Partnering across the Life Course

Dimitri Mortelmans, Universiteit Antwerpen
Laura Bernardi, University of Lausanne
Brienna Perelli-Harris, University of Southampton

This paper presents an innovative volume about partnering across the life course to be release in may 2025. Integrating diverse theoretical and empirical perspectives, provides a comprehensive overview of the changing landscape of human partnerships, and explores the complicated interplay between individual life trajectories, societal norms, and legal frameworks in shaping modern relationships. We portray the present-day kaleidoscope of unions by not only looking at “classic” ways of partnering but also at less common manifestations of partnerships such as LGTBQ+ partnerships, long distance partnerships, or polyamorous partnerships. We dissect the processes within a partnership driven by sex, money and children, and their correlates with family configurations, health, gender and migration. The life course perspective on union and partnerships runs across the life span starting with (online) dating and hook-up culture, continuing on to break-ups and repartnering, and reflecting on partnerships in later life. The presentation is an interdisciplinary collaboration by social scientists in demography, sociology, psychology, law and history.

Keywords: Families, Unions and Households, Children, Adolescents, and Youth, Data and Methods

See extended abstract.