Prior research has noted that although cooperative coparenting between resident and nonresident parents is beneficial to children, this form of shared parenting is relatively uncommon. Relying on nationally representative data from two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 628), this study examines the importance of…

Trends in divorce and nonmarital childbearing suggest that the marriage market is increasingly filled with people who have been married and/or have children. This study examines the effect of personal attitudes on entrance into a union with a partner who has been previously married or has children. Using data from two waves of the National Survey…

This study examines the associations between grandchildren's (N = 1,170) adult role transitions and their contact with, and closeness to, grandparents, by drawing on data from Waves 2 and 3 of the National Survey of Families and Households. Findings indicate that this relationship is frequently contingent on the nature of the adult role in…

To study changes in nonresident father contact since the 1970s, we pooled data from 4 national surveys: the National Survey of Children (1976), the National Survey of Families and Households (1987 - 1988), the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1996), and the National Survey of America's Families (2002). On the basis of mothers' reports,…

I argue that both the dominant models of the relationship between earnings and housework, economic dependence and gender display, have fundamental defects. They focus on the effect of women's earnings compared to their husbands' on their housework and ignore the possibility of an independent relationship between women's own earnings and their time…

We explore women's psychological well-being in late midlife in relation to childlessness and timing of entry into motherhood. Using two U.S. surveys, Health and Retirement Study (HRS) (1992) and National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) (Sweet, Bumpass, & Call, 1988), we assess the well-being of childless women in their 50s compared to…

The authors investigate the direction of the relationship between marital happiness and wives' full-time employment using the 1987 to 1988 and 1992 to 1994 waves of the National Survey of Families and Households. First, the authors predict change in wives' employment between the two waves using marital happiness and other Time 1 characteristics.…

We use data from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to assess whether relinquishing a serious intention to have (more) children leads to greater increases in depressive symptoms than continuing confidence in childbearing intentions. Our sample includes 2,200 individuals of childbearing age, men and women, all parities,…

Evaluates extent to which cohabitation is similar to marriage among black, and white Americans ages 19-48 using data from the 1987-88 National Survey of Families and Households. Cohabitors reported poorer relationship quality than their married counterparts. Majority of cohabitors planned to marry their partner; these cohabitors are involved in…

There is some evidence that older parents and their adult children may evaluate their relationships with each other in different ways. To date, we know little about what may account for these discrepancies. This investigation compares the perceptions of intergenerational solidarity among 2,590 adult-child/older-parent dyads from the National…

Research on the relationship between cohabitation and mental health tends to ignore social psychological factors that help explain mental health differences between the married and the unmarried, including coping resources and perceived relationship quality. In this paper I draw on social psychological theory and research to clarify differences in…

National Survey of Families and Households 1987-88 (n=13,017) data were used to generate population estimates of in- and out-of-household caregiving. More than one in seven U.S. adults reported caring for relatives or friends during the previous year. Predictors of caregiving likelihood were gender, age, marital status, education, ethnicity,…