As a result of the divorce revolution, more children grow up in complex families. Yet, we know little about how family complexity affects relationships when children are adults and parents are ageing. In this article, we use unique survey data to test fundamental ideas about intergenerational ties: the role of biology, partnerships (marriage and cohabitation), residence, and selection. The survey used a register-based oversample of Dutch adults who grew up in nonstandard families, collected data among adult children and their parent figures, and used a double multi-actor design in which adult children reported on their parents and parents reported on their children. Using random-and fixed-effects models, we confirm most hypotheses but the results are highly gendered. For fathers, we find evidence for a partnership premium and no disadvantage of being a stepparent once the length of residence is adjusted. For mothers, the partnership premium is weaker but the effect of biology is strong: stepmotherstepchild ties are much weaker, even after taking residence patterns into account. Biological mothers are the primary kinkeepers, and for fathers of any type, their relationship to children depends on their partnership to the biological mother. Within-family comparisons suggest that selection into divorce and remarriage do not explain these disadvantages.

Objective This study examines the support from stepparents to adult children and considers the role of the composition of the parent network, that is, the presence or absence of the biological mother or father. Background Going beyond previous research that compared the support provided by different types of parental households, this study provides deeper insights into adult stepfamily dynamics by considering support transfers on the stepparent–stepchild dyad level. Method The analyses were based on data from the Ouders en Kinderen in Nederland (Parents and Children in the Netherlands) survey, which was conducted among a stratified random sample of Dutch adults (aged 25–45) with stepparents reporting on support from each of their stepparents (N = 4,351) and biological parents (N = 5,460) separately. Results The results revealed different stories for stepmothers and stepfathers. Within‐child analyses showed that, controlled for the duration of coresidence, children received less types of support from their stepmother than from their biological mother, whereas among fathers, the stepfather provided more. When compared between children, stepmothers provided less types of support if their stepchild's biological mother was still alive, whereas stepfathers' support was unaffected by the biological father's presence. Stepparents of both genders provided less types of support if their partner (i.e., the child's biological parent) was deceased. Conclusion These findings articulate the central role of the biological mother in postseparation families and the ambiguous position of the stepmother and “widowed stepparents.”

executed by a collaboration between a team of researchers at the University of Amsterdam (UvA) and a team of researchers at Statistics Netherlands. Matthijs Kalmijn is a full Professor of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam. His main research fields are family, life course, and intergenerational relationships. He was also codirector of several large-scale surveys in the Netherlands, including the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study and the Netherlands Longitudinal Lifecourse Study. Kalmijn has a PhD from UCLA (1991). Katya Ivanova is a postdoctoral researcher at the Sociology department of University of Amsterdam. Her primary research interests are in the field of family sociology, with a particular focus on the implications of family complexity for intergenerational ties and individual well-being. She received her PhD in Sociology from University of Groningen as a member of the Interuniversity Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology. Ruben van Gaalen is a senior researcher at Statistics Netherlands and a professor by special appointment of register analyses of life course dynamics at the sociology department, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam. He is interested in demographic behaviour, life course dynamics, parent-child relationships, and social inequality and has published widely in the area of family studies in journals like Journal of Family Issues, Journal of Marriage and Family, and Advances in Life Course Research. Suzanne de Leeuw is a PhD student at the Sociology department of the University of Amsterdam. Her main research interests are intergenerational transmission and mobility, divorce and inequality. Her project on the intergenerational transmission process in nonintact families is embedded in the ERC Advanced Grant 'Family Complexity'. Design and content of the OKiN survey 3 Kirsten van Houdt is a PhD student at the Sociology department of University of Amsterdam. Her main research interests are family, intergenerational relationships, and divorce. Her project on adult parent-child relationships is embedded in the ERC Advanced Grant 'Family Complexity'. Frederique van Spijker is a junior researcher at the department of Research, Information and Statistics of the municipality of Amsterdam. Maaike Hornstra is a PhD student at the Sociology department of University of Amsterdam. Her current research interests lie in the field of family sociology with a particular focus on divorce and intergenerational relationships. Her PhD project on relationships in adult childparent networks is embedded in the ERC Advanced grant 'Family Complexity'.

Generally, adult children are perceived to have obligations to support their parents, but now that divorce and remarriage are common phenomena, the question arises to which parent-figures this norm applies. We derive hypotheses on normative obligations towards step-parents and biological parents and the role of co-residential history and divorce. From the perspective of remarriage as an 'incomplete institution', we argue that obligations towards step-parents are more ambiguous and therefore more conditional. We collected unique vignette data (N ¼ 4,783) as part of a nationally representative Dutch panel study and predicted norms on adult children's obligations to provide socio-emotional and practical support using fixedeffects models. We found weaker norms to support step-parents. These are even weaker if there is no coresidential history and/or the step-parent divorced the child's biological parent, while only co-residence affects norms to support biological parents, and less so than for step-parents. The most 'disadvantaged' type of biological parent (divorced, non-residential) is still more advantaged than the most 'advantaged' step-parent (married, residential), emphasizing the importance of biology. Analysis of residual variance shows less consensus on obligations towards step-parents than biological parents. It seems that given the absence of clear norms of behaviour, normative obligations towards step-parents are more conditional.

The different dimensions of parenthood—for example, biological relatedness, child-rearing, co-residence—are disconnected in increasingly many families as the result of upward trends in separation and repartnering. By studying stepparents’ claiming (i.e., stepparents perceiving their adult stepchildren as their own), this study provides insight into how people define kinship and adds a new dimension to knowledge about stepfamilies. Using the Ouders en Kinderen in Nederland (OKiN) survey data, this study (a) provides nationally representative estimates of how Dutch stepmothers and -fathers ( N = 3,327) perceive their adult stepchildren and (b) shows how the context (i.e., co-residence, duration, timing, marriage) and relations to biological children relate to stepparents’ claiming. The more similar the context is to “traditional” parent–child relations, the more stepparents claim their stepchildren. As opposed to the expectation that relations to one’s own biological children would serve as an important reference, having biological children from either a previous or current relationship has little explanatory power.