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To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3729.2010.00617.x Byline: Sandra L. Hofferth (1), Frances Goldscheider (1) Keywords: fatherhood; gender roles; work and family Abstract: This study examined the association between paternal and maternal employment changes and changes in the frequency of fathers praising, showing affection, disciplining, and reading to children. Data were drawn from the Young Adult supplement to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979). Supporting economic theory, fathers were more involved when they and their partner were employed full time and were less involved when their employment exceeded that of their partner. Although fathers tended to be less involved when they worked less, fathers who held traditional gender role attitudes were more involved than those who held nontraditional gender role attitudes. The results suggest the important part fathers' attitudes and values have in influencing their involvement with children under differing employment conditions. Author Affiliation: (1)University of Maryland Article note: Department of Family Science, School of Public Health, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742 (hofferth@umd.edu).

With the rise in out-of-wedlock childbearing and divorce in the last quarter of the twentieth century, an increasing proportion of children have been exposed to a variety of new family forms. Little research has focused on the consequences of childhood family structure for men's transition to fatherhood or on the family processes that account for the effects of family structure on the likelihood that young women and men become first-time unmarried parents, what we now call 'fragile families.' The data come from the linked Children and Young Adult samples of the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), which provide information on the children of the women of the NLSY79 from birth until they enter young adulthood. Females growing up with a single parent and males experiencing an unstable family transition to parenthood early, particularly to nonresidential fatherhood for males. For males, the effects are strongly mediated by parenting processes and adolescent behaviors and are shaped by economic circumstances. Having experienced multiple transitions as a child is associated with a reduced likelihood that males father their first child within marriage and an increased likelihood that they become fathers within cohabitation, demonstrating how changes in family structure alter family structure patterns over time and generations.

Trends in divorce and nonmarital childbearing suggest that the marriage market is increasingly filled with people who have been married and/or have children. This study examines the effect of personal attitudes on entrance into a union with a partner who has been previously married or has children. Using data from two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households, the authors find that men who hold more positive attitudes about marrying someone who already has children are more likely to enter a union with a single mother. Willingness to marry someone with children also has a positive impact on women's entry into a union with a man who has children, though only if he has not been married before. Men who express greater acceptance about marriage to someone who has been married are more likely to enter a union with a previously married woman, though only if she is childless. There is no parallel effect for women. Keywords: attitudes; union formation, remarriage; stepfamilies

This article examines the determinants of men's early parental roles, distinguishing factors that affect being a father versus being childless, and factors that affect being a resident versus a nonresident lather, in the context of having a partner or not. We also consider whether these patterns have changed between 1985 and 2004. The data come from the linked Child-Mother and Young Adult Samples of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79), which provide information on the children of the NLSY79 from birth until they enter young adulthood, and from the original youth sample of parallel ages. The results support previous research showing the importance of economic and educational disadvantages and nontraditional family structure on being a nonresident father. The effects of family structure appear to have attenuated between generations as determinants of men's early parental roles. Keywords: fatherhood; family structure; cohort change

Objectives. This study examined life-stage differences in the provision of care to spouses with functional impairment. Methods. We examined 1,218 married adults aged 52 and older from the 2000 wave of the Health and Retirement Study who received impairment-related help with at least one activity of daily living. We examined the differential likelihood that spouses served as primary caregiver and the hours of care provided by spousal primary caregivers by life stage. Results. We found that late middle-aged care recipients were more likely than their older counterparts to receive the majority of their care from their spouse but received fewer hours of spousal care, mostly when spouses worked full time. Competing demands of caring for children or parents did not affect the amount of care provided by a spouse. Discussion. Late middle-aged adults with functional limitations are more likely than older groups to be married and cared for primarily by spouses; however, they may be particularly vulnerable to unmet need for care. As the baby boom generation ages, retirement ages increase, and federal safety nets weaken, people with health problems at older ages may soon find themselves in the same caregiving predicament as those in late middle age. Key Words: Age differences--Life stage--Caregiving--Spouses--Activities of daily living.

Research on changes in women's parenting has focused primarily on their increased likelihood of combining parenthood with paid employment, exploring the pressures that result from this 'second shift' or 'double burden.' This article complements this approach by focusing instead on the likely reduction in the help that mothers of small children have received as declines both infertility and the coresidence of nonnuclear adults have reduced the number of other women in the household. Using national census data for the period 1880 to 2000, we show a substantial decline in the presence and availability of other females in the household, as fewer are coresident and more of those who are coresident are employed or in school. Although all mothers experience this decline, it is most acute for mothers working for pay in nonagricultural activities.

Marriage markets have become increasingly filled with those who already have children, which may discourage marriage. Research has generally failed to assess the role of prospective stepchildren in new union formation, particularly from the point of view of the men who might become their stepfathers. Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), the authors examine willingness to marry someone who already has children as well as partners who have been previously married, are of a different religion or race, or are unlikely to hold a steady job. The most consistent determinants of attitudes toward stepparenthood are related to exposure to and/or approval of other nontraditional families, particularly the experience of own parenthood. This suggests that these unions could become more common in the future. Keywords: stepfamilies; marriage; gender; family attitudes

In the 1950s, when unmarried men and women became parents, the double standard stigmatized women more than men. With the rise in egalitarianism and approval of sex outside of marriage, [...]

This paper examines how school engagement influences the timing of family formation for youth. We pay particular attention to variation across four racial/ethnic groups and by generation status, variation that reflects the diversification of U.S. society through immigration. Using data from the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS), we employ discrete-time multinomial logistic regression models examining the likelihood of childbearing or marriage in late adolescence. We find that the delaying effects of school enrollment and engagement vary by race/ethnicity, suggesting that strategies for socioeconomic success that focus on delaying family roles are more important among some groups than others. The results also indicate that controlling for school enrollment and school engagement reduces differences in early marriage and non-marital childbearing by generation status., Introduction The relationship between race/ethnicity, schooling and family formation during the transition to adulthood is difficult to disentangle because so much is intertwined in this portion of the life course. […]

This article examines union entrance among never-married young men, focusing on whether the importance of a man's being economically established to marry has decreased in this new era of cohabitation and working wives. The authors test this assumption by examining marriage and cohabitation as competing risks to see whether the importance of employment has changed between the cohorts of the 1970s and 1990s. Data are from the National Survey of the Labor Force Experience of Young Men and the National Survey of Families and Households. The results show that Controlling cohabitation as a competing risk makes some difference in models of marriage, because marriage is somewhat more selective. More important changes reflect the decline in the importance of employment and the increased role of values. Indirect indicators, such as race, region, and childhood family structure, and direct measures of gender role attitudes have become critical influences on men's likelihood of union formation. Keywords: marriage; cohabitation; union formation; young adult transitions

This paper examines differences in child qualities preferred by biological and informal fathers in Sweden and the United States. This paper is the beginning of a larger research project to examine differences in children's relationships with the coresident men in their lives, depending on men's commitments with the children's mothers (married, cohabiting), using the National Survey of Families and Households and the Swedish Family Survey. We find that fathers in Sweden do not differ significantly in the qualities they prefer in children by whether the children in their households are their biological children or not, or by whether or not they are married to the children's mother. However, in the US, men living with nonbiological children, and particularly those in cohabiting relationships, show less stress on independence than otherwise comparable men, and these differences tend to widen with duration in the relationship. Ce rapport expose les differences quant aux qualites preferees chez leurs enfants selon qu'ils soient peres biologiques ou peres adoptifs aux Etats-Unis en comparaison avec la Suede. Ce rapport se situe dans le cadre d'un important projet de recherches evaluant les differences qui existent dans les relations entre les enfants et l'homme qui leur fait fonction de pere en relation avec les engagements qu'ils ont avec la mere de l'enfant (maries ou en cohabitation) d'apres les etudes du "National Survey of Families and Households" et du "Swedish Family Survey". Nous remarquons qu'en Suede, les qualites recherchees par leurs peres ne different pas selon qu'il s'agisse de leurs enfants biologiques ou non, ou selon qu'ils soient maries a la mere de ces enfants. Par ailleurs, aux Etats-Unis, les hommes qui vivent avec des enfants qui ne sont pas leurs enfants biologiques et particulierement ceux qui ne font que cohabiter avec ces enfants, semblent avoir moins d'exigences en ce qui concerne les qualites d'independanc e chez leurs enfants comparativement aux autres peres: ces differences ont tendance a s'accentuer en fonction de la duree de la relation. Este articulo examina las diferencias en las cualidades que los padres biologicos e informales prefieren para sus hijos, comparando Estados Unidos y Suecia. El articulo es el primer resultado de un proyecto de investigacion de mas largo plazo cuyo objectivo es examinar las diferencias en las relaciones entre los menores en el hogar y los hombres que viven en el musmo, y las variaciones en dichas relaciones dependiendo del compromiso de estos hombres con las madres de los menores (si estan formalmente casados o si viven en union libre). La investigacionutiliza datos de la Encuesta Nacional de Familias y Hogares (National Survey of Families and Households) y Ia Encuesta Sueca de Familia (Swedish Family Survey). En el caso de Suecia, encontramos que no hay diferencias significativas entre los padres biologicos y no biologicos en cuanto a la preferencia de cualidades que se desean para los hijos. Tampoco se encontraron diferencias significativas entre aquellos padres casados y los no casados con la madre de los m enores. Sin embargo, en Estados Unidos, los hombres que viven con menores que no son sus hijos biologicos, y en particular aquellos que viven en union libre con la madre de dichos menores, mostrararon menor interes que los padres biologicos en la independencia como cualidad, y esta diferencia tiende a incrementarse conforme aumenta la duracion de la relacion con la madre de los menores., Most of the studies of the dramatic growth in cohabitation, in divorce, and in non-marital childbearing, a constellation of rapid changes sometimes called "the second demographic transition" (van de Kaa […]

The effects of two key demographic transitions, declines in fertility and mortality rates and increases in divorce and cohabitation, are examined in terms of their likely impact on the changing nature of the family structure of the third millennium.

Using data from a sample of married men and women undergoing treatment for cancer, we tested two potential hypotheses for the unequal representation of husbands and wives as spousal caregivers, including societal gender role norms and emotional closeness in the marital relationship. Multivariate analyses support both hypotheses; wives are only one third as likely as husbands to select their spouses as caregivers, and spouses who name their mates as confidants are three times more likely than those who do not to also name them as caregivers. We conclude that although gender role norms are key to caregiver selection, the intimacy inherent in the caregiving role renders an emotionally close marriage an important criterion to the selection of spouse as caregiver. Key Words: Spousal caregiving, Social support, Social roles, Marital intimacy

The influence of childhood family structure on the decisions of young people to leave or return home was investigated. Retrospective data from the National Survey of Families and Households were used to examine the interrelationships among family experiences, the likelihood of leaving home at an early age, given routes such as schooling, marriage and cohabitation and returning home. Empirical results showed that growing up in any alternative family structure reduces the probability of leaving and returning home but increases the probability of leaving home early.

The role of increases in affluence in the decline of support for intergenerational coresidence was investigated. Data from the National Survey of Families and Households were analyzed to identify factors that influence attitudes toward coresidence with young adult children and aging parents. Empirical results showed that the experience of living with grandparents does not affect support for coresidence with aging parents, although this observation is not true for the experience of living with parents.

The home is the major site of the socialization of children, where many of the transfers of the resources needed by the next generation are made. It is the safety [...]

A study suggests that the domain of household and family demography plays a crucial role in the process of understanding of the determinants and results of the direction in population. The individual and the nation-state are the two levels which encompasses the community, families and households for the demographic research. The results have implications for the transforming of the demographic phenomenon by intergenerational and gender relationships

We examine whether jobs with greater flexibility allow women greater time for housework. With data from the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) for young women and mature women employees, we find that part-week, part-year, and shift schedules increase the hours spent on domestic chores, and that unlike on- site employment, hours of home-based work do not significantly reduce time spent on domestic chores. We also find that younger women are more likely to adjust domestic time to job-related conditions than older women., Time is a finite resource, and Americans are working more hours than ever. This is particularly the case for women. Women continue to increase their participation in the paid labor [...]

The average age of young American adults leaving home has declined since the 1920s and the present generation of twenty-year-olds are not likely to return to their homes after living independently for a period of time. During the Vietnam war, the percentage of young people who returned home at some point in their adult lives increased from 25% to 40%.

The study uses data from a study of over 1,000 children taken from the Jul 1961 Detroit Metropolitan Area birth records to eaxamine trends in leaving home and returning home. Interviews for the panel study took place in 1962, 1980 and 1985. The families were all white. The results show that young people tend to leave home in between the ages of 18 years and 21 years. Much of this is to do with moving to college. It shows that the process is undertaken in a series of gradual steps and that more women become independent than males. The return to home trend is a result of nonfamily living in early years.

This analysis provides a dynamic portrait of living arrangements in early adulthood using data capable of capturing the often volatile sequences young people follow in their route out of the parental home. Using event history data from people aged 23 in 1985, we calculate precise measures of the amount of time spent in specific living arrangements, together with estimates of the percentage who ever experience each living arrangement. Our results show great heterogeneity in pathways out of the parental home. Young adults fan out in all directions, with about 20-40% experiencing marriage, cohabitation, group quarters, living with housemates, and alone.

The growing study of leaving home in young adulthood in the United States has been hampered by data and measurement problems, which are producing a major theoretical confusion about the role of parental resources in influencing young adults' leaving home. Does high parental income retain young adults in the home or subsidize their leaving (and parental privacy)? This paper uses the 1984 panel of Survey of Income and Program Participation to clarify this issue, and shows that the effects of parental resources differ depending on the route out of the home under consideration (marriage or premarital residential independence). Effects change substantially over the nest-leaving ages, but relatively few differences are found between young men and young women.

This study examines how income and family structure affect black-white differences in intergenerational financial flows, focusing on the two-way flow between parents and children in the years immediately after high school and how these flows in turn influence educational expectations. Based on data from the High School and Beyond survey, the findings indicate that black young adults receive less and contribute more income to their families at this critical juncture of the life course. These differences reflect not only differential resources but also differences in family structure, particularly in the proportion with only one parent or with a very young parent. Parental financial contributions to their children's educational expenses had a very strong effect on the children's educational expectations, eliminating the direct effects of income on the amount of schooling young people expect. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for the study of parent-child relationships and the effects of these relationships on more general stratification processes.

Over the last decade, research on the elderly family has been glowing, portraying strong marital and family relationships. But the currently elderly, while they have benefited from the demographic and economic transformations of modernity, did not participate in the family revolutions that have followed. Cohorts who will become the elderly of the 21st century have been on the leading edge of the family revolution, the rapid growth of labor force participation among women, the tremendous rise in divorce and in childrearing out of marriage, and the overall decline in marriage and remarriage. Increasingly, the elderly will not be married or not in their first marriage. Research has focused on women and children as the sufferers from divorce, but in old age, as family relationships based on marriage and parenthood grow in importance, it is males who are at risk. This article presents a series of research findings that specify these risks.

The relationship between childhood family structure and nest-leaving patterns in the Swedish context is examined. Analyses show that individuals from disrupted childhood families leave their parental home earlier than other young adults.

Abstract Returning home in young adulthood has increased from a rare to a common occurrence. We examine the effects of historical events, such as World War II, and longer-term changes [...]

Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice: How Women are Choosing Parenthood Without Marriage and Creating the New American Family By Rosanna Hertz Oxford University Press, 2006. 264 pages. $26 cloth. [...]

Data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972 are used to examine factors influencing young adults' departure from the parental home and the initial pathways taken, including leaving home for marriage, residential semi-autonomy (Semi), and premarital residential independence (PRI). Parents' education and continuing in school decrease the likelihood of leaving home via marriage and increase the likelihood of leaving home via Semi or PRI. All other factors considered affect all pathways out of the parental home in the same direction, but in differing magnitudes. The predominant influences on PRI are indicators of modern family values, whereas the predominant influences on leaving home for marriage are measures of resources, both those of the parents and those of the young adults.

In this age of 'the second demographic transition,' David Popenoe's book presents a useful set of literature reviews framed in a systematic theoretical argument that together are aimed at encouraging [...]

Goode has given us a treasure - a systematic description of trends in various aspects of divorce for many of the world's regions between 1950 and 1990. He provides a [...]