Reconfiguring Families and Care Across the Globe: Forms, Practices, and Inequalities in Contemporary Societies

Family life is undergoing profound transformations across the globe. Shifting demographic trends, rising diversity in household structures, evolving gender norms, immigration dynamics, and the expansion of transnational mobility are reconfiguring how families form and practices, gender and generational relations, function, and provide care.  At the same time, economic pressures, labor market changes, and uneven policy responses are reshaping the distribution of care responsibilities within and across generations. These developments raise critical questions about who cares, under what conditions, and with what consequences for wellbeing and gender equality. Anchored to the International Day of Families (15 May 2026), a United Nations initiative that highlights the importance of families as social institutions, this Research Topic offers a timely opportunity to examine the forces reshaping family life and care relations in contemporary societies. Despite growing scholarly attention to family change, significant gaps remain in our understanding of how diverse families navigate care responsibilities amid intersecting social, economic, and policy pressures. Much existing research centers on Western, conjugal, and conventional nuclear-family models, leaving the experiences of transnational, single, post-separation, same-sex, and multi-generational families underexplored. Furthermore, the interplay between family dynamics and structural inequalities linked to gender, migration, class, and health requires deeper empirical and theoretical engagement. This Research Topic aims to bring together research that advances knowledge of how contemporary families organize care across the life course, from childcare and parenting to eldercare and intergenerational support. We seek contributions that critically analyze the role of family policies, welfare regimes,  and institutional frameworks in enabling or constraining care arrangements, as well as the way recent societal shifts, including post-pandemic working patterns, international conflicts, digitalization, and demographic ageing, are reshaping everyday family practices. By foregrounding comparative, cross-cultural, and interdisciplinary perspectives, this collection will contribute to a more inclusive, nuanced, and critical  understanding of family life, care relations, wellbeing, and inequality in contemporary societies. This Research Topic invites empirical, theoretical, and comparative contributions that address family changes and care relations across the globe. We welcome studies employing quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods approaches, and particularly encourage cross-national and non-Western perspectives. Suggested themes which may be explored in the collection, include, but are not limited to: • Childcare arrangements, services, and parenting practices• Eldercare, kinship networks, and intergenerational care practices• Work–family balance• Transnational and migrant family life• Post-separation parenting and blended families• Same-sex and LGBT+ family experiences• Family policy design, reform, and comparative analysis• Gender inequalities in care work• Transition to parenthood and reproductive decision-making• The intersection of family change with migration, health, and wellbeingManuscript types of interest include Original Research articles, Review articles, Brief Research Reports, and Perspective articles. Submissions should offer substantive insight into the challenges and possibilities facing families in the twenty-first century, with clear relevance to advancing social understanding and informing policy. Topic editors: Manuela Naldini Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/81055/reconfiguring-families-and-care-across-the-globe-forms-practices-and-inequalities-in-contemporary-societies