Family Contingencies Across the Generations: Grandparent‐Grandchild Relationships in Holistic Perspective

Family relationships do not occur in isolation but rather are embedded within greater systems of family ties. In recognition of the need to study families holistically, we explore how relations between grandparents and grandchildren are contingent upon a matrix of intergenerational relationships. Using data from the Iowa Youth and Families Project, our analyses focus on person‐centered types of grandparent‐grandchild relationships and the legacy of social ties across the generations, as mediated by other family relationships. We find multiple dimensions of grandparents' involvement with their grandchildren to be associated with (a) whether the grandparents knew their own grandparents when they were young, (b) the grandparent's perceptions of contact and closeness with the target grandchild, and (c) nuances in the relationships of grandparents with the parent generation.     

The Family‐Friendly Community and Its Life Course Fit for Dual‐Earner Couples

Much is known about family‐friendly workplaces. This article examines the less understood family‐friendliness of the communities in which dual‐earner couples reside. Using data from a representative sample of dual‐earner couples (N = 727) in upstate New York, we examine how individual, couple, and neighborhood characteristics are associated with perceptions of community family‐friendliness. Using a life course perspective, we find that couples with young children rate their communities more favorably than do other couples. Findings also indicate that for couples with children of their own, living in a neighborhood with many other families with children is associated with higher ratings of family‐friendliness. We term this match, between a couple's life stage and their neighborhood's demographic structure, life stage‐neighborhood fit.     

Sibling Relationships Over the Life Course: A Panel Analysis

Using pooled time series analysis on approximately 9,000 individuals ages 16–85 interviewed in the 1987–1988 and 1992–1994 waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), this research examines change in 4 behavioral measures of sibling relationships—proximity, contact, giving help, and receiving help—over the life course. All four measures of sibling relationship decline significantly during early adulthood, but proximity and contact stabilize in middle age and do not decline further, whereas sibling exchange demonstrates a slight rise after approximately age 70. Life course analyses provide only modest support for a model in which siblings substitute for parents, spouses, and children. With the partial exception of proximity, measured life course changes do not explain observed age effects.     

Family Structure and Economic Success Across the Life Course

This paper examines the role that family structure plays in long-run economic outcomes across the life course. Using nearly 30 years of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we find that youths who grow up with both biological parents earn more income, work more hours each week and are more likely to be married themselves as adults, compared to children raised in single-parent families. Many of these differences continue to be statistically significant even after we control for family income experienced as an adolescent. In addition, the implied size of the income transfer that children growing up with a single parent to equalize lifetime economic outcomes would need—about $42,000—is markedly larger than the income transfers now available to families in USA.     

Life Course Transitions and Housework: Marriage,Parenthood, and Time on Housework

We examine the effects of transitions in marital and parenthood status on 1,091 men’s and women’s housework hours using two waves of data from an Australian panel survey titled Negotiating the Life Course. We examine transitions between cohabitation and marriage, and from cohabitation or marriage to separation, as well as transitions to first and higher‐order births. We find extraordinary stability in men’s housework time across most transitions but considerable change for women in relation to transitions in parenthood. Our results suggest that the transition to parenthood is a critical moment in the development of an unequal gap in time spent on routine household labor.     

Families in the Life Course: Interdependency of Roles,Role Configurations,and Pathways

Families are central in the unfolding life course. They have both internal and external dynamics that reflect and characterize the modern life span, and a life course perspective has particular utility for understanding the role and implications of families for individuals and society. The purpose of this paper is 3‐fold. First, we offer a family life course perspective that delineates core concepts of roles, role configurations, and pathways, specifies the links between them, and highlights the importance of linked lives and structural context. Second, we elaborate a latent class approach for modeling the multilayered dynamic interdependencies that characterize modern family life. Third, we provide an empirical example by considering the timing of childbearing, teen parenthood, and its place in the transition to adulthood using women's data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (N= 2,191). We conclude by discussing further avenues of family research that are enhanced with a life course approach and complementary latent structure methodology.     

Introduction to the special issue: Family Support of Persons with Disabilities Across the Life Course

ABSTRACT

Family members are a key source of services and supports for people with disabilities across the life course, helping people to remain living at home and in the community. As part of an effort to generate a strategic plan for research on family caregiver experiences and supports, this issue includes four literature reviews on the current state of research, each specific to a life course stage. This introduction presents a framework that combines life course and ecological perspectives to organize the existing literature of family caregiver support and to identify gaps in existing research, as well as opportunities for future investigations.     

Does Marriage Increase the Odds of Affluence? Exploring the Life Course Probabilities

This study estimates the life course incidence and age pattern of affluence among American couples in comparison to nonmarried, never married, and formerly married men and women. Life course probabilities are computed from a series of life tables built upon 25 years of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (N= 8,510 25‐year‐olds; N= 3,481 45‐year‐olds). Results confirm the notion that marriage enhances the lifetime probability of affluence, and that this advantage varies sharply by gender and by race. The study suggests that the marital advantage for gaining affluence is textured by a financial landscape of gender and race inequality.     

Poverty and Material Hardship in Grandparent‐Headed Households

Using the 2001 Survey of Income and Program Participation, the current study examines poverty and material hardship among children living in 3‐generation (n = 486), skipped‐generation (n = 238), single‐parent (n = 2,076), and 2‐parent (n = 6,061) households. Multinomial and logistic regression models indicated that children living in grandparent‐headed households experience elevated risk of health insecurity (as measured by receipt of public insurance and uninsurance)—a disproportionate risk given rates of poverty within those households. Children living with single parents did not share this substantial risk. Risk of food and housing insecurity did not differ significantly from 2‐parent households once characteristics of the household and caregivers were taken into account.     

Timing Preferences for Women’s Family‐Life Transitions: Intergenerational Transmission Among Migrants and Dutch

This study examines the transmission of preferences regarding the timing of family‐life transitions of women among migrant and native Dutch families. We study how and to what extent parental preferences, migrant origin, and family characteristics affect the child’s timing preferences. We use parent and child data (N= 1,290) from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (2002, 2003) and the Social Position and Provisions Ethnic Minorities Survey (2002). Regression analyses reveal that parental timing preferences regarding family‐life transitions are strongly associated with the timing preferences of their children. Analyses also show that these preferences strongly vary by migrant origin, educational level, and religious involvement. The process of intergenerational transmission, however, is found to be very similar among migrants and Dutch.     

Life Course Changes of Children and Well‐being of Parents

How do children's life course transitions affect the well‐being of their parents? Using a large panel survey among parents with longitudinal information on 2 randomly chosen children, the authors analyzed the effects of children's union formation, parenthood, and union dissolution on changes in depressive symptoms of parents. Negative effects were found for children's divorce, and positive effects were found for children's marriage and parenthood. Mothers suffered more from a child's divorce or separation than fathers. Effects depended in part on the parent's traditional family norms, pointing to a normative explanation of life course effects. Little evidence was found for explanations in terms of altruism or selfish motivations. In a more general sense, this article supports the notion of linked lives suggested by the life course perspective. This research provides stronger support for this notion than the few previous studies that have examined it.     

Women's Attitudes Toward Family Formation and Life Stage Transitions: A Longitudinal Study in Korea

Although it is well documented that family attitudes become less traditional over cohorts, little is known about how individuals' attitudes change over time. More research also is needed on how the within‐individual changes relate to important life stage events such as marriage, childbirth, and transitions in education and work. Evidence is particularly lacking in Asian countries, which have socioeconomic and cultural contexts very different from those in the West. To fill these gaps in the literature, the authors analyzed the attitudes toward family formation of Korean women in their 20s and 30s (N = 6,042). Individual fixed effects regression using the panel data from the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families revealed that women became more traditional over time and that transitions to marriage and motherhood partly accounted for the change. These findings are explained within the context of very low fertility in Korea and have implications for other rapidly changing societies.     

Parenthood, Childlessness, and Well-Being: A Life Course Perspective

This article reviews recent research (1999 - 2009) on the effects of parenthood on wellbeing. We use a life course framework to consider how parenting and childlessness influence well-being throughout the adult life course. We place particular emphasis on social contexts and how the impact of parenthood on well-being depends on marital status, gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. We also consider how recent demographic shifts lead to new family arrangements that have implications for parenthood and well-being. These include stepparenting, parenting of grandchildren, and childlessness across the life course.     

Serial Cohabitation and the Marital Life Course

Using cohort data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this paper tracks the experiences of serial cohabitors. Results indicate that only a minority of cohabiting women (about 15% – 20%) were involved in multiple cohabitations. Serial cohabitations were overrepresented among economically disadvantaged groups, especially those with low income and education. They also were less likely than single‐instance cohabiting unions to end in marriage rather than dissolve. If serial cohabitors married, divorce rates were very high — more than twice as high as for women who cohabited only with their eventual husbands. The results suggest the need to balance the government’s current preoccupation with marriage promotion with greater support of “at risk” unions that marriage promotion initiatives have helped create.     

Gender,the Marital Life Course,and Cardiovascular Disease in Late Midlife

Drawing on 5 waves of the Health and Retirement Study, we examine the influence of the marital life course on the prevalence and incidence of cardiovascular disease among 9,434 middle‐aged individuals. Results show that compared to continuously married persons, both men and women with a marital loss have significantly higher prevalence of cardiovascular disease at baseline. Men and women, however, differ in the effects of marital loss on the incidence of cardiovascular disease over the course of the study. Women with a marital loss have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease in late midlife compared to continuously married women, whereas marital loss is not associated with men’s risk of cardiovascular disease. Emotional distress and socioeconomic status account for the higher risk of cardiovascular disease among divorced women.     

The Role of Agency in Shaping the Educational Journeys of Care-experienced Adults: Insights from a Life Course Study of Education and Care

Research examining the low educational attainment of children in care and care leavers tends to underuse social theory (Berridge, 2007). To contribute to addressing this gap, we use life course theory to explore the role of agency in shaping the educational pathways of 18 Irish adults (aged 24–36 years) with care experience. Findings suggest that agency is a valuable conceptual tool for examining the nuance and complexity of how individual actions shape the education of care-experienced adults throughout the life course and interact with contextual and structural factors over time.     

Life Course Stage in Young Adulthood and Intergenerational Congruence in Family Attitudes

We investigated how intergenerational congruence in family‐related attitudes depends on life course stage in young adulthood. Recent data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study were used; the present sample included 2,041 dyads of young adults and their parents. Findings are discussed in terms of the elasticity in intergenerational attitude congruence in response to young adults' life course transitions. Our results suggest that intergenerational congruence in attitudes about partnership (e.g., marriage, cohabitation, divorce, women's and men's family roles) decreases after young adults have left the parental home and increases when young adults enter parenthood. Congruence concerning intergenerational obligations was not related to young adults' life course stage.     

Reinstitutionalizing Families: Life Course Policy and Marriage in the Military

The transition to adulthood has become an increasingly telescoped process for Americans, with marital formation occurring increasingly later in the life course. It is therefore striking to find a context like the U.S. military, in which marriage rates bear an anachronistic resemblance to those of the 1950s era. Using narrative data from life history interviews with military affiliates, the authors show that the military has reinstitutionalized military families at the same time that civilian families are becoming deinstitutionalized. Structural conditions of modern military service, such as war deployment and frequent geographical relocation, have created policies that rely on families to make these conditions more bearable for military personnel. These policies are part of an overarching institutional culture that directly and indirectly promotes marriage. The authors bring together life course literatures on turning points, the welfare state, and linked lives to show how the military has reinstitutionalized families in these ways.