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Using provincial data about age at first marriage and permanent singlehood, this paper presents a detailed analysis of marriage behaviour for men and women in Spain over the period 1887-2001. It shows that the great diversity between the Spanish provinces as far as marriage patterns are concerned was basically conditioned by the different numbers of people who never married, rather than by the different ages at which people usually married for the first time. It also concludes that the traditional patterns in each province continued to be replicated at least until the mid-twentieth century. The application of modern panel techniques confirmed some explanatory hypotheses that are often proposed in the literature on the subject (concerning economic, educational, and urbanisation levels) about the historical development of marriage behaviour in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the demographic profile of couples in reconstituted nuclei with at least one child under 18 in Spain. In the last decade there has been an increase in these nuclei that is largely explained by the presence of couples of immigrant and mixed immigrant-Spanish origin. In addition to national origin, three other characteristics of these couples stand out: high rates of cohabitation, age difference between members of the couple and economic precariousness. However, our analysis reveals large heterogeneity in their profiles, mainly differentiated by the presence or absence of shared children as well as the sex and nationality of the parent who brings children into the relationship. We also find that the most important determinant in the decision to have a child in common in a reconstituted relationship is the number of non-common children, being much less important which parent brought them into the reconstituted family. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers an ethnographic interpretation of how in a changing context of family care different Spanish home telecare services provide older people with social links to prevent their isolation, granting them "connected autonomy": the promotion of their autonomy and independent living through connectedness. To do so, services need to craft a network of "contacts". Different versions of the term iguration are employed to describe the practical materializations of the forms of relatedness put in place by such services: what roles become available and explicitly supported; what other igurations of relatedness (e.g., kinship, friendship, neighbourliness) they come across; what happens when these different igurations of relatedness meet. In doing this, our aim is to allow space to relect ethically on the practical relational promises and challenges of these forms of technologized care of older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]