Stepfamily Structure and Transfers Between Generations in U.S. Families

Emily E. Wiemers (), Judith A. Seltzer, Robert Schoeni, V. Joseph Hotz and Suzanne M. Bianchi
Additional contact information
Emily E. Wiemers: University of Massachusetts Boston
Judith A. Seltzer: University of California
Suzanne M. Bianchi: University of California

Demography, 2019, vol. 56, issue 1, No 10, 229-260

Abstract: Abstract Unstable couple relationships and high rates of repartnering have increased the share of U.S. families with stepkin. Yet data on stepfamily structure are from earlier periods, include only coresident stepkin, or cover only older adults. In this study, we use new data on family structure and transfers in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to describe the prevalence and numbers of stepparents and stepchildren for adults of all ages and to characterize the relationship between having stepkin and transfers of time and money between generations, regardless of whether the kin live together. We find that having stepparents and stepchildren is very common among U.S. households, especially younger households. Furthermore, stepkin substantially increase the typical household’s family size; stepparents and stepchildren increase a household’s number of parents and adult children by nearly 40 % for married/cohabiting couples with living parents and children. However, having stepkin is associated with fewer transfers, particularly time transfers between married women and their stepparents and stepchildren. The increase in the number of family members due to stepkin is insufficient to compensate for the lower likelihood of transfers in stepfamilies. Our findings suggest that recent cohorts with more stepkin may give less time assistance to adult children and receive less time assistance from children in old age than prior generations.

Keywords: Intergenerational transfers; Stepfamilies; Family size; Parent–child relationships (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s13524-018-0740-1 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:demogr:v:56:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s13524-018-0740-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/13524

DOI: 10.1007/s13524-018-0740-1

Access Statistics for this article

Demography is currently edited by John D. Iceland, Stephen A. Matthews and Jenny Van Hook

More articles in Demography from Springer, Population Association of America (PAA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().