This paper presents and discusses empirical data suggesting that couples in the United Kingdom and elsewhere are becoming more individualised in their financial arrangements. Data on access to credit, and spending responsibilities, are used to explore the implications of individualisation. It is...

This paper examines the methods couples use to organise money and the extent to which particular methods involve inequalities between men and women. It uses data on over 1200 households, drawn from the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative, a major British study funded by the Economic and...

The paper summarises the main ethical issues in social science and social care research. It outlines what is meant by research governance, especially as set out in the Department of Health Research Governance Framework (RGF)It considers key differences between clinical and social science/social...

The aim of this article is to outline and discuss theoretical approaches to the study of family life and to make suggestions about how these approaches might apply in planning and carrying out empirical research on sleep. It argues that, while theories about power and gender can inform research...

This paper presents data from a study of 190 parents and discusses their reactions to being told that their child was likely to be severely mentally handicapped. Dissatisfaction was related to the child's age when the parents were first told about the impairment, which was itself related to the...

How may we account for the fact that most people appear to accept widespread social and economic inequalities? This is a question that has often been posed in the social sciences. One possible explanation is that individuals tend to make comparisons with others like themselves and so, as a...