Economic Risks, Shocks and Responses: Family Dynamics in a Comparative Perspective

In this paper we study family response to economic risks and shocks in China, Germany, the Netherlands and the UK.  We use data from recent and large scale household panel surveys from these four countries.  We focus on cases where the household head is of prime working age (roughly 30 to 55).  Because these countries face very different macro-economic and labour market conditions in the past few years, and also because their labour market institutions and social welfare systems are very different, families and households in these countries face very different risks. We seek to determine the commonality and difference in the risks that they face, and explore how families respond to the vulnerabilities and shocks that they might experience as a result of changes in the labour market and/or the family.