Using multiple dimensions of solidarity and conflict in a latent class analysis, we develop a typology of adult child–parent relationships. The data (N= 4,990) are from the first wave of the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study. In descending order of relationship quality, the 5 types are harmonious (akin to relationships with friends), ambivalent (intensive exchange of material support accompanied by strain), obligatory (just keeping in touch), affective (emotionally supportive with few other meaningful exchanges), and discordant (predominantly negative engagement). The types are differentiated by gender, age, family size, geographic distance, and parental marital history, indicating that they are not fixed but are shaped by social‐structural conditions.

Using administrative data on all adult children living in The Netherlands age 30–40 and their parents (N = 1,999,700), we investigated the extent to which situations and events associated with the support needs and privacy needs of either generation determine intergenerational coresidence and the transition to coresidence. Logistic and multinomial logistic regression analyses showed that both generations' support needs increased the likelihood of coresidence and of a move of the generation in need into the other's home. Turning to privacy needs, we found that coresidence and the transition to coresidence was less likely when a partner or stepparent was present and more likely when the adult child was a never‐married single parent.

In 2009 the Dutch legislator introduced a law that sought to encourage shared residence. We summarize key findings on shared residence from prior work in the Netherlands, and present new data. Previous research showed that shared residence has increased steadily in recent decades. Our recent estimates revealed that shared residence increased from nearly 20% in 2008 (prereform) to 28% in 2010 (postreform). Official court data showed a decline again to a little over 20% in 2013. We also found shared residence to be less a stable arrangement than mother or father residence. Consistent with earlier studies, parents with shared residence were found to be well‐resourced parents with little conflict and few personal problems. These parents were also more likely to maintain this arrangement, but the instability of shared residence also appeared to be related to practical circumstances and to children's needs. Earlier findings on the consequences of shared residence for child and parent well‐being were mixed, but suggest positive effects.

This article reviews and presents research findings on the relationships between parenthood and health over the life span. Existing research shows lacunae. The links between reproductive behavior and longevity generally focus on family size rather than contrasting parents and nonparents. Studies of marital status differentials in survival generally confound the effects of parenthood and marital status. Studies of the effects of multiple roles (combining parenthood, marriage, and employment) have the drawback that parenthood is equated with currently having children in the home. The authors provide new evidence on the health of people who have reached old age, contrasting those with and without children, in an attempt to tease out the effects of parenthood, marital status, and gender. Data from Australia, Finland, and the Netherlands are used. Insofar as parenthood effects are found, they pertain to health behaviors (smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical exercise), providing evidence for the social control influences of parenthood.

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.

We challenge the common idea that solidarity has positive, whereas conflict has negative implications, by investigating intergenerational ambivalencedefined as the co-occurrence of solidarity and conflictand relationship quality. We use representative data on non-coresident adult children and parents with high levels of contact (weekly or more; N = 2,694 dyads). Results show that over half of high contact parent-child ties can be characterized as ambivalent and of high-quality. The likelihood of negative instead of positive ambivalent ties is greater if adult children have few exit options because they are socially isolated or have a small number of siblings. Ties between fathers and sons, and those between caring daughters and aging parents also have a high probability of belonging to the negative ambivalent type.

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'.

In this paper we aim to reach beyond the dyadic perspective on intergenerational contact and examine the influence of the sibling network on parent-child contact. We include aggregate sibling network characteristics as well as the adult child's position in the network vis-à-vis siblings, and use data from the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (2002)(2003)(2004) NKPS; N = 4,601 dyads). Regarding aggregate network characteristics results show that having sisters, having stepsiblings, increasing geographical distance between siblings, and decreasing levels of network cohesion are associated with less contact per parent-child dyad. Regarding the position of the adult child vis-à-vis his or her siblings, results show that having geographically or emotionally closer siblings has a negative effect on parentchild contact. The impact of differences in emotional distance among siblings is stronger when the analyses are limited to parents in poor health. Suggestions for future research are made.