seen as a gift of God but much more as something you could work on yourself. Personal responsibility provided a moral compass for people who came to believe that working on the self by working on the body was regenerative, a way to ‘get one’s life together’ (Crawford, 2006: 408). Health and fitness, for example, appealed to women breaking out of traditional domestic roles and ‘feminine’ passivity. Similarly, health and fitness appealed to men and women embarking on or attempting to excel in professional careers, an expression of their capacity to ‘take charge’ of the future. In addition, several health movements helped shape the new sensibility about health: the women’s health movement, self-help, the organic or ‘natural’ foods movement, holistic health, running, dieting and fitness. The sociologist Stokvis (2006) puts forward the question as to why in the seventies, when the running sport became popular in general, running was more fashionable amongst men than amongst women. It took until the nineties before running also became popular amongst women. This is illustrated by Table 1.

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Table 1. Period in which men and women started with running (Van Bottenburg, 2006: 13). In what year did you start with running? (survey of 2003, 12.000 respondents)

Men Women

Before 1998

After 1998

74% 42%

26% 58%

Stokvis (2006) describes that from the sixties until the eighties both male and female runners were subject to social rules. However, these rules were stricter for women than for men. Women hesitated to go out running on the street because it was not perceived as very feminine. It was not socially acceptable for women to run. Therefore, at that time, indoor sports such as aerobics were far more popular amongst women. According to Stokvis, the inconvenience perceived by female runners was mainly associated with the wobbling breasts. New bras were developed to ‘fix’ the breasts. The introduction of these new bras was not the reason that running amongst women increased. More than ever before, women are becoming active because of the social expectations to have a good figure and to be fit. The potential of sports which contribute to the healthy image, such as fitness and running, has therefore increased. Sport organisations and mainly industry responded rapidly to these developments and promoted an array of health and fitness products and services for such running events. Examples are the ‘zeven heuvelenloop’ or events specifically for women such as the ‘Marikenloop’. Next to these specific activities for women the popularity of marathons such as the marathons of Rotterdam and Amsterdam has also grown to an unprecedented extent. These events are so popular that they always need to set a maximum number of participants (see for example www.hardlopen.verzamelgids.nl). The size of the running market at the moment is estimated to be 3.9 million people. Runners spend 326 euro each year on running: on the average 113 Euro for running shoes, 58 Euro for running clothes, 44 Euro on membership and 14 Euro for food and sport drinks (Van Bottenburg, 2006). The running market has a growing supply of possibilities for exercise. The barriers to take part in such sports are getting lower, due to the rapid developments of the fitness and running business. Nowadays health insurers also offer start-to-run courses. A similar hype, one of the 21st century, is Nordic Walking. There are several courses which teach you how to walk with two sticks. Although of course runners stick their noses up at this form of exercise. This current trend in the growing popularity of running and running events together with women’s emancipation is also referred to as the second running wave (Van Bottenburg, 320 

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2006). According to Stokvis (2005) the increased importance of running is related to general societal developments which have resulted in an increased attention to and concern about the body and the physical condition. These are: • the general increase in wealth which has resulted in abundant production and consumption of food; • lack of exercise due to automation of working environment, travel facilities and household activities. As a result of these societal changes many people are overweight and an awareness about body weight and a good figure has increased. Many people who start to run nowadays, see it as a way to lose weight, to increase muscularity, to stay fit and improve health. The social meaning of a slim and muscular body has grown. The individual and social pressure to have sufficient exercise and to eat less and more healthily is clearly on the rise (De Hoog, 2007). Emphasis on the body is not something new. The Greek also promoted running as something very healthy. In classical antiquity obesity was considered the cause of disease and a deviation from the norm. A better body shape was believed to be acquired by diet, drugs and most importantly exercise. Walking, running, wrestling, and other practices such as baths and massages were advised (Christopoulou-Aktra and Papavramidou, 2004). Furthermore, historically taking exercise is something to do outside. To take exercise outdoors has always been valued more highly than taking exercise indoors. Running fulfils this demand (Dekkers, 2006). Furthermore, running also finds it origin in the Olympic Games since running has always been an important part of this spectacle (Miller, 2003). Midas Dekkers (2006: 38) is not surprised that taking exercise has become so popular. ‘More and more people process their body as a peace of land. It is being ploughed, manured, oxygenated and drained: undesired covering is being removed. The body is brought into cultivation. People do no longer accept who they are; they want to be someone else. You see that people cannot accept themselves; they want to be somebody else. Maybe they want to be themselves, but than how they were 20 years ago. That is why people start running. Or why they jump on their bikes to the fitness centres. They are willing to spend a lot of their free time to running.’ The demands for the perfect body are high. It is more and more difficult to realise the ideal body. Everybody is aware of the fact that exercise is ‘healthy’. For the running activists it is hard to understand why others find it hard to start running. As Bakker (2006), a Dutch psychiatrist and writer about running describes, there are still many individuals who have the intention to start running but apparently have enormous difficulties making this dream come true. These new ‘start-to-runners’ manage to run for a month or two, but drop out after a busy period at work or a holiday. Several trainers report that it is extremely difficult to motivate people to start running whereas it is much easier to convince a recreational runner to participate in a marathon. Instead of continuing to persuade these people to run there Changing families and their lifestyles 

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might be other options to promote exercise as a natural part of daily life such as taking the stairs more often or go shopping by bike. And running may be assessed critically. To quote Dekkers (2006: 69) again: ‘We still believe in the makeable human being. If you want to stay healthy you do something about it: you set yourself targets and go for it. But that is not the way it works. The idea that you have to tackle each problem is the source of a lot of trouble. In reality people are not more or less than what they are. And we need to survive with this fact!’ 6. Running as a status symbol Health-related behaviour is more understandable when it is seen in relation to other important aspects of life and life stages such as childhood, family life or being retired. It affects for example, ideas about and involvement in paid work, child care and leisure activities. That exercise has an important social meaning was clearly illustrated by a study of Calnan and Williams in 1991. They found that exercise had a different social meaning according to social position. For middle-class respondents emphasis was placed on the need for exercise over and above daily activities; partly because fitness or running or playing tennis was important in its own right, and something that work didn’t provide: partly because ‘exercise’ was used as a resource for managing the stress and strains of life; and partly because exercise was part of the recreational activities, leisure activities and social life. In contrast, because of physical exercise involved in routine daily activities, active taking part in exercise was not seen as relevant for many working-class respondents. Frederic and Ryan (1993) found that people who participated in individual sports such as running were more motivated by interest and enjoyment whereas those involved in fitness activities were more motivated by physical appearance- an image more popular in lower socio-economic classes. Combining this fact with the notion that women are more inclined to run in groups by joining athletic clubs it might be so that men have other motivations for running than women. We view ourselves through others, and one of the first things others see in us may be physical attributes such as slimness or overweight or behaviours such as running, smoking or drinking beer. People make judgements of others, and the positive or negative outcome of these judgements depends on the normative meaning of the characteristic in the social group. The opinions of others are reflected back to us in words or actions of acceptance or rejection, esteem or disrespect, liking or hate. People are rewarded by others for being and doing what is normative, right, and acceptable in the social group and these interactions with others shape feelings about ourselves. Runners with a slim body are liked and are considered energetic, well-organised, etcetera. Exercise (and more specific running) is viewed positively in the Netherlands today. According to the social evaluation perspective the effect of running on psychological well-being depends on its social meaning. If people are evaluated positively for running, it should improve psychological well-being because the positive views of others are reflected back, increasing self-confidence and improving self-esteem. However, evaluation of 322 

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running varies by social group. In some social groups people are rewarded with acceptance and approval if they run, swim, or play tennis. In other social groups social approval is not won by such activities (Hayes and Ross, 1986: 388) 7. Running and our strength of mind Bakker (2006) states that by running people reach qualities they did not expect to have. It stimulates your feeling of self-respect because all progression in running is your own performance. It is not the result of a therapist, a pill or a diet. According to Bakker, even if you suffer, you can experience running as an achievement. To win, you have to train. To train you need strength of mind. Dekkers (2006: 46) questions whether the opposite counts as well: training gives you more strength of mind. He describes that trainers are anyway convinced of this idea. Top-class sport is the evidence: everybody would like their strength of mind and endurance. ‘That is why managers love to invite marathon runners to conferences: they know how to reach the top. Before you have managed to run a marathon, you need a lot of training. Running a marathon costs a lot of time: you are on a diet as if you are ill, you look awful and you come home exhausted. Marriage and career become in danger, and there is a chance of addiction. Why do people do this to themselves? When listing all blessings of running, it makes you think of the litany of the converted Christians’. Dekkers quotes the Irish running champion Noel Carroll: ‘Running is the classical way to self-confidence, introspection and self assurance’ (Dekkers, 2006: 46). The self assured exercisers/runners also have the luck to have been born with the right genes according to research of Stubbe (2006). She used a twin design to assess the relative contribution of genetic and environmental influences on the variation in sports participation of Dutch male and female twins. She found that enjoying sport is in the same genes as the ones responsible for our feelings of happiness. This does not mean that happier people start with exercise or that people with regular exercise are happier. Individual differences in sports participation are largely due to genetic variation and genes for sport overlap with genes for happiness (Stubbe, 2006). 8. A better society through running? As we have seen in the previous part of this paper, the promotion of running has rapidly increased. Besides health reasons, the societal values of running are also put forward. Of course, the first group to start with are children: by googling on the internet you find many initiatives such as the ‘junior club run’, ‘run2befit’ or ‘scoring for health’. Most of these initiatives report the health aims as well as societal aims of these projects such as increasing social contacts, cohesiveness of neighbourhoods and integration. Two good examples in this area are the projects ‘A doctor’s prescription for exercise’ (www.bewegenoprecept.nl) and the ‘Start to Run’-course in Amsterdam (Kouters, 2007). In the project ‘A doctors Changing families and their lifestyles 

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prescription for exercise’ the ‘patients’ who visit their doctor get a prescription to start running instead of motivational talks. Many of these ‘patients’ are migrant women: and they report the advantage that they can get out of their social isolation because they now have a legitimate reason (a prescription from the doctor) to get out of the house. Apparently the current running courses and exercise classes for migrant women also function as a way of emancipating as it did for Western women in the 1990s. A project with even more ambitious goals is ‘Run4schools’, a project in South-Africa. This Dutch association (funded by Puma, amongst others) focuses primarily on school children in the townships around Cape Town in South Africa. Schools receive funding and materials to be able to look after children after school which prevents them wandering the streets or becoming involved in criminal activities (www.run4schools.nl). Running as such has also become a solution for what we see as serious societal problems. 9. Conclusion and discussion The aim of this chapter was to attempt to explain why running has become so popular in the Netherlands over the last twenty years. As explained in this paper the increase in running occurred together with a number of societal developments. Lack of exercise due to automation of the working environment, travel facilities and household activities, and the pursuit of (artificial) physical perfection have had a great impact on lifestyles and wellbeing. In the literature one can find various studies about the biological and (mental) health benefits of physical exercise and running. Running prolongs life by 3.5-3.8 years (about the time spent on running), it helps to relax, it is a good treatment for depression and during running the body produces endorphins resulting in a ‘runners-high’. According to some researchers running is also good for self-confidence and strength of mind. Although often questioned by the media and people such as Midas Dekker, the available figures do not really indicate serious health risks of running. Running is not sensitive to injury, and people who die of a heart attack during a marathon often already have a bad heart condition. Running has a significant social meaning especially under higher socio-economic groups. However, the advantages of running must not be overestimated as done by some of the serious running advocates. One of the explanations described in this paper is that running has increased because of the serious growing problem of overweight, a problem which is more prevalent amongst underprivileged groups or lower socio-economic classes. This means that the group of people who run, including the larger proportion of women, are probably the ones who already have a good energy balance. This may widen the gap in health inequalities. Increasing the level of activity does not only have to happen through sports. Sports, including running, accounts for only five percent of our daily exercise. Far more interesting are environmental changes which support exercise such as a routine daily activity. By walking, 324 

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cycling, taking the stairs or by gardening it is relatively easy to reach the advised norm of 30 minutes exercise a day. Creating an environment which invites people to physical activity in working, home and school life should therefore be an important issue for the Dutch government. However, this also means that people need to make time available since the automation of working environment; transport facilities and household activities were originally designed to save time. And of course people who enjoy running should certainly continue doing so! References Bakker, B., 2006. De Halve van Egmond. [The half of Egmond]. Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers. Babyak, M., J.A. Blumenthal, S. Herman, P. Khatri, M. Doraiswamy, K. Moore, W.E. Craighead, T.T. Baldewicz and K.R. Krishnan, 2000. Exercise treatment for major depression: Maintenance of therapeutic benefit at 10 months. Psychosomatic Medicine 62: 633-38. Belonje, A., M. Nangrahary, H. De Swart and V. Umms, 2007. Major adverse cardiac events during endurance sports. American Journal of Cardiology 99(6): 849-51. Breedveld, K. and A. Tiessen-Raaphorst, 2006. Rapportage sport 2006. [in Dutch] Den Haag: SCP. Burfoot, A., 2004. Runner’s World Complete Book of Running for Beginners. PA, USA: Rodale Inc. Calnan, M. and S. Williams, 1991. Style of life and the salience of health: an exploratory study of health-related practices in households from differing socio-economic circumstances. Sociology of Health & Illness 14(4): 506-29. Christopoulou-Aktra, H. and N. Papavramidou, 2004. Methods used by the Hippocratic physicians for weight reduction. World Journal of Surgery 28(5): 513-17. Consument en Veiligheid, 2004. Ongevallen en Bewegen in Nederland 2000-2004 [Injuries and exercise in The Netherlands 2000-2004]. http://www.veiligheid.nl/csi/websiteveiligheid.nsf/ wwwVwContent/l1ongevalleneb37228a9cec04d8c1257193004b02bb.htm (20/2/2007). Crawford, R., 2006. Health as a meaningful social practice. Health 10(4): 401-20. De Hoog, K., 2007. Het gezin in de fuik: overgewicht en het moderne gezinsleven. [in Dutch]. In: H. Dagevos and G. Munnichs, De Obesogene Samenleving, pp. 77-84. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Dekkers, M., 2006. Lichamelijke oefening. [in Dutch]. Amsterdam: Contact. Frederic, C.M. and R.M. Ryan, 1993. Differences in motivation for sport and exercise and their relations with participation and mental health. Journal of sports behaviour 16: 124-46. Hays, D. and C.E. Ross, 1986. Body and mind: the effect of exercise, overweight and physical health on psychological well-being, Journal of health and social behaviour 27: 387-400. Klein Wolt, K., W. Bosveld and J. Slot, 2006. Inzicht in het sportgedrag van Amsterdammers in 2006. [in Dutch]. Amsterdam: Dienst Maatschappelijke ontwikkeling. Kouters, S., 2007. Als bloemen die opengaan. [As flowers which open]. Volkskrant Magazine, 13-12007: 18-22. Miller, D., 2003. Athens to Athens: The Official History of the Olympic Games and the IOC 1894 – 2004. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishers Company.

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RIVM, 2004. Nederlandse Norm Gezond Bewegen. [in Dutch]. In: Volksgezondheid Toekomst Verkenning, Nationaal Kompas Volksgezondheid. Bilthoven: RIVM. http://www.rivm.nl/vtv/ object_document/o2978n19090.html (20-2-2007) Schnohr, P., T.S. Kristensen, E. Precot and H. Scharling, 2005. Stress and life dissatisfaction are inversely associated with jogging and other types of physical activity in leisure time – The Copenhagen City Heart Study. Scandinavian Journal of medicine and Science in Sports 15: 107-12. Servan-Schreiber, D., 2006. The Instinct to Heal: Curing Stress, Anxiety, and Depression without Drugs and without Talk Therapy. PA: Rodale Books. Sherwood, N.E. and R.W. Jeffery, 2000. The behavioural determinants of exercise: implications for physical activity interventions. Annual Review Nutrition 20: 21-44. Stokvis, R., 2005. De popularisering van het hardlopen. [in Dutch]. Sociologie 1(2): 184-202. Stokvis, R., 2006. Hardlopende vrouwen in de openbare ruimte. [in Dutch]. Sociologie 2(3): 24964. Stubbe, J.H., 2006. The Genetics of Exercise Behavior and Psychological Well-being. PhD Thesis Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Van Bottenburg, M., 2006. De Tweede Loopgolf. Over Groei en Omvang van de Loopsportmarkt en hoe de KNAU haar marktaandeel verder kan vergroten. [in Dutch]. ’s-Hertogenbosch: W.J.H. Mulier Instituut. WHO, 2005. Global Strategy on Diet, PA and health: http://www.who.int/dietphysicalactivity/en/ (20-2-2007).

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Epilogue Hester Moerbeek, Anke Niehof and Johan van Ophem At the end of this book we would like to pay tribute to the person of Kees de Hoog, whose retirement provided the occasion for putting together this book. The topics addressed by the authors reflect themes that can be found in the work of Kees de Hoog throughout his academic career. They range from the significance and development of the family in the Netherlands and in Europe, marriage, social stratification, demographic change, consumer preferences and lifestyles, and sociological approaches to health behaviour. The authors are colleagues and friends he made in his professional career. Thus, while indirectly this book as it is composed already tells the reader a lot about Kees de Hoog as an academic and a professional, in this epilogue we would like to focus directly on his person. Kees de Hoog was born on August 11, 1942, in Rotterdam. After having completed secondary school in Rotterdam (Libanon Lyceum), he studied sociology and demography at Utrecht University. He was a student-assistant of the professors Sjoerd Groenman and Piet Thoenes, for whom he had great respect and admiration. After obtaining his Master’s degree in sociology at Utrecht University in 1970, he was appointed as a senior researcher for the Netherlands’ Institute for Coordination of Research in Social Sciences (SISWO) at the Department of Sociology, Wageningen University. He was one of the coordinators of the so-called Census Monographs. He also embarked on a PhD study. In 1982 he completed his PhD-dissertation on the topic of mate selection in the Netherlands, with professor Gerrit Kooy as his promotor. During 1984 he worked at the University of Texas in Tyler, USA. At Wageningen University Kees de Hoog held the positions of assistant and associate professor. In 1979, after a period as guest lecturer at the department of sociology, he was appointed assistant professor at the department of Huishoudkunde, as it was then called, under professor Clio Presvelou. In 1986 he was appointed associate professor. Meanwhile, there was a lot of reorganization going on at Wageningen University. The department of Huishoudkunde (household studies) became the Department of Household and Consumer Studies, comprising three sections covering household economics, domestic and consumer technology, and the sociology of the household, respectively, with Kees de Hoog belonging to the latter. When Professor Presvelou retired, Anke Niehof took over the chair of Sociology of the Household. Kees de Hoog was the most senior staff member, and a pillar of the sociology group. During the most recent reorganization (in 2001) the Department of Household and Consumer Studies was split into three chair groups according to disciplinary affiliation, a move which was not particularly welcomed by the staff members concerned. For the Sociology of Consumers and Households Group, as it was now called, it was a positive development. In 2002 the important work of Kees de Hoog in the field of family sociology and family policy finally found recognition when on 1st August 2002 Kees de Hoog was appointed (0.0) Professor of Family Sociology and Family Policy. This professorship Changing families and their lifestyles 

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also formalized his collaboration with the Nederlandse Gezinsraad (Netherlands Family Council). During the past three years Kees de Hoog has been the key person in setting up a new group to deal with a new bachelor and master programme in the social sciences on health and society. Thanks to his tireless efforts the new programmes were accredited and they continue to attract a lot of students. The health-and-society group, presently attached to the chair group of Sociology of Consumers and Households and comprising two lecturers, a post-doc and two PhD students, was to benefit much from Kees de Hoog’s leadership qualities. Upon his retirement Kees de Hoog can look back at a successful career. He definitely made a difference to sociology in Wageningen. Kees de Hoog is not the kind of scholar who confines his activities to the armchair and the study. He has been active in the governance of the university, the organisation of the teaching and research processes, and in the management of the Department of Household and Consumer Studies. He has been a member of the University Council and was vice-president of the standing committee on research at Wageningen University and representative of Wageningen University at the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO/ZWO). He is also a good research fundraiser. He obtained research grants from NWO/ZWO and the Netherlands Ministry of Welfare, Health and Cultural Affairs. Grants from the Netherlands Ministry of Agriculture and Food Quality and the RABO-bank were used to conduct a research project on poverty among farmers in the Netherlands. His activities also extended beyond the national borders. He was, for example, a member of the European Observatory on National Family Policies, an advisory body to the Commission of the European Community. Kees de Hoog has been a member of the editorial boards of a number of journals, such as Tijdschrift voor Huishoudkunde, Huishoudstudies, and Bevolking en Gezin. He is a member of the editorial board of the Mansholt Publication Series of the Mansholt Graduate School for Social Sciences at Wageningen University and he acts as a reviewer for scientific journals like the Journal of Consumer Studies, NJAS - the Wageningen Journal of Life Sciences, and for publications like the Leuven University’s Gezinswetenschappelijke Documentatie. As (associate) professor he was (and still is) involved as a (co-)promotor of PhD students. He was a member of many PhD examination committees, also at other universities. Kees de Hoog was very productive in his academic career, to which the list of publications bears witness (see http://www.sch.wur.nl/UK/Staff/Kees+de+Hoog). He is a creative thinker and a master in associate reasoning, always eager to trace and bash unclear thinking. He is also a story teller who can amuse his audience with funny and puzzling anecdotes. For many years he wrote columns for the Wageningen University weekly, in which he did not hesitate to critically comment on developments at the university and decisions taken by the university management. The tongue-in-cheek prevailed, although university managers were regularly and bluntly chastised. A selection of his columns has been published in a 328 

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book. He won the Belhamel award – a prize founded by the board of the university yearly to foster critical and creative writing – three times in a row, after which he was subsequently excluded from participation by the jury. In 1996, he also won the essay prize ‘The study of sociology in Utrecht’ of Utrecht University. He appeared in various mass media, including television, asked for his views on various matters, and was often interviewed by journalists (see overview below). Overview: Presence of Kees de Hoog in the mass media (as per July 1st 2007) Interviews and articles in (inter)national newspapers:

200

Interviews and articles in regional newspapers: Columns, articles and interviews in University Weeklies: Interviews in newsmagazines: Interviews in glossy magazines: Articles and interviews in professional journals: Interviews in agrarian journals and newspapers: Interviews and discussions on radio: Interviews and discussions on television:

424 322 51 28 50 32 131 57

(among them Belgian journals and one Danish newspaper)

(among them twice BBC)

Kees de Hoog is a gifted lecturer, widely liked and respected by his students. He likes to stand on the Feldhernhügel – which he recommends his students to do, at least in the final chapter of their thesis – to have a good view of the battle and battle field. Apart from all this, he has given 82 presentations at national and international conferences and congresses. Kees de Hoog has always been a rebel with a cause, defending academic freedom and opposing the trend of the so-called Mcdonaldization of higher education in the Netherlands. He regrets that the democratic bottom-up style of the organisation of the university has been replaced by a more centralistic top-down approach in which a few managers are the boss and the scientific staff subordinates. Kees is a family man in many respects. It shows in his capacities as an advisor to the (former) Nederlandse Gezinsraad (now, regretfully, abolished) and a member of the European Observatory on Families and Family Policy. In his private life it shows by being a devoted husband and father in a ‘traditional’ family. His loving care for his family members extends to the cats, dogs and horses that are part of the De Hoog household, although Kees does not see them as members of the household. Kees is a loyal person – he has been a staunch supporter of Sparta since his day of birth – and he has a sense of humour that is widely appreciated. The latter must have helped him to survive all the reorganisations at the university. Kees is a good friend and valuable colleague, which is why we decided to put together this liber amicorum. Changing families and their lifestyles 

329

About the authors Gerrit Antonides is currently employed as a professor in Economics of Consumers and Households at Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected]. Gerda Casimir is an assistant professor with the chairgroup Sociology of Consumers and Households at Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected]. Carolien de Blok is currently working at the social sciences department of the University of Tilburg. E-mail: [email protected]. Jaap Dronkers is employed as a professor at the European University Institute, San Domenico di Fiesole, Italy. E-mail: [email protected]. Peter Ekamper is working at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute. E-mail: [email protected]. Geetha Garib is currently working at the USA branch of De Lage Landen International. E-mail: [email protected]. Wim Heijman is currently employed as a professor in Economics of Consumers and Households at Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected]. Maria Koelen is an associate professor with the section of Communication Science at Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected]. Jaap Lengkeek is a professor at the Socio-spatial Analysis of Land Use (Recreation and Tourism) Group at Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected]. Katrien Luijkx is working at the social sciences department of the University of Tilburg. E-mail: [email protected]. Teresa Martin Garcia is currently working at the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas in Spain. E-mail: [email protected]. Hester Moerbeek is an assistant professor at the chair group Sociology of Consumers and Households of Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected]. Anke Niehof holds the Chair of Sociology of Consumers and Households at Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected].

Changing families and their lifestyles 

331

About the authors

Lisa Price is an associate professor with Sociology of Consumers and Households. E-mail: [email protected]. Anton Schuurman is an assistant professor with the chair group of Agricultural History at Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected]. Ed Spruijt is an associate professor at the department of pedagogics of Utrecht University. E-mail: [email protected]. Jan te Kloeze is currently employed as an assistant professor at the Socio-spatial Analysis of Land Use (Recreation and Tourism) Group at Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected]. Paul Terpstra is a professor of Consumer Technology and Product Use, part of Sociology of Consumers and Households, at Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected]. Lenneke Vaandrager is an associate professor with the Health and Society Group, part of Sociology of Consumers and Households, at Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected]. Ynte van Dam is an assistant professor at the chair group Marketing and Consumer Behaviour of Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected]. Johan van Ophem is an associate professor in the Economics of Households and Consumers at Wageningen University. E-mail: [email protected]. Frans van Poppel is working at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute. E-mail: [email protected]. Hanna van Solinge is working at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute. E-mail: [email protected]. Yvonne van Westering is manager of the SGBO-team working on families, youth, education and health. E-mail: [email protected]. Kees Verhaar is employed as a senior consultant by SGBO. E-mail: [email protected].

332 

Changing families and their lifestyles

Index

Keyword index A academic achievement 33 achievement 142, 147, 149, 176 achievement gap 27, 28, 29 advertisements 169, 170 affluence 94 AGC – See: Average Global Consumer (AGC) age cohorts 67 age differences 72 ageing 178 ageing population 124 ageing society 123 agrarian-artisanal marriage pattern 51 agricultural population 52 ascribed social capital 144-148 ascription 142, 147, 149 attitudinal characteristics 34, 44 Average Global Consumer (AGC) 107, 110, 115, 117 B behaviour –– characteristics 34, 44 –– coping 159 benchmarking procedure 116 birth cohort 53 birth place 68 bling-bling scale 103 body 273, 317, 321 bracketing 272, 279, 285, 287, 289 breadwinner 180 bride 68 budget constraint 120 C camping 270, 271 capitalist consumerist society 97 care 123, 124, 128, 137, 138 caste 95 Changing families and their lifestyles 

Centres for Youth and Family 161, 163 child achievement outcomes 30 child allowances 29 children 47, 77, 164, 252, 261, 277 –– educational achievement 47 –– primary education 156 –– well-being 31 Children In Divorce Situation (CIDS) 85 CIDS – See: Children In Divorce Situation (CIDS) citizen 213-216 citizen consumer 213, 221, 223 citizenship 224 civil –– organisation 214 –– registration 57 –– responsibility 225 –– society 214 class 32, 176 –– dominant 93, 96 –– higher 95 –– low educational 82 –– lower 95, 97 –– middle 97 –– upper 95, 97, 143 client situation 138 commercials 169, 170 commodity 169, 173, 179 composite goods 107-118 conferring 86 consciousness 289 conspicuous consumption 169, 170, 177 consumer 170, 213, 215, 219, 220, 288, 327 –– behaviour 16, 219 –– boycott 219 –– education 105, 221 –– goods 170 –– policy 105 333

Index

–– society 170, 213, 219-225 consumption 217, 219, 220, 222, 225, 303 –– patterns 169 –– practices 15 –– society 93 cosmopolitan 134 counter-structure 270-274, 279, 288290 counterpoint 181 –– images 178 culinary tourism 207 cultural 159 –– capital 93, 96, 103 –– homogenization 70 –– identity 15, 16 custody –– joint legal 81 –– joint physical 83 D de-individualisation 94 decision making 186, 187 demographic characteristics 34, 40-46 demographic contexts 30 diet 204, 205 diseases 295, 296 displaced meaning 170 diversity among the elderly 123 division of household tasks 257 division of work 185-187 divorce 16, 31, 32, 77, 223 –– flash 79 –– legislation 79 –– rates 32 domestic 64, 231 –– context 235 –– domain 303, 312 –– setting 242 –– technology 303, 304 Dutch Minister of Youth and Family 153 334 

E economic –– capital 93, 96, 103 –– characteristics 42 –– decision 185, 190 –– growth 217 –– transformation 64, 72 education 34, 142, 147-149, 159 –– father 148-149 –– level 156 –– own 147, 149 educational –– achievement 46 –– level 87, 97, 98, 155 –– performance 27 –– policy 162 –– support 163 elderly 123-125 –– care 125 –– future-oriented vital 123 –– lonely coping 123 –– needy 123 –– rural 125 –– vital 123 elegance 176, 177 employment 64, 158 energy 303, 312 –– use 308 –– waste 303 Engel’s function 111, 120 environment 243, 248 environmental –– health 112, 114, 117 –– health score 111 –– value 170, 177, 181 equestrian sports 232, 236, 238 ethical issues 298 ethnicity 253, 256 everyday life 104 exercise 297, 315, 316, 321

Changing families and their lifestyles

Index

F fall in mortality 67 family 15, 77, 141, 149, 150, 223, 252, 257, 261, 327 –– antisocial 159 –– background 142, 143, 147, 149 –– changes 141 –– conflict 29 –– demography 35 –– dissolution 16 –– Dutch 257 –– form 27, 28, 33, 36, 37, 39, 45, 46 –– formation 16 –– individualised (type) 192, 195-199 –– individualistic 188 –– life 65, 141, 153, 246, 251, 252 –– life course 16 –– lone-parent 47 –– modern-egalitarian (type) 188, 195, 196, 197 –– modern-Western 16 –– modernized life cycle 16 –– nuclear 15, 141 –– policy 27-30, 35, 40-47 –– post-modern 16 –– relation 59 –– resources 29 –– routines 256 –– situation 30 –– sociology 141, 145, 150, 153, 164, 186, 327 –– structure 59 –– traditional (type) 188, 192, 195-199 –– transitional 16 –– two-parent 27, 29 –– type 83, 185-187, 192, 195, 196, 299 –– typology 198, 199 –– values 170, 176, 177, 181 farmers 61, 64 –– Dutch 51 farm labourers 61, 64 Changing families and their lifestyles 

father 77 –– characteristics 143 favouritism 144 female 198 –– body 179 feminine 176-180, 246, 254 financial capital 30 financial management 185-189 fitness 315-320 food –– traditional 207 friend, own 147, 148 friend parents 147, 148 friendship 170, 176, 177 Frisian children 153 Frisian culture 156, 157, 159, 162-164 G gender 111, 171, 176, 190, 233, 234, 244, 246, 253-255, 257 –– codes 169, 170, 178 –– differences 234 –– identity of women 64 –– images 178, 181 –– role 178-181 –– values 176 Gender Related Development Index (GRDI) 113 GENLIAS project 52, 57, 72 geographical changes in partner choice 68 geographic origin of spouses 52 Gini coefficient 109, 119 girls (teenage) 178, 180, 182, 234, 236 global income distribution 107, 117, 118 globalization 215 good taste 176 gourmet 209 –– interest 201, 206 –– trend 201, 210

335

Index

GRDI 112, 114, 117 – See: Gender Related Development Index (GRDI) groom 68 H habitus 97 happiness 109, 111, 115, 116, 118, 176 HDI – See: Human Development Index (HDI) health 65, 111, 112, 176, 295, 299, 315, 319, 321 –– behaviour 295-297, 327 –– benefits 317 –– education 296 –– expectancy 114, 117 –– inequalities 324 –– problems 295 –– spending 113 –– status 129 healthism 298 healthy food 297 high-education products 101 high-income products 98, 100 Historical International Standard Classification of Occupations (HISCO) 61 hobby 231, 236, 242, 243 homecare organization 126 horse ownership 231, 246 horse riding 231, 232, 236 household 15, 149, 185, 235, 243, 252, 255, 256, 308, 327 –– members 244 –– production 31 –– tasks 187 –– types 189, 192, 197 household and consumer studies 15 housewife 180, 255-257 housing 123, 128 human capital 30 Human Development Index (HDI) 111-117 336 

hygiene 303-306, 312 hygienic –– conditions 159 –– effect 305, 307 I income 97, 98, 107, 115, 116, 118, 141, 153, 155, 159 income elasticity 115, 120 independence 176 individual behaviours 298 individualization 170, 175-177, 215, 217 individual responsibility 297, 298 industrialisation 64 Industrial Revolution 220 industrial societies 141 informal care 124, 129 informal caregiver 125 instrumental-care (situation) 125-129 intergenerational changes 153 International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO68) 61 ISCO68 – See: International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO68) L labour –– paid 187 labourers in agriculture 67 labour market 142 leisure 231, 236, 248, 251, 252, 257, 272, 274, 277, 289 –– conspicuous 169 –– horses 231 life –– course 129, 216 –– expectancy 111-114, 117 lifestyle 15, 67, 94, 96, 104, 125, 127, 134, 169, 178, 221, 223, 252, 295300, 327 –– choices 16 Changing families and their lifestyles

Index

–– values 138 Lorenz equation 110, 119 love 176 low-income products 99, 100 low education products 102 luxury goods 175 M male–female 245 males 198 market 218, 220-225 marriage 51, 60, 327 –– advantages 54 –– age 54, 57, 59, 61 –– age differences 55 –– behaviour 53 –– certificates 57 –– costs 54 –– farmer 62 –– farm labourer 62 –– first 61, 62 –– geographic origin 56 –– market 51 –– non-farming 62 –– partners 56 –– patterns 51, 53 masculine 246, 254 –– man 177, 179 masculinity 176-180 materiality 289 maternity leave 47 math achievements 27 math score 37, 42, 43, 45 meal –– choice 104 –– mode of preparation 104 mediation 86, 87 men 247, 319 meritocracy 142 merits 142, 143 messages 173 micro-organisms 309-311 Changing families and their lifestyles 

modern-egalitarian family 192 modernisation 141, 142, 149, 150 money 96 moor land villages 158, 159 morbidity 65 mortality 55, 65 mother 77 –– biological 29 motivation 186-191, 198 multilevel analysis 27, 40 N nationality 171 natural environment 269 nature 176, 177 –– camping 269 necessities 123, 136 needs 123, 136 nepotism 142, 144 nutrition 204, 205 O object of desire 174 occupational 34 –– career 149 –– prestige 141, 143, 149, 150 –– status 142 outdoor recreation 270 P parental –– authority 79 –– background 28 –– educational level 83 parents’ friends 141 parliamentary democracy 214 particularistic 142 partner selection 73, 150 personal responsibility 297 phenomenological tradition 269 phenomenology 273, 290 physical environment 300 337

Index

pilgrimage 270, 273 PISA 2000 28, 32, 33, 34 place of birth 68 post-industrial society 142 post-modern process of fragmentation 93 poverty 159 pre-industrial 142 preferences 123, 136 prestige 170-176 –– job 146, 148 primitivism 269-272, 290 progress 176 proletarian phase 51 proletarisation 64 proprioception 285-289 R random-effects HLM model 35 rank size rule 109 reading achievements 27 reading score 37, 42, 43, 45 recreation 251 regional culture 153, 154, 159 regional economy 155 relationships, emotionalisation of interpersonal 64 remarriage 55, 60 –– frequency 52 research and development 111, 114, 117 –– expenditures 112, 114 richness 170, 176, 177 risk preference 186, 189-191, 198 romance 176 routine 256, 272 running 315 S Salicornia europaea L. 201-210 saline agriculture 206 school 338 

–– achievement 31 –– related variables 28 –– success 30 –– type 82 sea vegetables 205, 206 self 272 self-caring elderly 128 service packages 136, 137 service provision 138 sex appeal 174, 179 single-mother families 27, 31, 33, 40 single-parent families 29, 31 smoking 96 social –– background 88, 149 –– class 53, 56, 57, 60-62, 67, 68, 72, 77, 93, 253, 256 –– emotional care 125, 126 –– environment 300 –– justice 220 –– marketing 172, 175 –– policy 47 –– position 15, 16, 64 –– reproduction 153, 160-163 –– resources 146 –– security 215 –– status 103, 170 –– stratification 150, 327 –– transformation 64, 72 social capital 30, 141, 144, 149, 150 –– achieved 141, 144-149 –– ascribed 141 –– theory 31, 143, 144 sociality 281, 285, 287, 289 societies –– Western 94 socio-economic –– benchmarking 107, 108 –– leeways 161 –– structure 59 sociological –– aspects of marriage 52 Changing families and their lifestyles

Index

–– characteristics 34 sociology of household consumption 93, 104 space 272, 282, 286, 287, 289 sport 233, 234, 236, 297, 315 spouses 66 state 214, 218, 225 status 64, 93, 141, 149, 173, 176, 177, 259, 322 –– management 95 status symbols 93, 175 –– minority groups 105 style 174, 176 supportive family policies 31 sustainability 105, 304, 312 sustainable –– lifestyles 105 –– society 303 symbolic meaning 170 T target audience 169, 178 task division 185 taste 96, 175 technological progress 177 technologies 215, 218 tension 287, 289 tension of consciousness 272, 273, 280, 285 The Economist Pocket World in Figures 107, 108 time 272, 282, 286, 287, 289 –– paths 251 time-space 252-254 –– behaviour 251 –– path 255, 258, 262 –– theory 253, 255 togetherness 176, 177 tourism 209, 270, 274, 288 tourist 274, 288 traditionalist values 223 transitivity of friendships 146 Changing families and their lifestyles 

travelling –– children 87 –– parents 87 U unemployment 153, 155, 157-159 uniqueness 175, 176, 177 urbanisation 64 utility 118 –– function 111 –– maximising model 120 V values 169, 170, 175, 176 values of connectedness 170 vegetable 201 visitation regulations 87 vitality 176 W water 303, 308 water use 312 wealth 170, 175-177 welfare 107, 109, 123, 128, 217 –– state 32, 213-215, 219, 220 well-being 111 wild food 202, 205 wild food plant 201, 204 wild sea vegetable 209 women 247, 319 world income distribution 109 Y youngsters policy 160 youth 160 –– culture 67 –– policies 161 Z zeekraal 201, 205, 206 Zipf ’s Law 109

339