No abstract

Nonmarital childbearing has increased dramatically in the United States since the early 1960s, rising from 6% of all births in 1960 to 41% in 2008 (Hamilton, Martin, & Ventura, 2010). Whereas similar trends have occurred in many developed nations, the United States stands out in the extent to which such births are associated with socioeconomic disadvantage and relationship instability. This has given rise to a new term, fragile families, which we define as unmarried couples who have a child together. The increase in fragile families reflects changes not only in the initial context of births but also in the fundamental nature and patterns of child rearing.Although much of the recent literature on coparenting has focused on married, coresident parents with children, most unmarried couples will break up within only a few years of a new child's birth (McLanahan, 2009). Therefore, for many unmarried parents, coparenting will occur across households and may be more similar to coparenting among divorced parents than among married parents. However, given the disadvantaged characteristics of unmarried parents, coparenting in this context may be even more complicated than it is after a legal divorce.In this chapter, we provide an overview of coparenting in fragile families, focusing particularly on what has been learned from the Fragile Families and

Twenty Reserve component (Army and Marines) and Army National Guard male veterans of Operational Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom discuss their deployment and postdeployment family reintegration experiences. A Grounded Theory approach is used to highlight some of the ways in which family miscommunication during deployment can occur. Communication with civilian family members is affected by the needs of operational security, technical problems with communication tools, miscommunication between family members, or because veterans have "nothing new to say" to family back home. These communication difficulties may lead to an initial gulf of understanding between veterans and family members that can cause family strain during postdeployment family reintegration. We end with a discussion of veteran family reintegration difficulties.

Data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth (N=11,180) are used to examine the intergenerational transmission of nonmarital childbearing for U.S. men and women. Findings suggest that being born to unmarried parents increases the risk of offspring having a nonmarital first birth, net of various confounding characteristics. This intergenerational link appears to particularly operate via parents’ breaking up before offspring are age 14 and offspring’s young age at first sex. While the link across two generations in nonmarital childbearing is not accounted for by parents’ socioeconomic status (measured as fathers’ education), several mediating factors vary by socioeconomic background. Gender and race/ethnicity also moderate the intergenerational transmission of nonmarital childbearing. This research sheds light on the prevalence of, and process by which, nonmarital childbearing is repeated across generations, which has important implications for long-term social stratification and inequality.

Objectives The rise in nonmarital childbearing has raised concerns about coparenting among unmarried parents with increasingly complicated relationship trajectories. We address this issue by examining associations between mothers’ partnership transitions and coparenting and the moderating role of maternal race/ethnicity and child gender. Methods Data from the Fragile Families Study and ordinary least squares regression techniques are used to examine whether mothers’ partnership transitions are related to coparenting. Lagged and fixed effects models are employed to test the robustness of the findings to selection. Results Coresidential and nonresidential, dating transitions are negatively associated with coparenting, but the association is stronger for coresidential transitions than for dating transitions. Coresidential transitions are stronger predictors of coparenting for White parents than for Black parents and for parents of sons than for parents of daughters. Conclusions Policies aimed at strengthening families should emphasize relationship stability, regardless of the type of union, to promote high quality coparenting among at-risk populations.

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Well being Study (N= 2,656), we examined the association between intergenerational relationships and parents’ union stability five years after a baby’s birth. Results showed that more amiable relationships between parents and each partner’s parents, and more time children spent with paternal grandparents, were associated with increased odds that parents were co-residing by the time their focal child was age five. More time that children spent with maternal grandparents reduced union stability, although this result was not robust to methods that better address selection. These findings underscore the importance of the broader social contexts affecting couple stability. Findings further suggest that even amidst changing demographic conditions, intergenerational family ties are important for couples—and by extension—their children.

Decades of research have produced evidence that parental divorce is negatively associated with offspring outcomes from early childhood, through adolescence, and into the adult years. This study adds to the literature on the effects of parental divorce by examining how the timing of a parental divorce influences the total effect on adult health. Furthermore, we look at how this long-term effect of parental divorce depends on mediators such as the family’s socioeconomic status, parental involvement, cognitive test scores, behavioural problems, smoking, and the offspring’s own experience with divorce. The analyses use data from the National Child Development Study, which includes nine waves of data beginning at birth in 1958 and continuing through age 50. Results from a structural equation model suggest that a parental divorce experienced before age 7 does influence adult health by operating primarily through family socioeconomic status and smoking in adulthood.

This study considers whether an earlier and more extensive search for child care, and a match of the type used to the type preferred, predicts arrangement stability. We used the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care to estimate multinomial logit models of arrangement changes over 3-month intervals between 3 and 12 months (n ¼ 958 children and 2,223 observations). Use of preferred care predicted greater arrangement stability, and parents who settled early on 1 option were less likely later to switch care types. Those who planned earlier were more likely to use their preferred care type and to use higher quality settings. This study encourages future research on how, when, and with what success parents search for child care.