Contemporary American stepparenthood: Integrating cohabiting and nonresident stepparents

Our understanding of contemporary stepfamily life requires incorporating emerging trends in cohabitation and nonresident stepparenting into our `traditional' definition of a stepparent (married adult with resident stepchildren). Using the National Survey of Families and Households, I provide a demographic profile of stepparents that includes cohabiting and nonresident stepparents. Adopting this revised view of stepparenthood alters our knowledge of both the prevalence and composition of stepparent families. The `traditional' definition of a stepparent is shown to describe less thanhalf of all stepparents today. Results also highlight diversity in stepparents' parenting obligations and sociodemographic characteristics. This revised view of stepparenthood has implications for future research on and policy targeted at stepfamilies.     

Doubling up when times are tough: A study of obligations to share a home in response to economic hardship

This study uses a factorial vignette design embedded in an Internet survey to investigate attitudes toward an adult child and parent living together in response to economic hardship. Over half of Americans said the desirability of intergenerational co-residence depends on particularistic aspects of the family, notably the quality of family relationships. Support for co-residence is greatest when the adult child is single rather than partnered. Support is weaker if the adult child is cohabiting rather than married to the partner, although groups with greater exposure to cohabitation make less of a distinction between cohabitation and marriage. Presence of a grandchild does not affect views about co-residence. There is more support for sharing a home when a mother needs a place to live than when the adult child does. Responses to open-ended questions show that individuals invoke both universalistic family obligations and particularistic qualities of family relationships to explain their attitudes.     

A demographic analysis of the family structure experiences of children in the United States

This paper analyzes the family structure experiences of children in the U.S. Childbearing and transitions among single, cohabiting, and married states are analyzed jointly. A novel contribution is to distinguish men by their relationship to children: biological father or stepfather. The analysis uses data from the NLSY79. A key finding is that children of black mothers spend on average only 33% of their childhood living with the biological father and mother, compared to 74% for children of white mothers. The two most important proximate demographic determinants of the large racial gap are the much higher propensity of black women to conceive children outside of a union, and the lower rate of “shotgun” unions for blacks compared to whites. Another notable finding is that cohabitation plays a negligible role in the family structure experiences of children of white mothers, and even for children of black mothers accounts for less than one fifth of time spent living with both biological parents.

Do women value marriage more? The effect of obesity on cohabitation and marriage in the USA

This paper looks into the impact of obesity and other factors on first entry into a marital or cohabiting union, using 1997 cohort data from the national longitudinal survey. Results show obese women are less likely to be accepted into either cohabitation or marriage, while obese men are less likely to be accepted in a cohabitating relation but are not less likely to enter into marriage. Income affects all union and all genders symmetrically, increasing the likelihood of a union. These results suggest that marriage is a special form of union for women, so they are willing to marry obese men because they value other factors related to the marriage choice, such as commitment or the prospect of having children. Men do not appear to value these factors as much, so obese women are less likely to be accepted into either cohabitation or marriage.

Cohabitation in Great Britain: not for long, but here to stay

This paper uses a new source of data to study the dramatic increase in cohabiting unions in Great Britain. It analyses, in turn, entry into first partnership, the stability of cohabiting unions and repartnering after dissolution of cohabitation. In excess of 70% of first partnerships are now cohabitations, and these last a relatively short time before being either turned into marriage or dissolved. The shift to cohabitation as the dominant mode of first partnership plays an important role in the delay of first marriage and motherhood. The paper also investigates the factors that are associated with the outcome of cohabitations.     

Rising Rates of Cohabitation and the Odds of Repartnering: Does the Gap Between Men and Women Disappear?

Men are more likely to repartner than women. This pattern might reflect gender disparities in barriers to repartnering. When rates of cohabitation increase, the gender disparity might shrink, as cohabitation is a less institutionalized form of coresidential partnership and therefore has lower entry barriers in comparison to marriage. Using event-history models applied to Czech data from the Generations and Gender Survey, we show that the odds of repartnering were indeed higher among men than among women in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. No significant change in the gender effect, however, was found. Similarly, the analysis revealed no change in the effect of gender on the odds of entering cohabitation rather than marriage.     

Effects of relationship duration,cohabitation, and marriage on the frequency of intercourse in couples: Findings from German panel data

Research into the changes in the frequency of sexual intercourse is (with few exceptions) limited to cross-sectional analyses of marital duration. We investigate the frequency of intercourse while taking into account relationship duration as well as the duration of cohabitation and marriage, effects of parenthood, and relationship quality. For the analysis we apply fixed effects regression models using data from the German Family Panel (pairfam), a nationwide randomly sampled German panel survey. Our findings imply that the drop in sex frequency occurs early in the relationship, whereas neither cohabitation nor marriage affects the frequency of intercourse to a significant extent. Sex frequency is reduced during pregnancy and as long as the couple has small children, but becomes revived later on. Relationship quality is found to play a role as well. These results are contrary to the honeymoon effect found in earlier research, but indicate that in times of postponed marriage an analogous effect may be at work in the initial period of the relationship.     

Dissolution risks in first and higher order marital and cohabiting unions

More and more people enter multiple unions during their lives, and then they may choose to either cohabit or marry. We examine the implications of this diversity in partnership trajectories by assessing dissolution risks in first and higher order marital and cohabiting unions. We use recent Norwegian survey data that contain complete retrospective union histories. We find that, when selectivity is accounted for, higher-order unions are not less stable than first unions. When dissolution risks for all possible partnership trajectories are compared, we find that former cohabitants who cohabit in a second union are as likely to break up as they were in their first cohabiting union. As soon as they enter marriage in their second unions, however, they do slightly better than first married persons. The previously married experience higher dissolution risks in their second union compared to their first, regardless of their current union type.     

Premarital Cohabitation,Husbands' Commitment,and Wives' Satisfaction with the Division of Household Contributions

Abstract

Recent research suggests that cohabiting men with plans to marry do more housework than those without plans to marry. Building on mis finding and drawing from commitment theory, we asked whether premarital cohabitation history and husbands' commitment were associated with satisfaction with the division of household contributions in marriage (N = 171 couples). There were no significant effects of cohabitation history (i.e., whether the couple started cohabiting before planning marriage versus after planning or not until marriage) on satisfaction with the division of household contributions during the early years of marriage. However, husbands' dedication was associated with wives' levels of satisfaction with the division of household contributions, even after controlling for marital adjustment and wives' own dedication. The practical implications of these links between men's commitment and women's satisfaction with the division of household contributions are discussed.     

“He’s My Dad Because He Just Is!”: Cohabiting (Step)Children’s Responses to Discursive Challenges

Cohabiting (step)families have become one of the fastest growing family forms in the United States. This study explored the types of discursive challenges experienced by cohabiting (step)children, as well as the ways in which cohabiting (step)children might respond to potential challenges of legitimacy. In this study, we interviewed 28 (step)children who resided with 1 biological parent and their parent’s nonmarital partner for at least 2 years. Results demonstrate that despite recent increases in prevalence and acceptance of unmarried partner households, cohabiting (step)children are often called on to explain their family’s legitimacy through accounting strategies when they experience discursive challenges to their (step)family’s form.