Andrew J. Cherlin

Remarriage as an Incomplete Institution

The higher divorce rate for remarriages after divorce than for first marriages, it is argued, is due to the incomplete institutionalization of remarriage after divorce in the United States. Persons who are remarried after a divorce and have children from previous marriages face problems unlike those encountered in first marriages. The institution of the family provides no standard solutions to many of these problems, with the result that the unity of families of remarriages after divorce often becomes precarious. The incomplete institutionalization of ramarriage shows us, by way of contrast, that family unity in first marriages is still supported by effective institutional controls, despite claims that the institutional nature of family life has eroded in the 20th century. Some suggestions for future research on remarriage and on the institutionalization of married life are presented.

The Role of Cohabitation in Declining Rates of Marriage.

This analysis examines trends in young adults in union formation comparing trends in marriage to trends when cohabitation is included as well as marriage. It then documents the characteristics of cohabiting couples in terms of the duration of the union presence of children perceived stability marriage plans and opinions about cohabitation. Finally it analyzes several marriage-related attitude items among all unmarried persons under age 35. The US National Survey of Families and Households provides data on a national sample of 13017 respondents. The large increases in the proportion never married among persons in their early 20s is commonly interpreted to mean that young people are staying single longer. Because of cohabitation however being unmarried is not synonymous with being single. Young people are setting up housekeeping with partners of the opposite sex at almost as early an age as they did before marriage rates declined. 3/4 of the decline in the proportion of women married by age 25 was offset by increased cohabitation. The role of cohabitation in replacing early marriage is most pronounced for persons who have not completed high school. Cohabiting relationships tend to have been formed recently although 1 in 5 have been cohabiting for 5 years or more. Most cohabitors expect to marry their partner although there is a surprisingly high level of disagreement among partners about this.

The new American grandparent : a place in the family, a life apart

Novel compounds are disclosed which release a silver halide solvent in the presence of alkali, which compounds may be defined as quinone-or naphthoquinone-methide precursors containing the silver halide solvent moiety. These novel compounds are useful in photographic products and processes.

Parental divorce in childhood and demographic outcomes in young adulthood

We investigated the long-term effects of parental divorce in childhood on demographic outcomes in young adulthood, using a British longitudinal national survey of children. Our analyses control for predisruption characteristics of the child and the family, including emotional problems, cognitive’ achievement, and socioeconomic status. The results show that by age 23, those whose parents divorced were more likely to leave home because of friction, to cohabit, and to have a child outside marriage than were those whose parents did not divorce. Young adults whose parents divorced, however, were no more or less likely to marry or to have a child in a marriage. Moreover, even in the divorced group, the great majority did not leave home because of friction or have a child outside marriage.

Going to extremes: Family structure, children’s well-being, and social science

In this article I argue that public discussions of demographic issues are often conducted in a troubling pattern in which one extreme position is debated in relation to the opposite extreme. This pattern impedes our understanding of social problems and is a poor guide to sound public policies. To illustrate this thesis I use the case of social scientific research examining how children are affected by not living with two biological parents while they are growing up. Over the last decade, I maintain, most of the public, and even many social scientists, have been puzzled and poorly informed by this debate. In particular I consider Judith Wallerstein’s clinically based claims of the pervasive, profound harm caused by divorce and, at the other extreme, Judith Rich Harris s reading of behavioral genetics and evolutionary psychology, which leads her to dismiss the direct effects of divorce. Neither extreme gives a clear picture of the consequences of growing up in a single-parent family or a stepfamily.

The Divorce Process and Young Children's Well-Being: A Prospective Analysis.

The US National Longitudinal Study of Youth-Child supplement (NLSY) was used to generate a sample of 1123 children 3-13 years old in 1986 for examining the consequences of divorce on behavior problems and academic achievement for young children. Children included must have been born within wedlock and living in intact families in 1986. The study focus was on answering whether child or family circumstances prior to disruption account for any of the negative association between marital disruption and child well being and how specific changes in life circumstances after disruption mediate the effects of divorce. A brief background review of pertinent literature is given. Limitations are that the sample of children experiencing disruption was small (129) and are not representative of all children; the sample of mothers tends to reflect younger and disadvantaged backgrounds. Generalizability of results is limited by the definition of children included. Child assessments are available but absent are direct measures of family conflict or parental psychological functioning. Child well being is measured by the Behavior Problems Index (BPI) and 3 Peabody Achievement tests (PIAT). Family disruption is the experience of separation or divorce between 1986 and 1988. The average time since disruption was 12.2 months. The childs early development and environment are also accounted for. Life changes included change in the home environment and downward mobility. The ordinary least squares findings show that the mean scores were lower for those in disrupted families. Boys experienced greater behavior problems and mathematics scores; 42% of boys in disrupted families scored a half deviation above the mean vs. 25% for other boys. For girls 29% in disrupted families vs. 17% for other girls fell into below average categories. The likelihood of shifting from lower to higher BPI scores for both boys and girls was associated with disruption as well as higher to lower scores for boys and from higher to lower scores on the 2 reading tests for girls. Maternal risk factors economic hardship and child difficulties as proxies for family dysfunction are accounted for in several models to determine the adverse effect on childrens outcomes. It is suggested that the effect of the breakup and aftermath on boys behavior problems may be greater during the crisis period than later and stronger on young children. Changes in family circumstances are less important in explaining math scores than behavior problems. The role of disruption vs. prior characteristics still needs further examination; longterm effects also need to be examined.

American Marriage in the Early Twenty-First Century

During the past century the U.S. family system has seen vast changes—in marriage and divorce rates, cohabitation, childbearing, sexual behavior, and womens work outside the home. Andrew Cherlin reviews these historic changes, noting that marriage remains the most common living arrangement for raising children, but that children, especially poor and minority children, are increasingly likely to grow up in single-parent families and to experience family instability.

The effect of children on marital dissolution.

The relationship between the presence of children and divorce and separation is examined using data from the first four years of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience in Women Aged 30 to 44. The data show that children were a deterrent to separation and divorce only when they were in the preschool ages. Once all the children in a family were in school, they did not seem to influence the probability of separation and divorce. It is suggested that the high costs of child care for preschool children, in terms of time, money, and effort, act as a deterrent to marital dissolution. The associations between several other social demographic variables and marital dissolution also are investigated.

The Influence of Physical and Sexual Abuse on Marriage and Cohabitation

Using ethnographic and survey data on low-income families residing in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio, we examine the relationship between womens patterns of union formation and their experience of physical and sexual abuse. Both sets of data suggest that women who have been physically or sexually abused are substantially less likely to be married or to be in stable, long-term cohabiting relationships. The data also suggest that the timing and different forms of abuse may have distinctive associations with union formation. Women who have experienced abuse beginning in childhood, particularly sexual abuse, are less likely to be in sustained marriages or stable cohabiting relationships and instead are more likely to experience transitory unions: multiple short-term, mostly cohabiting unions with brief intervals between them. Women who have not been abused in childhood but experience adult physical abuse, however, are less likely to be in either a marriage or a cohabiting union, long-term or transitory; and some have withdrawn from having relationships with men. The relevance of these findings for the decline of marriage among low-income women and men is discussed.

Variations in Parenting and Adolescent Outcomes Among African American and Latino Families Living in Low-Income, Urban Areas:

Drawing from social disorganization theory, this study examined how perceived neighborhood conditions modified associations between parenting and delinquency, depressive symptoms, and school problem behavior among more than 800 African American and Latino 10- to 14-year-olds participating in Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study. Permissive and disengaged parenting, maternal involvement, and punitive parenting were associated with youth outcomes in varying ways depending on perceived neighborhood context and a youths race, ethnicity, and gender. Neighborhood-modifying influences on parenting were stronger for African Americans as compared to Latinos and for males as compared to females. Findings suggest that the stakes of uninvolved and permissive parenting for problematic youth outcomes are greater in higher risk neighborhoods. In addition, among African American males, punitive parenting is less strongly associated with poor youth outcomes when mothers perceive that the neighborhood poses more threats and offers fewer social resources.