Drawing on a multidisciplinary group of experts from many countries, this Handbook is intended to be a reference work that provides students and scholars in policy-related disciplines a wide-ranging perspective on the diverse ways that family policies respond to modern issues and trends over the life course. The Handbook is divided into two main parts. The first part offers a panoramic introduction to the setting and issues which contemporary family policies have been designed to address. The second part and main body of the volume is organized around four benchmark periods that encompass the main stages of the family life cycle and social policies that are called into play during these stages.

The Handbook examines contemporary trends and issues in the formation of families over the different stages of the life cycle and how they interact with family-oriented social policies of modern welfare states, mainly in the OECD countries of Western Europe, East Asia and the U.S. Focusing largely on family needs in the early stages of the life course, the conventional package of policies tends to emphasize programs and benefits clustered around measures to support marriage, childbearing, care, the reconciliation of employment and childcare during the preschool years. Drawing on a multidisciplinary group of experts from many countries, this book extends the conventional perspective on family policy by also looking at later phases of the family life course. In taking a life course perspective, this Handbook extends the purview to encompass the three main stages of family life. These are (1) cohabitation, marriage and starting a family; (2) the early years of parenting, care and employment, and (3) the period of transitions and later life: family breakdown and intergenerational supports across the life course.