| Abstrakt: |
Demographic changes have transformed and reshaped the American family over the past sixty years. Divorce, cohabitation, and nonmarital childbearing have restructured the family and shifted the context of childrearing from "married with (biological) children" to a variety of diverse family forms. As a result, the living arrangements and family lives of many Americans are more complex and varied than in the past. This increasing prevalence of nontraditional families has generated renewed interest in family structure and how men and women form complex unions. While stepfamilies are not a new family form in the U.S., how these families are created and who enters them has changed significantly over time. These changes in stepparenthood are also tied to changes in the broader historical context. Those entering adulthood during a period of rapid family change may experience different or nontraditional pathways to family formation, i.e. a stepfamily, than those who entered adulthood at a different historical period. Drawing on the life course perspective and using data from the IPUMS-USA, this paper examines whether the incidence of stepparenthood varies across birth cohorts, paying particular attention to differences in the experience of stepparenthood by gender. In addition, we examine whether there has been a shift in the characteristics of stepparents across cohorts. Drawing on work by Schuman and Scott (1989) we examine these changes for five easily-recognizable cohorts: the Depression cohort, World War II cohort, Early and Late Baby Boom cohorts, and Generation X. Finally, we compare period and cohort effects on changes in stepparenthood. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
