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Using three waves of data from the Midlife in the United States Study (MIDUS 1995–2014, N =1,123), this study investigates the linkage between caregiving and women’s positive and negative work–family spillovers over the life course. Results show that women’s work–family experiences are not only shaped by caregiving itself but also depend on the timing when they take these roles: the effect of raising school-aged children on negative family-to-work spillover (FWS) is the highest in the 40s, and the effect of raising adolescent children on positive work-to-family spillover (WFS) is the lowest in the 50s. Providing financial support to parents increases both negative FWS and negative WFS, and the effects are highest in their 20s and 65+, respectively. Providing emotional care and unpaid assistance to parents can enhance women’s positive FWS in their 40s. This study’s findings suggest that timing and linked-lives both play strong roles in shaping women’s work–family experiences.

Previous research has mainly understood household extension as a family strategy to face economic deprivation, giving little attention to other factors affecting it. Using 2017 data from the National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey, this article evaluates the role played by economic and life-course factors in extended family living arrangements among women in family units in Chile ( n = 60,111). Results indicate that economic needs are an important driver for those seeking refuge in someone else’s home, but they are less important for those hosting other relatives within their household. Importantly, the likelihood of living in an extended household—and the position that family units occupy within the household (as head-families or subfamilies)—changes over the life span. Young women (15–34 years) are more likely to live in extended households as sub-families, while middle-aged women (45–64 years) tend to live in extended households as household heads, hosting young cohabiting couples, or lone mothers.

Research in Western countries has demonstrated that marriage is associated with improved well-being, and parenthood with decreased well-being, for both men and women. However, less is known about whether the associations are universal for both genders across countries. Using nine waves of panel data and fixed effects models, this study examines the relationship between changes in family roles and subjective well-being of men and women in the highly gendered social context of Japan. Well-being was assessed across two domains: self-rated health and mental health. The results broadly support the protective effect theory, which posits that marriage itself has a positive effect on well-being; however, no association was observed between becoming a wife and self-rated health. Contrary to what previous research predicts, only men’s self-rated health negatively responds to transition to parenthood. These findings highlight the importance of country context and gender differences in the significance of family obligations.

Childhood maltreatment is associated with mental and physical health problems across the life course. Marriages may be a risk factor for continued mental and physical health problems or, alternatively, they could buffer the effects of maltreatment severity on adult health. Using data from the study of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS), we evaluated marital support and strain as moderators of child maltreatment and adults’ subjective evaluations of physical and mental health in a sample of 760 married adults using the life course perspective. Results show that the interaction between childhood maltreatment severity and marital strain was associated with poorer physical health and was marginally associated with mental health. Marital support did not significantly interact with childhood maltreatment severity in predicting adult mental or physical health. Results suggest maltreatment and marital strain interact resulting in a greater accumulation of disadvantage leaving adults at risk for health problems.

Previous research details women’s career launch and childbearing timing strategies without fully theorizing how such work–family plans may be developed alongside men. Overlooking men’s role in this process obscures how women’s partners can shape their work–family experiences. This study examines how young dual-professional couples plan two careers while timing childbearing. Interviews with 40 partners from 21 mostly White different-sex couples reveal that partners plan simultaneous career launches; sequence men’s career launches before women’s; or independently pursue career plans. These career launch strategies are not tightly linked to whether couples agree to forgo parenthood; delay childbearing; or initiate childbearing soon. In some couples, women had thought in more detail about childbearing timing in relation to the partners’ careers than men had. These couple-level data show that men’s career plans more directly shape women’s career plans than childbearing plans do because men and women can view childbearing as separate from career planning.

Support of family members has been a long-standing interest of social scientists. Contemporary American families must provide support to members in a historical context wherein family inequality continues to rise. Based on the life course perspective, and utilizing qualitative, in-depth interviews with 50 multi-generational participants from the Family Exchanges Study, this article explores the mechanisms through which families across the socioeconomic spectrum engage in and perceive family support. We discuss both direct and indirect requests by family members for help and identify differences by family socioeconomic status. We also discuss how issues of reciprocity, views toward request propriety, and perceptions of appreciation guide family member responses to need. We argue that this cross-class comparison is particularly essential to further scholarly understands of family functioning and support amidst growing inequality in the United States.

This study analyzed the association between work-family life courses and life satisfaction among 2,542 women aged 60–65 years (born between 1920 and 1957) using German SOEP data and ANOVA models. The results are embedded in a description of the specific role of mothers in Germany (as primary caregivers), different theoretical assumptions (from role theories and theories on cumulative advantages and disadvantages), and prior results (from longitudinal and cross-sectional research). The findings provide strong evidence that motherhood in combination with not working and losing a spouse in middle age is associated with low life satisfaction at higher age. They also show that combining motherhood with continuous part-time work or childlessness with continuous full-time work is positively related to life satisfaction at higher ages. The fact that differences between other patterns are not significant, suggests that only specific combinations of characteristics of work-family life course patterns are associated with well-being at higher ages.

With marriage now delayed until later in the life course, developmental and young adult scholars have increasingly focused on how relational and marital beliefs of unmarried young adults influence developmental and relational trajectories. Yet little research has explored how these same perceptions and beliefs may alter adult relationships and marriages. Using a national U.S. sample of 1,755 newlywed couples, we explored how beliefs about the centrality of marriage were associated with marital quality and commitment. A common-fate approach that simultaneously allowed for both individual and couple-level analyses was used. Results suggested that higher marital centrality beliefs separately for each partner and jointly as a couple were strongly associated with higher interpersonal commitment to one’s spouse and the general level of commitment in the relationship. Significant indirect effects found for husbands, wives, and at the couple-level suggested that higher marital centrality beliefs had an indirect association through commitment with higher relationship satisfaction, less instability, and higher reports of positive communication. Marital beliefs around the centrality of marriage appear to be strongly connected to the establishment of commitment and relationship quality among married couples. Results call for the expansion of the marital and relational belief literature into the context of adult relationships.

Early life disadvantage has enduring effects on health into adulthood. In this analysis, we are interested in the social reproduction of health inequality across generations within families. We use data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a representative sample of U.S. adolescents in grades 7–12 and their parents ( N = 11,171) interviewed during the 1994–1995 school year and followed into young adulthood. We investigate whether the intersection of family structure and parents’ health predicts poor health in early adulthood and several potential explanations for health continuity across generations. We also examine whether social mobility across generations changes the association between parent and child health. Results indicate an intergenerational persistence in health, net of childhood socioeconomic context, childhood health, educational attainment, and social mobility. Findings suggest that adult health reflects the transmission of resources and practices across generations within one’s family, reproducing health inequalities.

Since 2000, transition to adulthood behaviors changed across gender and social class. Yet it is unclear whether these changes reflect a corresponding shift in beliefs. In particular, widening inequality and changes to higher education may differentially alter the opportunities available to young adults across gender and socioeconomic status, potentially changing attitudes about entering adulthood. Using the General Social Survey’s 2002 and 2012 waves, this paper explores beliefs about the importance and timing of six adult milestones, completing education, becoming financially independent, working full-time, living independently, getting married, and having children, across age, gender, and social class. We find that similarities in beliefs across gender and age groups persisted. In contrast, even though Americans from different social class backgrounds report similar beliefs about milestone importance, we continue to find social class differences in timing beliefs. Our findings highlight the continued need for institutional supports for disadvantaged youth moving towards adulthood.

Single parenthood is often approached as a problematic situation. People become single parents through divorce, separation, or bereavement and have to cope with this situation. These transitions to single parenthood lead to unforeseen problems with respect to the organization of the household. Nevertheless, there are also single parents for whom single parenthood is a positive story. These people are single parents by choice. Today, it is no longer necessary to have a partner to start a family, as people are able to choose to become single parents through sperm donation or adoption. Hertz (2006) argues that single parents by choice might have remained single due to circumstances, but nevertheless had a strong desire to become a parent. This means that single parents by choice offer a different perspective on single parenthood, as they voluntarily choose to become parents on their own. Nevertheless, single parents by choice face the same issues as other single parents: to combine their work responsibilities and their parental roles. In this paper, we explore how single parents by choice became parents, and how this transition affected their other preparations for parenthood. The central research question in this study is therefore: “How does the way in which single parents by choice become a parent affect the reorganization of their lives in the facilitation of single parenthood?” We used qualitative in-depth interviews with 20 single parents by choice to explore how they organized their work-family life before and after giving birth.

This study investigates grandparent–grandchild relations in emerging adulthood, focusing on grandchildren’s transition to residential independence and the role of parents as mediators. Using three waves of the German Ageing Survey (DEAS), we estimate fixed effects models to assess changes in the frequency of contact and emotional closeness of 349 grandparents with 494 grandchildren aged 16 to 30 years. Grandparent–grandchild contact decreases during the transition to adulthood due to the middle generation’s declining ability to provide opportunities for intergenerational interaction as well as grandchildren’s new responsibilities after leaving the parental home. Grandparent–grandchild closeness does not change systematically in emerging adulthood, but is characterized by a high degree of temporal stability and independence of grandparent–parent contact frequency. Thus, even if contact decreases during the transition to adulthood, a continuously close emotional bond allows grandparents and grandchildren to (re)activate the support potential inherent to their relationship in times of need.

This article seeks to learn how women perceive invisible work and how it affects their lives. This article contributes to the integration of different manifestations of invisible work into a conceptual whole, especially in light of the fact that most research has confined itself to only one aspect such as care work, housework, or volunteering. Nine group interviews were conducted with Israeli mothers from differing ethnic, religious, class, and age groups. Analysis reveals that the distinctions between aspects of invisible work, such as housework and care work and between activities belonging to the private and public spheres are much more blurred in women’s lives than might be inferred from the academic literature. Furthermore, throughout the life course of women the meanings and expressions of invisible work evolve creating a continuous struggle. In describing their everyday activities, women challenge the socially constructed binary oppositions in the context of the neoliberal economy.

Drawing on in-depth biographical interviews with 12 grandfathers of young grandchildren living in Czech Republic, this study explores how men perform and conceptualize their role of grandfather in relation to their previous role of father and their own family history. The analysis shows grandparenthood as an ambivalent space for the reconstruction of masculinity. One the one hand, grandparenthood was depicted by the participants as an important way of transitioning one’s own relationship to care and emotionality that enable them to relate to the care for young children outside the traditional frameworks of masculinity associated with the role of father. On the other hand, grandfather role represents an important tool for maintaining a connection with the ideal of hegemonic masculinity in older age and as a space for reconstructing the dichotomy between femininity and masculinity and the traditional dichotomies of care/work, activity/passivity, and private/public.

The authors used data from the 1994, 2002, and 2012 General Social Survey ( N = 1,450) to examine whether support for divorce has increased among adults aged 50 years and older. Consistent with the rise in the gray divorce rate, today’s older adults were more accepting of divorce than their predecessors were two decades ago. Attitudinal change was modest between 1994 and 2002, but accelerated after 2002. The acceleration was primarily due to period rather than cohort change, signaling the role of broader shifts in the meaning of marriage as it has become deinstitutionalized. Older birth cohorts and individuals who were either divorced or remarried were especially likely to hold supportive attitudes toward divorce.

Young adults’ romantic relationships have continually emerged as a significant area of study in psychological research. The authors examine possible associations between a measure of attitudes toward sibling relationships, a measure of adult attachment styles, and a measure of romantic relationship quality in a sample of 350 Italian university students (68.6% females, 31.4% males; age range 19-30 years, M age = 23.6 years, SD = 3.2). The authors tested the following hypotheses: that the perceived relationship quality between siblings was positively correlated with adult attachment styles and romantic relationship quality, that the frequent use of behaviors associated with adult attachment styles was negatively correlated with romantic relationship quality, and that attitudes toward sibling relationships and adult attachment styles predicted romantic relationship quality. Findings only partly supported the hypotheses, indicating that more positive attitudes toward sibling relationships and lower use of behaviors associated with avoidant attachment style influenced and predicted higher romantic relationship quality.

Family building by bisexual mothers is a neglected area of research, yet this is an important aspect of life course development that may reciprocally influence the sexual identity development of bisexual women and family processes around parenting. Family map drawings (genograms) and interview data were collected from eight cis-gender women from the UK and Republic of Ireland who spoke about their bisexual parenting experience and family relationships. Thematic narrative analysis indicates that participants depict both heteronormative (traditional) extended kinship networks radiating out from a family core centering on them and their children and family of choice network features. Nonetheless certain features appear to be more indirectly presented on some participants’ family maps: namely, complex or marginalized (erased) relationships with additional partners that may sustain sexual identity but contradict both heteronormative and homonormative presentations of family life. Our discussion considers the difficult issues bisexual mothers face in maintaining both their family relationships and a marginalized sexual identity.

This study examines how gender and family attitudes moderate the relationship between domestic labor and marital satisfaction in Korea, where the heavy and unequal burden of domestic labor on women intersects with traditional familism and gender ideology. We analyze panel data from the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families ( n = 11,488). Our individual fixed-effect regressions reveal that women’s time spent on domestic labor is negatively associated with the marital satisfaction of younger wives (in their 20s and 30s) when they do not hold traditional family attitudes. However, younger women’s satisfaction is positively associated with their husbands’ share of domestic labor regardless of the women’s gender-role attitudes. For older women (in their 40s or older), we find no evidence for either interaction effect. With the continued erosion of traditional familism in Korea, the burden of domestic labor may become more problematic for younger women’s marriages.

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to expand knowledge about the impact of paternal incarceration on fathering in three specific ways: (a) we explore fathers’ involveme...

This article examines the prevalence of partnership formation at different life stages and analyses whether the determinants of partnership formation change over the life course. Data were obtained...

Using hierarchical age–period–cohort growth curve models, this study assesses changes in gender disparities in housework time across Chinese adults’ life course and across different birth cohorts. The results revealed three key findings. First, inconsistent with convergence theory, the Chinese family is still a male-dominated but male-absent family, with women still doing the majority of domestic work and showing no signs of decline with age. Second, as they age, Chinese women and men present diverging tendencies toward time spent on housework: Women tend to dedicate more time to it, and men less, resulting in a widening gender gap in housework with age. Third, although recent cohorts present lower levels of housework time than previous cohorts, this is because men from recent cohorts are doing less housework, while their female counterparts are doing almost as much as women from earlier cohorts.

We examine the pathways by which parents influence adolescents’ close friendships, focusing on three types of behavioral styles: hostile, warm, and problem solving. Structural equation models are estimated using data at two time points from the Iowa Youth and Families Project ( N = 227 friendship pairs). Results suggest that the lives of adolescents and both their mother and father are inexorably linked. Observed interactions with a close friend at Time 2 reveal teens recreate their parents’ original hostile, supportive, and problem-solving styles from Time 1. This outcome depends on (a) type of behavior and (b) gender. Mothers’ supportive behavior, fathers’ problem solving, and both parents’ hostile behavior significantly influence adolescents’ comparable interaction styles. Adolescents’ subsequent behavior toward their friend significantly affects friendship quality. Lower levels of hostile behavior in female youth, increased problem solving by males, and supportive actions toward a friend for both relate positively to rewarding friendships.

Using a large-scale sample of online daters in eight European countries ( N = 196,777), we examine willingness to stepparent among divorcees in relation to both gender and number of children, as well as a set of contextual determinants. We find evidence that having one’s own resident children increases the readiness to partner someone with children. Contrary to previous findings, women are generally less willing to stepparent than men, but when resident children are present, gender dissimilarities fade. Notable national differences are also found. Divorced mothers living in Sweden, the Netherlands, Austria, or France are more open to having a partner with children, whereas Polish and Spanish divorced mothers would be less willing to stepparent. These results are interpreted in light of each country’s institutional background.

The impact of substance use on the life course of young adults can be substantial, yet few studies have examined to what extent early adult substance use behaviors are related to the timing of family formation, independent of confounding factors from adolescence. Using panel data from the Monitoring the Future study (N~20,000), the current study examined the associations between three substance use behaviors (i.e., cigarette use, binge drinking, and marijuana use) and the timing of family formation events in young adulthood. Survival analysis and propensity score weighting addressed pre-existing differences between substance users and non-users in the estimation of the timing of union formation (i.e., marriage, cohabitation) and parenthood. Results for young adult substance users showed general patterns of reduced rates of marriage and parenthood, and increased cohabitation during young adulthood. Variations were evident by substance and sex.

Despite fertility decline across economically developed countries, relatively little is known about the social consequences of children being raised with fewer siblings. Much research suggests that growing up with fewer siblings is probably positive, as children tend to do better in school when sibship size is small. Less scholarship, however, has explored how growing up with few siblings influences children’s ability to get along with peers and develop long-term meaningful relationships. If siblings serve as important social practice partners during childhood, individuals with few or no siblings may struggle to develop successful social lives later in adulthood. With data from the General Social Surveys 1972-2012, we explore this possibility by testing whether sibship size during childhood predicts the probability of divorce in adulthood. We find that, among those who ever marry, each additional sibling is associated with a 3% decline in the likelihood of divorce, net of covariates.

The intergenerational ambivalence paradigm is a critical lens for understanding the complexities of aging families, and researchers have begun to explore the potential changes and implications of ambivalence over the life course. This study is one of few to examine trajectories of ambivalence over 13 years and is the first to include two birth cohorts of reciprocal parent–child dyads. This research uses five waves of the Longitudinal Study of Generations to assess changes in ambivalence and reciprocal influences among 903 parent–child dyads using latent growth models. Primary findings show an overall decline in ambivalence over time with different patterns by generation, cohort/life stage, and gender. Children experienced greater levels of ambivalence than parents. There is a reciprocal influence of ambivalence in parent–child dyads; parents and children have similar trajectories of ambivalence and the older generation of parents’ ambivalence exerted influence on the change in their children’s ambivalence over time. This study highlights the importance of using longitudinal data and reciprocal dyads in intergenerational research and adds to theory about the important influences of life stages, social contexts, and linked lives on intergenerational ambivalence.

In the present study, the effect of partners’ social support on women’s reentry into the labor market is examined by means of discrete-time event history analysis using the German Socio-Economic Panel (1984-2013). In doing so, we take into account partners’ instrumental and emotional support. A special focus is placed on the moderating effect of partners’ relative resources on partners’ support. Results reveal that both partners’ instrumental and partners’ emotional support play a major role in women’s return to employment. Particularly with a more egalitarian division of domestic labor and child care, women have a higher likelihood of returning to the labor market. However, a partner’s reduction of working hours can also accelerate women’s reemployment. In addition, we find moderating effects of partners’ resource constellations on partners’ support: with a partner’s increasing comparative advantage, help with housework facilitates labor market reentry, while educational homogamy moderates the effect of a partner’s emotional support.

Families in the United States are increasingly diverse, which has given rise to questions about the consequences these new family forms have for children’s outcomes. This study uses a life course perspective to examine the association between family transitions, nontraditional family structures (with particular attention to same-sex parent families), and children’s psychosocial well-being. The Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten cohort was used to examine children’s externalizing well-being, internalizing well-being, and interpersonal skills. Results indicate that nontraditional family structures are associated with poorer psychosocial well-being, but this is largely accounted for by changes and transitions experienced in the creation of new families. The findings provide a critical look at the assumptions embedded in arguments focused solely on family structure, and joins other research in calling attention to the importance of family processes for understanding the well-being of children.

Women, particularly those in coresidential unions, have previously been found to spend less time commuting to work than men. This gender gap among couples’ commuting has been linked to inferior labor market opportunities for women. How gender differences in commuting emerge on entering coresidence is underresearched, however. This study examines changes in commuting times at the transition from singlehood to coresidential unions using the British Household Panel Survey (1992-2008; N = 8,122 individuals). Results from fixed effects regression indicate that men increase their commuting time when entering coresidential unions. For childless women, entering coresidential unions is not associated with changes in commuting time. Mothers reduce their commuting time on entering coresidential unions. Changes in labor income and domestic housework responsibilities, previously suggested as likely explanations, are not found to contribute to observed changes in commuting among those entering coresidential unions in this study.

The current study explores multiple contexts of development—community, family, and relationship—that predict African American emerging adults’ marital beliefs. Findings suggest that nonmarital relationship experiences and childhood community contexts are robust and independent predictors of marital beliefs. The important role of childhood community context found here suggests that communities may not only be indicative of opportunity structure in local marriage markets but may also be indicative of the virtual structure that shapes marital meaning. By offering a better understanding of the extent to which marital beliefs are embedded in broader community, family, and relationship contexts, the current findings may be used to better specify promising models aiming to understand the causal implications of these beliefs across the transition to adulthood and later in the life course.

Individuals working long hours and/or experiencing work-related stress, including work–family conflict, are less likely to engage in health-promoting behaviors. Grounded in a life course perspective and guided by the conceptualization of life course fit, this study examined appraisals of fit between work and family roles and engagement in health-promoting behaviors, specifically physical activity and family meals, using a sample of parents ( n = 811). The sample was drawn from the 2008 National Study of the Changing Workforce, a nationally representative sample of workers in the United States. Results suggest that multiple dimensions of fit were associated with greater frequency of exercise and family meals. Furthermore, parenting demands and eldercare moderated these associations. A better understanding of the proximal processes related to engagement in health-promoting behaviors would be valuable in understanding how to secure the health and well-being of families for the future.

A growing number of studies examine how, why, and when people form and maintain living apart together (LAT) relationships. Although this literature shows that LAT is a diverse and ambiguous practice, little is known about whether people live apart together in particular ways under distinct constellations of life course circumstances. Moreover, it is unclear how intentions to convert LAT into cohabitation are configured by life trajectories. Drawing on data from an unprecedentedly large survey of people in LAT partnerships, we construct a fourfold typology of individuals in LAT relationships and show that each of the identified profiles is characterized by a distinctive position in the life course and different cohabitation intentions. These results indicate that LAT is a flexible way to practice partnership within the context of life course circumstances.

Childhood adversity has enduring consequences for individuals throughout life, including increased reactivity to stress that may contribute to marital strain in adulthood. Past research on gendered experiences of heterosexual spouses raises questions about how the influence of childhood adversity might differ for men and women in same-sex marriages. We analyze dyadic diary data from 756 individuals in 106 male same-sex, 157 female same-sex, and 115 different-sex marriages to consider how childhood adversity moderates the association between daily stress and marital strain. Results suggest that the negative consequences of daily stress for marital strain are amplified by past childhood adversity with variation for men and women in same- and different-sex unions, such that women and those in same-sex marriages may experience some protection from the adverse consequences of childhood adversity.

Exposure to physical and psychological intimate partner violence, victimization (IPV) at age 18 has several consequences for relationships at age 23 among a diverse community-based sample of young people, transitioning to adulthood in Chicago ( N = 276). We find exposure to physical IPV increases the likelihood of being single and not involved in relationships in the transition to adulthood among young women. Furthermore, we find evidence of both continuity and change in intimate violence exposure over the early life course. Young men who were exposed to physical and psychological violence at age 18 are likely to be involved in violent relationships compared with nonviolent relationships in young adulthood. However, some young women and men transition out of violent relationships by young adulthood, supporting patterns of change. Our findings of both relationship dissolution among women and relationship continuity in terms of further violence exposure among men warrant further policy consideration.

Drawing on the life course paradigm, I assess how the effect of fatherhood on employment hours varies by age of becoming a parent and time elapsed since the birth. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth–1979 Cohort from 1979 to 2002 ( N = 28,514 observations), separate effects are estimated based on fathers’ marital status and coresidence with own children. Only unmarried men who became fathers before 24 years work longer hours immediately after a first birth, but in the long run, most early fathers work fewer hours as a result of parenthood. Over time, unmarried but coresident men who became fathers between 24 and 29 years increase their hours, as do married, coresident men who delayed fatherhood until 30 years or older. However, the latter increase is moderated by support for egalitarian gender roles. The findings shed light on the contemporary transition to adulthood and on men’s work–family balance.

This article investigates the extended family social support networks of Caribbean Black adults (Afro-Caribbeans). Although there are several ethnographic accounts of familial ties and support exchanges among Black Caribbean immigrants, only a handful of studies use quantitative data. This article uses data from the National Survey of American Life, which contains the first national probability sample of Caribbean Blacks in the United States. Age, gender, income, material hardship, and immigration status were all associated with at least one of the four indicators of family support networks. Subjective family closeness and frequency of family contact were significantly associated with both giving and receiving informal support. A significant age and parental status interaction for receiving support indicated that older adults without children received assistance from their extended families less frequently than older adults with children. Overall, study findings affirm the importance of extended family networks for Caribbean Black adults.

This article presents selected results from the analysis of marriage migration processes from Turkey to Germany, based on fieldwork and interviews conducted with intraethnic transnational couples. The findings indicate that the relationships of these transnational couples are marked by specificities due to the spatial distance between them and the legislation regulating spousal immigration to Germany. The marriage rituals differ from local marriages as the temporal spacing of events is adapted to the steps that have to be taken in order to obtain a family unification visa. The period during which the marriage migrant attends a language course in Turkey to prepare for the obligatory exam is particularly stressful. By combining the analysis of temporal aspects of marriage processes with perceptions and evaluations of individuals who are engaged in these relationships, the article provides a fine-grained picture of the dynamics of transnational intimate relationships in the premigration period.

Does adulthood physical health continue to reflect parental support and warmth received during childhood? Although previous research supports this continuity, I examine this question according to a sex-matching perspective. Drawing on representative cross-sectional data featuring detailed measures of maternal and paternal warmth (1995 National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States), I focus on adults who came of age in traditional two-parent households containing a biological mother and father. Across three physical health outcomes, I find strong support for sex-matching, in that paternal warmth during childhood is usually more important to male adulthood health whereas maternal warmth tends to be more important to female adulthood health. Sex-matching effects are especially evident for physical health difficulties (number of chronic health conditions and functional limitations). These findings provide a new lens through which to view physical health disparities among today’s middle- to late-aged adults who came of age in traditional households.

This study addresses the similarities and differences in fatherhood across two generations, relying on the experiences of fathers and their sons. Twenty representative father and son dyads were selected from a larger sample of participants in a longitudinal study examining the leaving home transition in Israel. The fathers and their sons were interviewed about their attachment relationships using the Adult Attachment Interview. Fathers were also interviewed about their parenting via the Parenting Representations Interview–Adolescence. Transcripts of the interviews were analyzed using a qualitative phenomenological approach. Four central themes of intergenerational transmission, mostly reflecting differences rather than similarities across the two generations, were identified: from poverty and shortage to indulgence, from strictness and respect to permissiveness, from precocious maturity to normative development, and from distance to intimacy and closeness. Fathers appear to want to provide their sons with experiences that they missed as children. They appear to be successful in these endeavors, yet surprised by some of the unforeseen outcomes, such as their sons being spoiled and manipulative.