Examining Taiwan’s Paradox of Family Decline with a Household-based Convoy

Taiwan’s paradox of family decline is examined with a household-based convoy, which allows us to explore the paradox from two perspectives, namely, the modified extended family and the household-based convoy. The modified extended family refers to the reunion of spatially separated families covering two generations. The household-based convoy is an extension of the modified extended family that includes relatives and friends with whom there is frequent contact. A probability sample survey with 1,979 cases completed is used to answer two questions: (1) Has there been a change in Taiwan’s family function because of structural change? (2) Is the family’s function being replaced by relatives and friends with whom there is frequent contact? The results of this study show that the coverage of the modified extended family is as high as 81%, indicating a high coherence among spatially separated households covering two generations. The proportions of the respondents who have provided five types of support including sick care, household chores, advice, regular allowances, and irregular allowances to non-coresiding parents are mostly around 40%. Moreover, the members of a modified extended family do have independent functions in relation to most types of support. These findings all lend evidence to refute the view that the family is declining in Taiwan.     

Re-Conceptualizing Gaps by Socioeconomic Status in Parental Time with Children

Differences in the total time that parents spend with their children by socioeconomic status (SES) are well documented. However, the qualitative aspects of such gaps are potentially important, yet relatively understudied. The current study analyzes time-use data for a nationally representative sample of married households with at least two children, one of whom is under 13 (N = 21,016), from the American Time Use Survey to provide a more nuanced analysis of previously documented differences in the time parents spend with children by SES. Specifically, two understudied aspects of family time are considered, both of which are distinct from other types of parent–child time and are potentially particularly developmentally beneficial: shared time when both parents are present with a child and individual child time when no siblings are present. We find that shared time when both parents are simultaneously present with a child often comprises a substantial portion of the total gap in parental time spent with children between college-educated parents and parents who did not complete high school. Similarly, college-educated parents spend more time with children in the absence of the child’s siblings than do less-educated parents. Gaps in this time classification are often found within enriching time, which is likely especially developmentally beneficial, potentially amplifying the effects of these gaps on child development. Generally, these results suggest that gaps in parental time with children by SES are more nuanced than previous research has recognized.     

Older adults in sub-Saharan Africa living with children and grandchildren

Using data from Demographic and Health Surveys, we examine the composition of households containing older adults in 24 countries of sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on those living with children and grandchildren. Overall, 59 per cent live with a child and 46 per cent with a grandchild. Men are more likely to live in nuclear households and women in extended households and alone. Regression analyses show that individual-level determinants of household composition differ by sex. For example, living with children and grandchildren is tied to living with a spouse for men, but for women the effect is either not significant or in the opposite direction. Households with an older adult and a grandchild, but no adult children, are common. Usually the adult child lives elsewhere, though about 8 per cent of older adults live with a grandchild who has at least one deceased parent. Older adults are more likely to be living with double-orphans in countries with high AIDS-related mortality.     

Influence of Proximity to Kin on Residential Mobility and Destination Choice: Examining Local Movers in Metropolitan Areas

A growing body of research has examined how family dynamics shape residential mobility, highlighting the social—as opposed to economic—drivers of mobility. However, few studies have examined kin ties as both push and pull factors in mobility processes or revealed how the influence of kin ties on mobility varies across sociodemographic groups. Using data on local residential moves from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) from 1980 to 2013, we find that location of noncoresident kin influences the likelihood of moving out of the current neighborhood and the selection of a new destination neighborhood. Analyses of out-mobility reveal that parents and young adult children living near each other as well as low-income adult children living near parents are especially deterred from moving. Discrete-choice models of neighborhood selection indicate that movers are particularly drawn to neighborhoods close to aging parents, white and higher-income households tend to move close to parents and children, and lower-income households tend to move close to extended family. Our results highlight the social and economic trade-offs that households face when making residential mobility decisions, which have important implications for broader patterns of inequality in residential attainment.     

Nativity,duration of residence and the life course pattern of extended family living in the USA

Recent changes in US immigration policy anddomestic welfare policies affecting immigrants haveled to concerns that families will face greaterpressure to provide for extended family members.Extended family households are important resources fornew immigrants to the USA and an integral part of theadaptive strategy of immigrants. This paper examinesthe competing roles of duration of residence in theUSA, aging and changes over time in explainingincreases in extended family living between 1980 and1990. The results from a pooled sample of 1980 and1990 Census data indicate that recent arrivals aremore likely to share households with extended kin butit is older immigrants who face an increasedlikelihood of such coresidence over time. Multinomiallogistic regression analysis demonstrates that thelife course pattern of coresidence remains whenchanges in socioeconomic status are controlled. Theresults suggest that policy changes limiting publicfunds available to new arrivals will have a largerimpact on families sponsoring older family members.     

人口流动家庭化及其影响因素——以北京市为例

文章基于2006年北京市1‰流动人口抽样调查,考察北京市流动人口的家庭模式及其流动家庭化的影响因素。调查结果显示,北京市流动人口的家庭化率已达到60%。流动人口家庭模式是以一对夫妻户和一对夫妻加孩子户为主的核心家庭为主导,以一代户和二代户为主。3/4的已婚流动人口携带了配偶,有孩子的流动人口中有一半携带了孩子,这些孩子中有近20%是在北京出生的。流动人口的平均家庭规模为2人,明显小于全国农村的平均家庭规模(3.4人)。流动人口的个人特征及在京居住地显著影响人口流动家庭化,同时还发现非经济因素成为比经济因素更为重要的人口流动家庭化影响因素。     

农村计划生育家庭养老保障机制研究

对农村计划生育家庭在资金和发展经济上给予帮助,使其增加收入,进而也增加了养老积蓄;对计划生育夫妇子女的各种优惠,是帮助家庭增加对孩子的抚养成本投入,以期将来转化为更高的养老价值;政府和集体承担的那部分计划生育养老保险金,是直接给计划生育家庭的养老投入;新启动的农村部分计划生育家庭奖励扶助制度,更是与国家退休养老保障制度性质相似的新机制。必须建立相应的,以政府投入为主渠道的计划生育投入机制,通过公共财政支持,才能保证上述养老保障工作的资金需求与资金供给平衡。     

Measuring Cohabitation and Family Structure in the United States: Assessing the Impact of New Data From the Current Population Survey

In 2007, the Current Population Survey (CPS) introduced a measure that identifies all cohabiting partners in a household, regardless of whether they describe themselves as ??unmarried partners?? in the relationship to householder question. The CPS now also links children to their biological, step-, and adoptive parents. Using these new variables, we analyze the prevalence of cohabitation as well as the demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of different-sex cohabiting couples during the years 2007?C2009. Estimates of cohabitation produced using only unmarried partnerships miss 18?% of all cohabiting unions and 12?% of children residing with cohabiting parents. Although differences between unmarried partners and most newly identified cohabitors are small, newly identified cohabitors are older, on average, and are less likely to be raising shared biological or adopted children. These new measures also allow us to identify a small number of young, disadvantaged couples who primarily reside in households of other family members, most commonly with parents. We conclude with an examination of the complex living arrangements and poverty status of American children, demonstrating the broader value of these new measures for research on American family and household structure.     

Family structure and and fertility behavior in Taiwan

The present analysis is based on the 1990 Taiwan Human Resources Survey to study the relationships between family structure, women's complete fertility and birth spacing. Imputed family size, as measured by either the ideal number of children expressed by a married woman or the number of actual surviving children whichever is larger, is used as a proxy of a woman's complete fertility. The results indicate a majority of married couples in Taiwan begin married life living with the husband's parents and later move out to establish a nuclear unit. This limited experience in the extended family exerts an upward pressure on imputed family size even when other relevant variables are statistically controlled. Further, the effect of living with the husband's parents on shorter duration of birth spacing is only limited to the time when the parents provide free child- care for married couples.     

Compensation or Reinforcement? The Stratification of Parental Responses to Children’s Early Ability

Theory and empirical evidence suggest that parents allocate their investments unequally among their children, thus inducing within-family inequality. We investigate whether parents reinforce or compensate for initial ability differences between their children as well as whether these parental responses vary by family socioeconomic status (SES). Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) and a twin fixed-effects approach to address unobserved heterogeneity, we find that parental responses to early ability differences between their children do vary by family SES. Contrary to prior findings, we find that advantaged parents provide more cognitive stimulation to higher-ability children, and lower-class parents do not respond to ability differences. No analogous stratification in parental responses to birth weight is found, suggesting that parents’ responses vary across domains of child endowments. The reinforcing responses to early ability by high-SES parents do not, however, led to increases in ability differences among children because parental responses have little effect on children’s later cognitive performance in this twin sample.     

Destroyed by Slavery? Slavery and African American Family Formation Following Emancipation

This study introduces a new sample that links people and families across 1860, 1880, and 1900 census data to explore the intergenerational impact of slavery on black families in the United States. Slaveholding—the number of slaves owned by a single farmer or planter—is used as a proxy for experiences during slavery. Slave family structures varied systematically with slaveholding sizes. Enslaved children on smaller holdings were more likely to be members of single-parent or divided families. On larger holdings, however, children tended to reside in nuclear families. In 1880, a child whose mother had been on a farm with five slaves was 49 % more likely to live in a single-parent household than a child whose mother had been on a farm with 15 slaves. By 1900, slaveholding no longer had an impact. However, children whose parents lived in single-parent households were themselves more likely to live in single-parent households and to have been born outside marriage.     

Familial Effect on Child Poverty in Hong Kong Immigrant Families

This study investigated how family context affect poverty disparities between young children of immigrants from the Mainland China and children of local families whose parents were born in Hong Kong using 2006 bicensus data. 12,609 and 12,753 children of immigrant and local families were included in our data analyses. We find higher child poverty rates in immigrant families than in local families. Moreover, we found that family structure (single-parent vs. 2-parent), assimilation (first vs. second generation children of immigrant families), and parental human capital characteristics are significantly associated with the child poverty risk. Surprisingly, the impact of immigrant status on child poverty rates is stronger in 2-parent households than in single-parent households while child poverty declines associated with increasing assimilation defined by generational status of children are greater in 2-parent immigrant families than the corresponding declines in single-parent immigrant families. The implications of our results in intergenerational poverty are discussed.     

Purchasing Piety? Coresidence of Married Children With Their Older Parents in Japan

We investigated the conditions under which married children live with their older parents in Japan. We focused on how needs and resources in each generation are associated with whether married couples live with their parents in parent-headed and child-headed households, and we also investigated difference in power relations between older and younger generations and between children and their spouses. We analyzed a nationally representative sample of older parents (n = 3,853) and their married children (n = 8,601) from the 1999 Nihon University Japanese Longitudinal Study of Aging (NUJLSOA). Mutinomial regression revealed that married children with relatively affluent parents tended to live with them in parent-headed households and that married children with parents who are in relatively poor health or who are widowed tended to live with them in child-headed households. We also found that less-educated married children tended to live in the households of their higher-income parents, suggesting that parents may be "purchasing" traditional arrangements with less-affluent children. In addition, children with an educational advantage over their spouses were more likely to have parents living with them in child-headed coresident households. We conclude that traditional multigenerational coresidence has become a commodity negotiated within families based on relative resources and needs within and across generations.     

The economic boundaries of kinship in Côte d'Ivoire

The purpose of this article is to explore the patterns of economicsupport between kin in Côte d'Ivoire. The nuclear family has been dismissed as a meaningful unit within the corporate extended kinship structure of West Africa. Furthermore, extended kinship has been seen as an important support for high fertility since the costs of childbearing are shared within a wider kinship group and not fully absorbed by the biological parents. Extended kinship patterns are also thought to greatly facilitate informal insurance markets. However, data on economic transfers between kin in Côte d'Ivoire show a surprising but clear picture: kinship support in Côte d'Ivoire is primarily focused on close kin (parents, children and siblings). This pattern of kinship nucleation appears to intensify for richer households, despite controls for education, residency, nationality, and household size. The limited, cross-sectional perspective suggests that development is not working so much within the existing family structure but rather is operating to transform the ties between kin.     

Can we study the family environment through census data? A comparison of households,dwellings, and domestic units in rural Mali

Are ‘statistical households’, as defined in national censuses, able to describe the family environment in Africa? Do they correspond to the family units that individuals identify with? To address this issue, we build on a follow-up survey in south-east Mali, which links national censuses with local censuses at the individual level (N?≈?28,000 census observations). Three cross-sectional snapshots of family arrangements are compared: households recorded in national censuses, and family economic units and residential units recorded by local censuses. The national census household data appear poorly suited to documenting family living arrangements. They do not account for family economic units or residential units, but are highly conditioned by a normative representation centred on the nuclear family. Therefore, they fail to describe the complexity and diversity of people’s living spaces, making particular types of living arrangements invisible and increasing the likelihood of omitting individuals who do not fit into a nuclear model.     

Consistency of ancestry reporting between parents and children in the 1986 census

A question on ancestry was asked for the first time in the 1986 Population Census. This paper examines the consistency of the responses about ancestry reported for parents and their children. The level of consistency was more than 90 per cent when both parents were of the same ancestry; when parents were of different or mixed ancestries, the level of consistency was lower. It was estimated that about 75 per cent of all dependent children had an ancestry response consistent with that of the parent or parents with whom they lived.     

A lost family-planning regime in eighteenth-century Ceylon

Based on Dutch colonial registers (thombos), this paper reconstructs fertility for two districts in Ceylon, 1756–68. It overcomes challenges in data quality by establishing the outer bounds of plausible estimates in a series of scenarios. Among these, total fertility rates (TFRs) averaged 5.5 in one district, but only 2.7 in the other. These figures exclude the victims of infanticide, a custom noted in European travelogues between about 1660 and 1820. Sex ratios among children differed depending on the number of older siblings, and overall, 27?per cent of girls are missing in one district and 57?per cent in the other. There was little significant variation either in the TFR or the sex ratio by socio-economic status, suggesting that poverty was not a key factor in motivating infanticides. Instead, we argue that at least parts of Ceylon had a forward-looking culture of family planning in the eighteenth century, which was lost in subsequent decades.     

Household Composition,Extended Kinship,and Reproduction in Taiwan: 1965–1985

Co-residence of a married couple with the husband's parents continues to be an important aspect of family life in Taiwan. This form of household extension continues despite Taiwan's industrialization and convergence with a Western model of consumption, and despite the increase in the prevalence of nuclear households over the past twenty years. Increases in nuclear units are associated primarily with declines in proportions living in households that are extended both laterally and across generations, while the percentage living with a parent in a stem household has declined only modestly since 1973. In all, declines in co-residence notwithstanding, in 1985 nearly half the respondents resided in extended units. In 1985, as in 1980, a history of residence in an extended household was related to more traditional reproductive behaviour.     

The Simultaneous Effects of Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Child Health on Children’s Cognitive Development

Family socioeconomic status (SES) and child health are so strongly related that scholars have speculated child health to be an important pathway through which a cycle of poverty is reproduced across generations. Despite increasing recognition that SES and health work reciprocally and dynamically over the life course to produce inequality, research has yet to address how these two pathways simultaneously shape children’s development. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and marginal structural models, we ask three questions: (1) how does the reciprocal relationship between socioeconomic disadvantage and child health affect estimates of each circumstance on children’s cognitive development?; (2) how do their respective effects vary with age?; and (3) do family SES and child health have differential effects on cognitive development across population subgroups? The results show that the negative effects of socioeconomic disadvantage and poor health are insensitive to their reciprocal relationships over time. We find divergent effects of socioeconomic disadvantage and poor health on children’s cognitive trajectories, with a widening pattern for family SES effects and a leveling-off pattern for child health effects. Finally, the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage are similar across all racial/ethnic groups, while the effects of child health are largely driven by white children. We discuss theoretical and policy implications of these findings for future research.