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Objective: The goal was to assess how cohesive parents perceive their stepfamilies to be and to explain how cohesion relates to aspects of stepfamily structure. Background: Cohesion is important to study as it can bolster the well‐being of stepfamily members. Prior research has mostly considered relationship qualities as predictors of cohesion. Little is known about differences in cohesion by family structure (i.e., whether parents have a shared child, whether the stepfamily is simple or complex, and in which households the respective children live). Method: We analyzed data from a sample of Dutch divorced parents (N = 3,056) using linear regression. Results: Parents perceived their stepfamilies as very cohesive. Having a shared child with the current partner was associated with higher perceptions of cohesion, whereas having a stepchild was associated with lower perceptions of cohesion. Non‐ or part‐time residency of parents' biological child from their previous relationship or their potential stepchild was associated with lower perceptions of cohesion. Cohesion was lowest in complex stepfamilies in which parents' biological children and potential stepchildren followed nonaligning residence arrangements. Conclusion: Aspects of stepfamily structure appear to affect perceptions of stepfamily cohesion. These findings imply that well‐being of stepfamily members in complicated stepfamily structures might be lower. Implications: To understand stepfamily cohesion and design therapeutic approaches for stepfamilies, it is crucial to look beyond relationship qualities and explicitly consider the role of stepfamily structure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective Background Method Results Conclusion This study examines how the division of childcare and child‐related expenses after divorce affects fairness perceptions of mothers and fathers.Previous research has focused on married families and found that unequal divisions of household labor are often regarded as fair. This study investigates whether fairness perceptions are also common for divorced parents for whom the division of childrearing responsibilities may be a sensitive issue.The analyses were based on data from Wave 3 of the New Families in the Netherlands survey, which was conducted in 2020 among a random sample of divorced or separated parents (N = 2963).The division of childcare and child‐related expenses after divorce was perceived as fair by about half of parents, yet for childcare this was nearly 60% for fathers. Higher contributions to child‐related expenses were associated with stronger unfairness perceptions. For childcare, not only parents who contributed a lot but also parents contributing little were most likely to perceive the division as unfair (with parents with more equal contributions falling in between). Mothers were more sensitive to inequitable divisions of childrearing responsibilities than fathers.Unfairness perceptions are relatively widespread in postdivorce families suggesting that the division of childrearing responsibilities is less taken for granted after divorce. Time and money investments of divorced parents relate differently to unfairness perceptions, and postdivorce fairness perceptions and processes are gendered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Divorce is costly for parents because of the challenges of meeting children’s economic and socio-emotional needs after separation. Using the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 1,935), we investigate whether expected economic and parenting costs deter divorce. Mothers expect higher economic costs than fathers, whereas fathers expect more parenting difficulties. The majority of mothers and fathers, however, expect high economic and parenting costs. In a large minority of families mothers and fathers differ in their expected costs. Furthermore, only parenting costs deter divorce, not economic costs, and mothers’ parenting concerns are a greater barrier to divorce than fathers’ concerns when parents disagree. Finally, expected parenting costs are more of a barrier to divorce for unhappy than happy couples.

Cohabiters have been shown to invest less in their relationship than married couples. This study investigated the role of legal and interpersonal commitment by examining heterogeneity within marital and cohabiting unions. Going beyond the dichotomy of cohabitation versus marriage, different union types were distinguished by their level of legal and interpersonal commitment, followed by an assessment of their association with joint investments (specialization, having children together, purchasing a home). Using panel data from The Netherlands (N = 2,362), the authors found considerable heterogeneity within marital and cohabiting unions. Joint investments increased as interpersonal commitment increased, with cohabiters without marriage plans investing the least and couples who directly married without prior cohabitation investing the most. The relationship between investments and legal union types was less straightforward and often challenged expectations, prompting the authors to elaborate on alternative explanations for their findings.

This study examined whether past grandparental child care is related to present support from adult children. On the basis of social exchange theory, the authors expected that grandparental child care creates a debt that is repaid in the form of receiving support later in life. Using data from the Longitudinal Aging Study Amsterdam (N = 349 parents, N = 812 adult children), the authors found that grandparents who frequently provided child care for sons in the past more often received instrumental and emotional support from these sons approximately 13 years later than grandparents who less frequently provided child care. Investments in daughters did not pay off. Instrumental support other than child-care provision did not predict receiving support from either sons or daughters, but emotional support did. These results support the notion of long-term reciprocity in parent-child relationships, but its importance depends on the child's gender and the type of earlier investment.

Research on the division of household labor has typically examined the role of time availability, relative resources, and gender ideology. We explore the gendered meaning of domestic work by examining the role of men's and women's attitudes toward household labor. Using data from the Dutch Time Competition Survey (N = 732), we find that women have more favorable attitudes toward cleaning, cooking, and child care than do men: Women enjoy it more, set higher standards for it, and feel more responsible for it. Furthermore, women's favorable and men's unfavorable attitudes are associated with women's greater contribution to household labor. Effects are stronger for housework than child care, own attitudes matter more than partner's, and men's attitudes are more influential than women's.

This study examines long-term effects of parental divorce on sibling relationships in adulthood and the role of predivorce parental conflict. It used large-scale retrospective data from the Netherlands that contain reports from both siblings of the sibling dyad. Results show limited effects of parental divorce on sibling contact and relationship quality in adulthood but strong effects on sibling conflict. The greater conflict among siblings from divorced families is explained by the greater parental conflict in these families. Parental conflict is a far more important predictor than parental divorce per se. Siblings from high-conflict families have less contact, lower relationship quality, and more conflict than do siblings from low-conflict families. Finally, when it comes to sibling relationship quality, the effect of parental divorce depends on the amount of parental conflict. Parental divorce has little effect on the quality of the relationship in low-conflict families, but it improves the relationship in high-conflict families. (Contains 2 tables.)

Using cross-sectional data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (N = 1,231), this study examines the relationship between grandchildren and their grandparents across early adulthood. Age is used as a proxy for change during the grandchild's life course and the influence of major life course characteristics is examined. Results indicate that the majority of young adult grandchildren have contact with their grandparents, but the average frequency is low. Age differences in contact frequency suggest a decline in grandparent--grandchild contact across early adulthood. Multilevel analyses show that grandchildren's employment status, partner, and parenthood status do not affect contact frequency with grandparents. Rather, the results point at the importance of the parental home for facilitating grandparent--grandchild contact as age-related differences are accounted for by whether grandchildren left the parental home. Furthermore, most of the variance in grandparent--grandchild contact is attributable to differences between family of the mother's and family of the father's side. (Contains 1 table and 1 figure.)

This study examines whether the financial and time pressures associated with spouses' working lives play a role in the relation between work and divorce during the first years of marriage. Using retrospective data from the Netherlands, the results show that divorce is more likely when the husband works on average fewer hours and the wife more hours during the first years of marriage. Furthermore, couples facing more financial problems and those spending less time together have a higher divorce risk. The findings partly support the hypothesis that greater financial strains are responsible for the higher divorce risk when husbands work fewer hours. About 15% of the higher divorce risk of husbands working fewer hours is explained by the resulting greater financial strains. No support is found for the hypothesis that the higher divorce risk of women who work more hours is due to a decrease in marital interaction time.