A Multi-Actor Study of Adult Children and Their Parents in Complex Families: Design and Content of the OKiN Survey

Abstract

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'.

My Children, Your Children, Our Children, and My Well-Being: Life Satisfaction of “Empty Nest” Biological Parents and Stepparents

“…Both the primary respondents (also referred to as anchors), as well as, their biological parents and these parents' current partners (designated alters) were independently approached for participation, with response rates of respectively 62% (N = 6232) and 38% (N = 9325). The response rate for the anchors is considerably higher that other large-scale Dutch surveys (de Leeuw and de Heer 2002), whereas the lower response of the parents is due to the absence of a face-to-face interview (see Kalmijn et al 2018 for further information). Given the current study's focus on the life satisfaction of different types of parents in later life, we utilized the alter data (i.e., the parent figures of the 25-45-year-old anchors).…”

“…In this contribution, we utilize the Parents and Children in the Netherlands survey (OKiN, Ouders en Kinderen in Nederland; Kalmijn et al 2018) to study the relationship between different parenting roles and life satisfaction, which is one of the key components of subjective well-being (Diener et al 1999). We focus on the adjustment of parents in later life, rather than at the moment when they are still living with and potentially, caring for dependent (step)children.…”

“…In this paper, we utilized the "Parents and Children in the Netherlands" survey (OKiN, Ouders en Kinderen in Nederland; Kalmijn et al 2018). The survey is based on a stratified random sample from the national registers of independently living adults, born in the Netherlands between 1971 and 1991 (aged 25-45).…”

“…Three weeks after the initial approach, nonrespondents received a final reminder and a PAPI version of the questionnaire. For further information about the survey design, fieldwork, and response, please see the work of Kalmijn et al (2018).…”

“…The present contribution furthers our understanding of the significance of differing parenthood experiences for what is now a growing group in the population (i.e., parents of children other than biological with current partner). We use data from the 'Parents and Children in the Netherlands' survey (OKiN, Ouders en Kinderen in Nederland;Kalmijn et al 2018), which is based on a systematic random oversample of adult-children who grew up in non-intact families. Both the grown-up children (25-45 years old at the time of the interview) and their biological and, if present, stepparents were surveyed about a range of family-related experiences and concurrent individual well-being.…”