Patterns of marriage and family formation in the postindustrial world have considerably changed in the past several decades. Fertility rates have declined, age at marriage has significantly gone up, divorce rates have increased, cohabitation rates have increased, and nonmarital childbearing has become more common in most postindustrial settings.

SOCI 2021 [Marriage and the Family] will exposure students to sociological concepts and debates related to these family/marriage issues, focusing on the patterns, causes, and potential consequences of the changing family behaviors and values. While this scholarly exploration will take a global perspective, a particular attention will be given to (1) East Asian societies and (2) cross-cultural differences between East Asian societies and Western postindustrial societies. 

This course shall consist of lectures and tutorials. Lectures will cover major themes and key arguments of each week’s course topic, drawing upon multimedia (e.g., local and international news, YouTube clips, movies, etc.) as well as assigned readings. In tutorials, we will not regurgitate materials and contents covered in lectures. Instead, you will read one research journal article that is directly relevant to the lecture topic and discuss about it.