Showing papers in "Journal of Marriage and Family in 2000"

A Treatise on the Family

Abstract: A Treatise on the Family. G. S. Becker. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1981. Gary Becker is one of the most famous and influential economists of the second half of the 20th century, a fervent contributor to and expounder of the University of Chicago free-market philosophy, and winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in economics. Although any book with the word "treatise" in its title is clearly intended to have an impact, one coming from someone as brilliant and controversial as Becker certainly had such a lofty goal. It has received many article-length reviews in several disciplines (Ben-Porath, 1982; Bergmann, 1995; Foster, 1993; Hannan, 1982), which is one measure of its scholarly importance, and yet its impact is, I think, less than it may have initially appeared, especially for scholars with substantive interests in the family. This book is, its title notwithstanding, more about economics and the economic approach to behavior than about the family. In the first sentence of the preface, Becker writes "In this book, I develop an economic or rational choice approach to the family." Lest anyone accuse him of focusing on traditional (i.e., material) economics topics, such as family income, poverty, and labor supply, he immediately emphasizes that those topics are not his focus. "My intent is more ambitious: to analyze marriage, births, divorce, division of labor in households, prestige, and other non-material behavior with the tools and framework developed for material behavior." Indeed, the book includes chapters on many of these issues. One chapter examines the principles of the efficient division of labor in households, three analyze marriage and divorce, three analyze various child-related issues (fertility and intergenerational mobility), and others focus on broader family issues, such as intrafamily resource allocation. His analysis is not, he believes, constrained by time or place. His intention is "to present a comprehensive analysis that is applicable, at least in part, to families in the past as well as the present, in primitive as well as modern societies, and in Eastern as well as Western cultures." His tone is profoundly conservative and utterly skeptical of any constructive role for government programs. There is a clear sense of how much better things were in the old days of a genderbased division of labor and low market-work rates for married women. Indeed, Becker is ready and able to show in Chapter 2 that such a state of affairs was efficient and induced not by market or societal discrimination (although he allows that it might exist) but by small underlying household productivity differences that arise primarily from what he refers to as "complementarities" between caring for young children while carrying another to term. Most family scholars would probably find that an unconvincingly simple explanation for a profound and complex phenomenon. What, then, is the salient contribution of Treatise on the Family? It is not literally the idea that economics could be applied to the nonmarket sector and to family life because Becker had already established that with considerable success and influence. At its core, microeconomics is simple, characterized by a belief in the importance of prices and markets, the role of self-interested or rational behavior, and, somewhat less centrally, the stability of preferences. It was Becker's singular and invaluable contribution to appreciate that the behaviors potentially amenable to the economic approach were not limited to phenomenon with explicit monetary prices and formal markets. Indeed, during the late 1950s and throughout the 1960s, he did undeniably important and pioneering work extending the domain of economics to such topics as labor market discrimination, fertility, crime, human capital, household production, and the allocation of time. Nor is Becker's contribution the detailed analyses themselves. Many of them are, frankly, odd, idiosyncratic, and off-putting. …

The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children

Abstract: I use a divorce-stress-adjustment perspective to summarize and organize the empirical literature on the consequences of divorce for adults and children. My review draws on research in the 1990s to answer five questions: How do individuals from married and divorced families differ in well-being? Are these differences due to divorce or to selection? Do these differences reflect a temporary crisis to which most people gradually adapt or stable life strains that persist more or less indefinitely? What factors mediate the effects of divorce on individual adjustment? And finally, what are the moderators (protective factors) that account for individual variability in adjustment to divorce? In general, the accumulated research suggests that marital dissolution has the potential to create considerable turmoil in people's lives. But people vary greatly in their reactions. Divorce benefits some individuals, leads others to experience temporary decrements in well-being, and forces others on a downward trajectory from which they might never recover fully. Understanding the contingencies under which divorce leads to these diverse outcomes is a priority for future research.

The Social Psychology of Groups

Abstract: The Social Psychology of Groups. J. W Thibaut & H. H. Kelley. New York: alley, 1959. The team of Thibaut and Kelley goes back to 1946 when, after serving in different units of the armed services psychology program, the authors joined the Research Center for Group Dynamics, first at M.LT and then at the University of Michigan. Their continued association eventuated in appointments as fellows at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, 19561957. It is during these years that their collaboration resulted in the publication of The Social Psychology of Groups. The book was designed to "bring order and coherence to present-day research in interpersonal relations and group functioning." To accomplish this aim, the authors introduced, defined, and illustrated basic concepts in an effort to explain the simplest of social phenomena, the two-person relationship. These basic principles and concepts were then employed to illuminate larger problems and more complex social relationships and to examine the significance of such concepts as roles, norm, power, group cohesiveness, and status. The lasting legacy of this book is derived from the fact that the concepts and principles discussed therein serve as a foundation for one of the dominant conceptual frameworks in the field of family studies today-the social exchange framework. Specifically, much of our contemporary thinking about the process of interpersonal attraction and about how individuals evaluate their close relationships has been influenced by the theory and concepts introduced in The Social Psychology of Groups. Today, as a result of Thibaut and Kelley, we think of interpersonal attraction as resulting from the unique valence of driving and restraining forces, rewards and costs, subjectively thought to be available from a specific relationship and its competing alternatives. We understand, as well, that relationships are evaluated through complex and subjectively based comparative processes. As a result, when we think about assessing the degree to which individuals are satisfied with their relationships, we take into consideration the fact that individuals differ in terms of the importance they attribute to different aspects of a relationship (e.g., financial security, sexual fulfillment, companionship). We also take into consideration the fact that individuals differ in terms of the levels of rewards and costs that they believe are realistically obtainable and deserved from a relationship. In addition, as a result of Thibaut and Kelley's theoretical focus on the concept of dependence and the interrelationship between attraction and dependence, there has evolved within the field of family studies a deeper appreciation for the complexities and variability found within relationships. Individuals are dependent on their relationships, according to Thibaut and Kelley, when the outcomes derived from the existing relationship exceed those perceived to be available in competing alternatives. Individuals who are highly dependent on their relationships are less likely to act to end their relationships. This dependence and the stability it engenders may or may not be voluntary, depending on the degree to which individuals are attracted to and satisfied with their relationships. When individuals are both attracted to and dependent on their relationships, they can be thought of as voluntarily participating in their relationship. That is, they are likely to commit themselves to the partner and relationship and actively work for its continuance. Thibaut and Kelley termed those relationships characterized by low levels of satisfaction and high levels of dependence "nonvoluntary relationships. …

Research on household labor : Modeling and measuring the social embeddedness of routine family work

Abstract: This article reviews more than 200 scholarly articles and books on household labor published between 1989 and 1999. As a maturing area of study, this body of research has been concerned with understanding and documenting how housework is embedded in complex and shifting social processes relating to the well-being of families, the construction of gender, and the reproduction of society. Major theoretical, methodological, and empirical contributions to the study of household labor are summarized, and suggestions for further research are offered. In summary, women have reduced and men have increased slightly their hourly contributions to housework. Although men's relative contributions have increased, women still do at least twice as much routine housework as men. Consistent predictors of sharing include both women's and men's employment, earnings, gender ideology, and life-course issues. More balanced divisions of housework are associated with women perceiving fairness, experiencing less depression, and enjoying higher marital satisfaction.

Research on the Nature and Determinants of Marital Satisfaction: A Decade in Review

Abstract: Scientific study of marital satisfaction attracted widespread attention in the 1990s from scholars representing diverse orientations and goals. This article highlights key conceptual and empirical advances that have emerged in the past decade, with particular emphasis on (a) interpersonal processes that operate within marriage, including cognition, affect, physiology, behavioral patterning, social support, and violence; (b) the milieus within which marriages operate, including microcontexts (e.g., the presence of children, life stressors and transitions) and macrocontexts (e.g., economic factors, perceived mate availability); and (c) the conceptualization and measurement of marital satisfaction, including 2-dimensional, trajectory-based, and social-cognitive approaches. Notwithstanding the continued need for theoretical progress in understanding the nature and determinants of marital satisfaction, we conclude by calling for more large-scale longitudinal research that links marital processes with sociocultural contexts, for more disconfirmatory than confirmatory research, and for research that directly guides preventive, clinical, and policy-level interventions.

Research on Domestic Violence in the 1990s: Making Distinctions

Abstract: This review of the family literature on domestic violence suggests that two broad themes of the 1990s provide the most promising directions for the future. The first is the importance of distinctions among types or contexts of violence. Some distinctions are central to the theoretical and practical understanding of the nature of partner violence, others provide important contexts for developing more sensitive and comprehensive theories, and others may simply force us to question our tendency to generalize carelessly from one context to another. Second, issues of control, although most visible in the feminist literature that focuses on men using violence to control “their” women, also arise in other contexts, calling for more general analyses of the interplay of violence, power, and control in relationships. In addition to these two general themes, our review covers literature on coping with violence, the effects on victims and their children, and the social effects of partner violence. She wandered the streets, looking in shop windows. Nobody knew her here. Nobody knew what he did when the door was closed. Nobody knew. (Brant, 1996, pp. 281)

All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community

Abstract: All Our Kin: Strategies for Survival in a Black Community. C. B. Stack. New York: Harper & Row. 1974. Carol Stack wrote one of the most powerful books of the last half century about African American families. The book's power derived from its focus on the stories and the lives of persons who were struggling to manage with limited resources and who had evolved seamless methods of survival and coping strategies. Stack was not content to view the problems of impoverished African American families from an outside perspective, as had been done in the past, but chose instead to present her work from the view of the participants. She presented a sensitive view of families that has not been duplicated to this day. Stack put specific emphasis on being accepted by the families before she began interviewing them. She and her son took a long time to be accepted by the families as they gradually became participants in the day-to-day lives of the "Flats." She was sensitive to the patterns of interactions among the networks of family and friends that would have been overlooked by almost any other researcher or method of observation. The book showed how a person from another racial and economic group was able, with skill, to become an intimate part of the experience and the lives of very poor families. Her anthropological approach stands in sharp contrast to the countless attempts of others to quickly go in and pull out slices of families' lives with a preexisting conceptual framework. The African American families of the Flats were presented as they were, not from a White academic theoretical perspective that was not based on reality. Stack made many observations that allowed one to see the intricate workings of the families that "outsiders" had not been documented before. Participants were allowed to make observations about their own families' patterns of interaction and to uncover truths of family functioning based on the reality of their lives. Important data on these second-generation urban dwellers are presented in such a calm manner that one could overlook their significance to the field. The impact of the economic pressures on the men and women in the African American community show how persons can have mainstream values but are prevented from achieving them because of the lack of employment and economic security within the community. In response to the reality, Stack found that African Americans have cooperated to produce an adaptive strategy of exchanging goods and trading resources, as well as offering child care or temporary fosterage. Kinship boundaries were more elastic than they were in more affluent families because these individuals immersed themselves in a domestic network of kinfolk and fictive kin, or those who became as kin. The participants in Stack's study moved around and had loyalties to more than one household grouping at a time, making their family networks unlike the "household" structures of most American families. These networks were diffused over several kin-based households that changed frequently. The usual method of arbitrarily specifying widely accepted definitions of the family as nuclear or matrilocal may block one from seeing the world as it exists in very poor communities. Stack's observations refuted the "culture of poverty" position that had seen African Americans as having no culture or totally negative qualities of family disorganization, personal disorganization, and fatalism. Unfortunately, too many current writings on African Americans still take these same positions. The views may be the result of ignorance, naivete, or complex levels of racism that insidiously make their way into present family literature. Stack continued to reflect on the poverty of the participants' situations. By doing so, she avoided another position that is all too common-assumption that all African American families are the same, regardless of their levels of poverty or affluence. …

Scholarship on Fatherhood in the 1990s and Beyond

Abstract: Throughout the 1990s, scholars interested in fatherhood have generated a voluminous, rich, and diverse body of work. We selectively review this literature with an eye toward prominent theoretical, methodological, and substantive issues. This burgeoning literature, complemented by social policy makers' heightened interest in fathers and families, focuses on fatherhood in at least 4 key ways. First, theorists have studied fatherhood as a cultural representation that is expressed through different sociocultural processes and embedded in a larger ecological context. Second, researchers have conceptualized and examined the diverse forms of fatherhood and father involvement. Third, attempts have been made to identify the linkages between dimensions of the father-child relationship and developmental outcomes among children and fathers. Fourth, scholars have explored the father identity as part of a reciprocal process negotiated by men, children, mothers, and other interested parties. Our review highlights research that examines the relationships between dimensions of the father-child relationship and children's well-being and development. We conclude by discussing promising avenues of scholarship for the next generation of research on fatherhood.

Conceiving and Investigating Motherhood: The Decade's Scholarship

Abstract: Mothering and motherhood are the subjects of a rapidly expanding body of literature. Considered in this decade review are two predominant streams in this work. One is the theorizing of mothering and motherhood and the other is the empirical study of the mothering experience. Conceptual developments have been propelled particularly by feminist scholarship, including the increasing attention to race and ethnic diversity and practices. The conceptualizations of the ideology of intensive mothering and of maternal practice are among the significant contributions. Study of mothering has focused attention on a wide array of specific topics and relationships among variables, including issues of maternal well-being, maternal satisfaction and distress, and employment.

Economic Dependence, Gender, and the Division of Labor in the Home: A Replication and Extension

Abstract: The fundamental question in the study of the gendered division of household labor has come to be why, in the face of dramatic changes in women's employment and earnings, housework remains “women's work.” As a possible answer to this question, Brines (1994) presented a provocative conceptual model of the relationship between economic dependence and the performance of housework by wives and husbands. She concluded that the link between economic dependence and housework follows rules of economic exchange for wives, but among husbands, a gender display model is operative. This paper replicates and extends Brines' model by (a) replicating her work using a different data set; (b) adding additional controls to the model, including a measure of gender ideology; and (c) modeling a distributional (as opposed to absolute) measure of housework. For a measure of hours spent doing housework, the results of my analyses are consistent with Brines' suggestion of separate gender-specific processes linking economic dependence and amount of housework performed. For a distributional measure of housework, on the other hand, my analyses contradict Brines' findings and suggest that both husbands and wives are acting to neutralize a nonnormative provider role when they do housework. Further analyses suggest that the phenomenon is more likely one of deviance neutralization than of gender display.

Reinvestigating Remarriage: Another Decade of Progress

Abstract: The article presents an overview of research and theory on remarriages and stepfamilies published in the 1990s. Remarriage is a term that encompasses several different types of relationships--both partners may be in a second marriage or a higher-order marriage. About 75 percent of divorced people remarry and serial remarriages are increasingly common. As people age, however, the divorce rates of first marriages and remarriages converge. The mean length of time between divorce and remarriage is less than four years. Men remarry at higher rates than do women and blacks and Hispanics remarry at lower rates than whites. A substantial proportion of U.S. births occurs in remarriages. Some first marriages create stepfamilies and stepparent-stepchild relationships. In 1992, 15 percent of all children in the U.S. lived with a mother and a stepfather. Although the presence of stepchildren is thought to lower marital quality for remarried adults, the effects are not always strong. A number of intrapersonal, interpersonal and societal-level explanations have been proposed for the greater instability of remarriages. Adolescent stepchildren also generally showed more externalizing behavioral problems than children living with both parents such as using drugs and alcohol, engaging in sexual intercourse, nonmarital childbearing and being arrested.

The Intergenerational Transmission of Spouse Abuse: A Meta‐Analysis

Abstract: This study uses meta-analytic procedures to examine the relationship between growing up in a violent home and subsequently becoming part of a violent marital relationship Our meta-analysis examines published and unpublished research studies that investigate the relationship between witnessing or experiencing family violence in childhood and receiving or perpetrating violence in an adult heterosexual cohabiting or marital relationship The findings of this meta-analysis suggest there is a weak-to-moderate relationship between growing up in an abusive family and becoming involved in a violent marital relationship Differential effects of gender and sample type are also discussed

Work and family in the 1990s

Abstract: This review highlights four themes emerging from the work and family literature of the 1990s. The first theme evolves from the historical legacy of the maternal employment literature with its focus on children's well-being. The second theme, work socialization, is based on the premise that occupational conditions, such as autonomy and complexity, shape the values of workers who in turn generalize these lessons off the job. Research on work stress, the third theme, explores how experiences of short- and long-term stress at work make their mark on workers' behavior and well-being off the job. Finally, the multiple roles literature focuses on how individuals balance roles, such as parent, spouse, and worker, and the consequences for health and family relationships. In addition to these four major themes, advances in work and family policy initiatives over the past decade are discussed. Suggestions for future research focus on addressing issues of causality, attending to the complexity of social contexts, linking research to policy, and developing interdisciplinary theories and research designs.

Sexual Infidelity among Married and Cohabiting Americans

Abstract: Virtually all American couples, married or cohabiting, expect sexual exclusivity of one another This article asks why some people are sexually exclusive while others have sex with someone besides their mate Previous research has linked personal values, sexual opportunities, and quality of the marital relationship to extramartial sex This paper integrates these findings in a multivariate model that incorporates factors informing sexual decision making as well as demographic “risk factors” Nationally representative survey data show higher likelihood of sexual infidelity among those with stronger sexual interests, more permissive sexual values, lower subjective satisfaction with their union, weaker network ties to partner, and greater sexual opportunities With these factors controlled, gender differences are substantially reduced or eliminated, although racial effects persist

Decade Review: Observing Marital Interaction

Abstract: This article reviews the advances made in the decade of the 1990s in observing marital interaction. Many technological advances in data collection, including synchronization of physiology, behavior, and cognition, and advances in data analysis such as sequential analysis, have yielded new understanding and advances in prediction of marital outcomes. The advances have also included the study of developmental processes, including the transition to parenthood and the study of midlife and older marriages. Central advances have been made in the study of affect and the study of power and in their integration. This advance has included the mathematical modeling of interaction using nonlinear difference equations and the development of typologies. There has been an added focus on health outcomes and the bidirectional effects of marriages on children. There has been an expansion of the study of marital interaction to common comorbid psychopathologies. Most important has been emergent theorizing based on the interaction of behavior, perception, and physiology, as well as their predictive power.

The Effects of Parenting on the Development of Adolescent Alcohol Misuse: A Six-Wave Latent Growth Model.

Abstract: Alcohol use increases throughout adolescence. Based on family socialization theory, it was hypothesized that family factors, particularly parental support and monitoring, would influence individual trajectories in the development of alcohol misuse. Six waves of data were analyzed, based on interviews with 506 adolescents in the general population of a northeastern metropolitan area. Using growth-curve longitudinal analysis, results show that parenting significantly predicts adolescents' initial drinking levels (intercepts) as well as their rates of increase in alcohol misuse (slope). This study provides evidence that effective parenting is an important factor in preventing alcohol misuse. Key Words: adolescence, alcohol use, latent growth model, longitudinal study, parenting. A number of studies confirm that the earlier young people initiate alcohol use and frequent heavy drinking, the more likely they are to have alcoholrelated problems and alcohol dependence in adulthood (e.g., Barnes, Welte, & Dintcheff, 1992; Grant & Dawson, 1997). General population studies also show that the rates of alcohol misuse increase throughout adolescence. For instance, in a 1995 national survey of school students, 8% of the eighth graders reported that they had been drunk one or more times in the most recent 30 days, whereas 21% and 33%, respectively, of tenth and twelfth graders reported being drunk in the previous 30 days (Johnston, O'Malley, & Bachman, 1996). Similarly, in three large representative surveys of New York State secondary school students carried out over the past decade, the percentage of students who reported monthly heavy drinking (i.e., having five or more drinks at one time at least once a month for the past year) increased from 7% and 13%, respectively, among 12- and 13-year-olds to 47% and 50%, respectively, among 17- and 18-year-olds (Barnes, Welte, Hoffman, & Dintcheff, 1997). Aggregate rates from cross-sectional surveys such as these are often used to imply individual changes in alcohol misuse across the adolescent-young adult span of the life cycle. However, to more accurately assess changes in alcohol consumption and to determine the predictors of various developmental trajectories in adolescent alcohol misuse, longitudinal studies are required in which the same respondents are followed over time (i.e., panel studies). Thus, the prevention of alcohol misuse and alcoholism requires an understanding of what factors keep adolescents from initiating alcohol misuse and what factors dampen the spiraling increase in alcohol misuse during adolescence. Based on family socialization theory, we propose that parenting factors, particularly parental support and monitoring, are critically important influences on individual trajectories in the development of alcohol misuse throughout adolescence. THEORETICAL MODEL A large body of theoretical and empirical work shows the importance of parenting and parental socialization to the development of a variety of related adolescent problem behaviors, including alcohol misuse, illicit drug abuse, and delinquency (see Barnes, 1990; Barnes & Farrell, 1992; Farrell & Barnes, 1993). In a conceptual model of the development of adolescent alcohol misuse, elaborated elsewhere (Barnes, 1990), family socialization is shown as the linkage between individual factors (psychological and biological) and the larger culture (including sociodemographic factors). In this model, children learn social behaviors, including drinking behaviors, during the socialization process by ongoing interactions with significant others-initially with parents and subsequently with adolescent peers, who become increasingly influential during later adolescence. The parent-child relationships are seen as particularly potent and primary, occurring early in development and continuing throughout adolescence. Although there may be some bidirectional effects of parent and adolescent influences, most of the empirical research supports a "social mold" perspective (Peterson & Rollins, 1987) whereby parents exert powerful influences on the development of their children. …

Marital processes and parental socialization in families of color : A decade review of research

Abstract: and children’s adjustment to marital and family conflict also are reviewed. The third section gives attention to research on (a) paternal involvement among fathers of color; (b) the relation of parenting behavior to race and ethnicity, grandmother involvement, neighborhood and peer characteristics, and immigration; and (c) racial and ethnic socialization. The article concludes with an overview of recent advances in the study of families of color and important challenges and issues that represent research opportunities for the new decade.

Sexuality in marriage, dating, and other relationships: A decade review

Abstract: In this article, we review the major research advances made during the 1990s in the study of sexuality in marriage and other close relationships. More specifically, we provide a critical review of the empirical findings from the last decade on such sexual phenomena as sexual behavior, sexual satisfaction, and sexual attitudes within the context of marriage, dating, and other committed relationships. After highlighting the major theoretical and methodological advances of the 1990s, we focus on the research literatures of: (1) frequency and correlates of sexual activity in marriage; (2) sexual satisfaction, including its association with general relationship satisfaction; (3) sexuality in gay and lesbian committed relationships; (4) trends in sexual behavior and attitudes in dating relationships; and (5) the role of sexuality in dating relationships. We also incorporate brief reviews of the past decade's research on sexual assault and coercion in marriage and dating and on extramarital sex. We end our decade review with recommendations for the study of sexuality into the next decade.

The Timing of Divorce: Predicting When a Couple Will Divorce Over a 14-Year Period

Abstract: This paper investigates the predictability of divorce in a long-term, prospective longitudinal study. Past research has indicated that 2 periods can be considered the most critical for the survival of marriages: (a) the first 7 years of marriage, during which half of all divorces are known to occur, and (b) the period during which the first child reaches 14 years of age, which has been suggested as a low point for marital satisfaction in the life course. In the present study, interaction variables at Time 1 (both during conflict and in an events-of-the-day discussion following separation of the spouses for at least 8 hours) and noninteractive variables were used to predict divorcing both early and later in the marriage. A different set of variables predicted early divorcing than predicted later divorcing. Negative affect during conflict predicted early divorcing, but it did not predict later divorcing. By contrast, the lack of positive affect in events-of-the-day and conflict discussions predicted later divorcing, but it did not predict early divorcing. Prediction was possible over the 14-year period of the study with a model that included marital satisfaction, thoughts of marital dissolution, and affective interaction in both conversations. The model predicted divorce with 93% accuracy.

Change in Gender-Ideology, 1977-1996: The Contributions of Intracohort Change and Population Turnover

Abstract: This paper addresses the processes underlying the dramatic shift in beliefs about womens work and family roles in the US over the past 2 decades Following Mason and Lu (1998) the authors posited this shift to be a function of actual change in individual opinions as well as changes in population membership that result from births and deaths Using pooled cross-sections from the General Social Surveys (1977-96) the authors found that although demographic processes and microlevel attitude change are both important in understanding attitude trends the contribution of cohort succession is substantially greater now than in the period that Mason and Lu examined Multivariate analyses show that 1) the sex difference in attitudes is greater among recent cohorts and 2) the strong association between education and attitudes that characterized earlier cohorts is significantly weaker among cohorts born after 1945 (authors)

Families formed outside of marriage.

Abstract: Cohabitation and childbearing outside of marriage are increasingly common family arrangements in the US. Cohabitation is becoming more like formal marriage in that both are childrearing institutions. Attempts to study the meaning of families formed outside of marriage face the challenge of studying a moving target because the rapid rise in nonmarital families contributes to new meanings and institutional supports. Among these institutions are state policies that formalize ties between members of nonmarital families. This review summarizes the changing demography of cohabitation and nonmarital childbearing considers the causes and effects of these changes describes some recent policies that formalize the relationship between members of families formed outside of marriage. These policies may affect family members behavior. (authors)

Economic Circumstances and Family Outcomes: A Review of the 1990s

Abstract: This review documents the economic context within which American families lived in the 1990s. Despite nearly full employment and growing income and wealth for many Americans, problem areas included persistent racial gaps in economic well-being, growing inequality, and declining wages for young men. Women showed stronger income growth than men in the decade, and 2-earner households became increasingly associated with advantage. We review the consequences of these trends and of economic well-being generally on 4 dimensions of family outcomes: family formation, divorce, marital quality, and child well-being. Despite hypotheses suggesting that women's earnings might have different effects on family outcomes than men's earnings, generally the review supports the expectation that both men's and women's economic advantage is associated with more marriage, less divorce, more marital happiness, and greater child well-being. Important issues regarding measurement, reciprocal relations between family structure and economic well-being, and race and gender effects remain unresolved.

The Future of Marriage

Abstract: The Future of Marriage J S Bernard New York: Bantam Books 1972 Rereading Jessie Bernard's The Future of Marriage almost 30 years after its original publication is much like returning for a visit to one's hometown You are now looking at markers from an earlier time with more informed, more experienced eyes Elementary school seems much smaller than you remember it, the parks aren't as beautiful, the houses more plain and crowded together Seeing these landmarks differently points out how much your world view has shifted and expanded More important than realizing how much your perception of things has changed, the trip home reminds you where you came from and what, from that earlier time, you still carry with you You can see which aspects of that past experience are part of who you are, still structuring your identity So, in a professional way, is the return visit to The Future of Marriage for me Thus, I approach the challenge of reviewing the impact of Bernard's book much as I would approach reviewing my hometown, making an effort to offer an "objective" assessment, while recognizing that I am the offspring of that which I am assessing The initial temptation with a book that makes predictions is to look at the accuracy of the predictions to assess the impact of the book How accurate was Bernard in her vision of how marriage would look today? By this standard, Bernard had some hits and some misses For example, she was on target in predicting a decline in the marriage rate, with alternative forms of intimate relationships filling in the gap The move away from nuclear households to "nuclear fusion" and cooperative households that she predicted has not widely manifest itself, however But to focus on the accuracy of predictions misses the point Bernard herself acknowledged that the business of looking into the future is fraught with peril as many unforeseen forces and random events can wreak havoc on well-grounded predictions The appropriate yardstick for measuring the impact of a scholarly book, I believe, is to ask the question, "How is the scholarly discourse different than it might have been without such a book?" How have the questions we asked, the way we ask them, and what we do with the answers been influenced by this book? The most obvious influence of this book was in directing the attention of scholars and society at large to gender differences and inequity in the experience of marriage Although Bernard and others had written for years about the differential mental health advantage of marriage for men over women, it was not until this book that the scholarly case for the potentially debilitating effects of marriage and parenthood for women was so articulately made Not only did Bernard cite the outcome data as many had done for years, she delved into the societal, interactional, and-to some extent-psychological factors contributing to women's plight That is, she moved beyond the traditional focus on gender differences to focus on the underlying dynamics giving rise to the gender differences Evidence of the impact of this book is seen in the way in which social science research began to pay attention to the construction of gender, to move away from the assumption of uniform experience in families (eg, concepts such as family well-being), and to examine in more detail women's experiences in families Such moves were not without controversy and backlash, but this book was a large part of the impetus that gave voice and direction to feminist researchers as they charted new courses of scholarly inquiry Interestingly, not only did Bernard build the case for the different experience of marriage, but she also provided the language for us to talk about it Terms such as "two marriages" (p 3) and 'his' and 'her' marriage" (p 5) have reached the level of common cultural knowledge both within and outside of academic circles …

Nonstandard Work Schedules and Marital Instability

Abstract: Based on subsample of 3,476 married couples drawn from two waves of the National Survey of Families and Household, this study examines the extent to which working evening, night, or rotating schedules and weekends affects the likelihood of marriages ending in separation or divorce within approximately 5 years. Logistic regression analysis revealed that this relationship depends on the presence of children and is specific to the type of nonstandard schedule, the gender of the spouse, and the duration of marriage. Among men with children, married less than 5 years at Wave 1, working fixed nights made separation or divorce some six times more likely relative to working days. Among women with children, married more than 5 years at Wave 1, working fixed nights increased the odds by three times, and might have had an effect during the earlier years of marriage as well (although not statistically significant). These findings are evident when controlling for the number of hours worked as well as for demographic variables, and when considering, in addition, the husband's and wife's gender ideologies and the extent to which couples spent time alone together. The question of whether spouses in troubled marriages are more likely to move into night or rotating shifts was explored, but this did not seem to be the case.

Family relationships of lesbians and gay men.

Abstract: The family lives of lesbian and gay people have been a source of controversy during the past decade. Despite prejudice and discrimination, lesbians and gay men have often succeeded in creating and sustaining family relationships. Research on same-gender couple relationships, parent-child relationships, and other family relationships is reviewed here. In general, the picture of lesbian and gay relationships emerging from this body of work is one of positive adjustment, even in the face of stressful conditions. Research is also beginning to address questions about individual differences among the family relationships of lesbians and gay men. Future work in this area has the potential to affect lesbian and gay lives, influence developmental and family theory, and inform public policies in the decade ahead.

The Changing Demography of America's Families

Abstract: The authors use data from a variety of sources to describe recent dramatic changes in the composition economic stability and diversity of American families. The declining prevalence of early marriage increasing level of marital dissolution and growing tendency to never marry especially among some racial and ethnic groups reflect changes in the relative economic prospects of men and women and support the conclusion that marriage is becoming less valued as a source of economic stability. These developments also imply that relatively more children are born outside of marriage spend at least part of their childhood in a single-parent household and endure multiple changes in family composition. Paralleling these trends have been sharp changes in the economic stability of families characterized most notably by a growing importance of womens income and increasing economic inequality among American families. (authors)

Parent‐Adolescent Language Use and Relationships Among Immigrant Families With East Asian, Filipino, and Latin American Backgrounds

Abstract: This study examined differences in the quality of relationships between immigrant parents and their adolescent children as a function of the languages with which they speak to one another. Over 620 adolescents with East Asian, Filipino, and Latin American backgrounds completed measures on parent-adolescent language use and relationships. Adolescents who spoke in different languages with their parents reported less cohesion and discussion with their mothers and fathers than did their peers who spoke the same language with their parents. Adolescents who mutually communicated in the native language with their parents reported the highest levels of cohesion and discussion. Longitudinal analyses indicated that whereas language use did not predict differential changes in parent-adolescent relationships over a 2-year period, the quality of relationships did predict changes in language use. The associations between language use and relationships generally existed regardless of the families' ethnic and demographic backgrounds, and these associations did not vary across families of different backgrounds. Key Words: Asian, immigrant families, language use, Latino, parent-adolescent relationships. For the estimated 14 million children from immigrant families in the United States (Rumbaut, 1998), normative developmental changes in family relationships are coupled with the additional challenges of acculturation and adaptation to a new society. More than 80% of U.S. immigrants migrate from Asian Pacific or Latin American countries, and little is known about their adjustment and adaptation (Ring, 1996). Within immigrant families from these countries, children often rapidly learn and adopt the English language, whereas their parents frequently maintain use of their native tongues. A theory of language shift suggests that movement toward English language use among children from immigrant families increases at a dramatic pace during the adolescent years as youths spend more time in contexts outside the home (Veltman, 1983b). These language shifts often occur at a cost to native language use within the home as children quickly develop proficiency and general preference for the English language (Fillmore, 1991; Rumbaut, 1997; Veltman, 1988). Even adolescents who communicate in the native language with their peers may find that their peers do not have sufficient language competencies to aid them in retaining the native language as it is used in the home with parents (Dabene & Moore, 1995; Veltman, 1983a). Immigrant parents, in contrast, are less likely than their children are to develop high levels of English proficiency (Fillmore, 1991). Parental employment in segregated immigrant labor markets or in occupations where they do not regularly learn or use English limits their opportunities to acquire English fluency (Ong & Hee, 1994; Wing, 1994). Furthermore, adults who attempt to learn English through night classes or adult schools may not have the requisite time nor language acquisition abilities to develop strong skills in a second language (Romaine, 1989). The mix of language abilities and preferences among parents and children gives rise to different language use patterns within immigrant families. In some households, parents and adolescents communicate predominantly in English, whereas in other families, they communicate in the native language. Within a third group of families, a complex pattern of nonreciprocal language use emerges wherein immigrant parents predominantly communicate to their children in the native language and children respond in English (Dabene & Moore, 1995). Within these families, parents may differ from their children in the rate and ultimate development of English proficiency, but they are likely to develop a rudimentary understanding of the new language (Veltman, 1983a). In addition, children's shift toward English does not preclude a basic understanding of the native language that their parents continue to use with them. …

Predictors of Divorce Adjustment: Stressors, Resources, and Definitions

Abstract: We used data from 208 individuals who divorced during a 17-year longitudinal study to examine factors that predict adjustment to marital disruption. Using stress and coping theory as a guide, we hypothesized that adjustment would be associated with variables reflecting stressors, resources, and people's definitions of the divorce. Contrary to expectations, we found little evidence that stressors (large declines in per capita income, losing friends, or moving) affected divorce adjustment, except among individuals who were not employed. Adjustment was positively associated with income, dating someone steadily, remarriage, having favorable attitudes toward marital dissolution prior to divorce, and being the partner who initiated the divorce. In addition, older individuals showed some evidence of poorer adjustment than did younger individuals. Language: en

In the Mix, Yet on the Margins: The Place of Families in Urban Neighborhood and Child Development Research

Abstract: In the 1990s, the most popular theoretical and empirical research issue concerning the local ecologies of families focused on the impact of family structures (e.g., household composition) and processes (e.g., child management strategies) on the relationship between urban neighborhoods and child and adolescent development. In this article, we synthesize and critically examine the decade's prevailing literature on the topic, organizing this review into three areas: (a) the research designs of quantitative and ethnographic studies of urban neighborhoods, families, and child outcomes; (b) the conceptual approaches used in these studies; and (c) the role of structural and behavioral features of family and parenting as factors that influence the relationship between urban neighborhoods and child development in ethnically and racially diverse populations. Results suggest that although family has been center stage in the neighborhood effects research question of the decade, it has remained on the margins in terms of theoretical and methodological specificity. Recommendations for future research are also offered. Key Words: child development, families, urban neighborhoods. In this decade review, we synthesize and critique the current scientific literature linking urban neighborhoods, families, and child and adolescent outcomes. Our focus emerged from the dominant conceptual and empirical question posed by researchers about this topic in the 1990s: What impact do structural (e.g., household composition) and process (e.g., child management strategies) features of families have on the relationship between urban neighborhoods and child and adolescent development? Widespread scholarly and public interest in this question was driven by several coalescent forces, including the following: (a) a precipitous rise in concentrated poverty in urban, primarily ethnic and racial minority neighborhoods (Fine & Weis, 1998; Jargowsky, 1997; Kasarda, 1993; Moore & Pinderhughes, 1993; Wilson, Quane, & Rankin, 1998); (b) the dramatic influx of immigrants to the United States, accompanied by notable growth in the number and density of ethnic enclaves in urban and suburban settings (Alba, Logan, Stults, Maran, & Zhang, 1999; Freidenberg, 1995; Margolis, 1998; Portes & Rumbaut, 1996; Zhou, 1992); (c) vivid journalistic and media accounts of social pathologies in inner cities that heightened public concern about the safety of children growing up in economically disadvantaged, highrisk environments and catalyzed an intervention movement for youth and community development initiatives (Aber, Jones, Brown, Chaudry, & Samples, 1998; Armstead & Wexler, 1997; Colley-- Quille, Turner, & Beidel, 1995; Gambone, 1999; Jessor, 1993; Kotlowitz, 1991; Melton, 1992; Schwab-Stone, Ayers, & Kasprow, 1995; Simon & Burns, 1997); and (d) a groundswell of efforts by individual social and applied scientists and interdisciplinary teams of researchers to develop new, and reframe existing, theories of urban neighborhoods and human development (BrooksGunn, Duncan, & Aber, 1997; Moen, Elder, & Luscher, 1995; Sampson, 1999) and test innovative methodological and statistical procedures for examining the lives of families and children in multiple ecological contexts (Earls, McGuire, & Shay 1993; Robertson & Weir, 1998; Raudenbush & Sampson, 1999). The decade's academic and applied research activities with regard to urban neighborhoods, families, and children led to a number of comprehensive literature reviews. Several focused on quantitative studies of urban neighborhoods and child outcomes and, to a limited degree, the impact of family structure and parental monitoring on this relationship (Gephart, 1997; Jencks & Mayer, 1990; Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2000). Others concentrated specifically on qualitative and ethnographic studies of family processes, low-income neighborhoods, and child development (Burton, Obeidallah, & Allison, 1996; Jarrett, 1998b). …

Families With Young Children: A Review of Research in the 1990s

Abstract: Research conducted in the past decade on families with young chidren concentrated on 5 broad topics: (a) the transition to parenthood,' (b) the importance of maternal sensitivity for children's attachment security and subsequent adjustment and social competence; (c) the effectiveness of particular parenting styles and practices; (d) interparental, familial, and broader societal factors influencing parenting behaviors and child adjustment; and (e) the impact of family structure and household composition on children's well-being. Our review documents substantial diversity in family structures, parenting arrangements, and childrearing values and practices both within and across ethnic and racial groups. Collectively, the evidence suggests that in most families with young children, parents and children seem to be doing well. We conclude that substantial work is required to expand the study of families with young children beyond mother-child dyads in White, middle-class, two-parent, first-marriage families.