Intergenerational Transmission of Multipartner Fertility

Childbearing across partnerships in Italy: Prevalence, demographic correlates, and social gradient

Studies of childbearing across partnerships-having children with more than one partner-have generally focused on countries with relatively high separation rates. We complement this previous research with analyses for Italy using nationally representative, retrospective data and event-history techniques. This study offers three key findings. First, we detected a non-negligible share of childbearing across partnerships, although at substantially lower levels relative to other wealthy countries (5 per cent of parents aged 25-54 with at least two children). Second, multivariate analyses revealed an impressive similarity to the demographic correlates found elsewhere. Finally, we showed that childbearing across partnerships was initiated by the 'social vanguard' of new family behaviours but then diffused among the least well-off. Overall, this paper adds to the growing literature on childbearing across partnerships by showing the phenomenon to be demographically and sociologically relevant, even in countries with strong family ties and a limited diffusion of union dissolution.

Health outcomes of only children across the life course: An investigation using Swedish register data

Only children (with no full biological siblings) are a growing subgroup in many high-income settings. Previous studies have largely focused on the short-term developmental outcomes of only children, but there is limited evidence on their health outcomes. Using Swedish population register data for cohorts born 1940-75, we compare the health of only children with that of children from multi-child sibling groups, taking into account birth order, family size, and presence of half-siblings. Only children showed lower height and fitness scores, were more likely to be overweight/obese in late adolescence, and experienced higher later-life mortality than those with one or two siblings. However, only children without half-siblings were consistently healthier than those with half-siblings, suggesting that parental disruption confers additional disadvantages. The health disadvantage was attenuated but not fully explained by adjustment for parental characteristics and after using within-family maternal cousin comparison designs.

The intergenerational transmission of sexual frequency

Intergenerational relationships are one of the most frequently studied topics in the social sciences. Within the area of family, researchers find intergenerational similarity in family behaviors such as marriage, divorce, and fertility. Yet less research has examined the intergenerational aspects of a key proximate determinant of fertility: sexual frequency. We use the National Survey of Families and Households to examine the relationship between sexual frequency of parents and the sexual frequency of children when adults. We link parental sexual frequency in 1987/1988, when children were ages 5-18, to the sexual frequency of the children in 2001-2003 when these grown children were ages 18-34. We find a modest, yet significant association, between parental and adult children sexual frequency. A mechanism behind this association appears to be the higher likelihood of being in a union among children of parents with high sexual frequency.

Understanding the early life mediators behind the intergenerational transmission of partnership dissolution

Whilst research has demonstrated an intergenerational transmission of partnership dissolution, there is limited evidence as to the early life course pathways through which these associations operate, and whether these differ by gender. Many studies have not considered prospective data from early childhood, thus potentially neglecting the importance of the early childhood period in explaining this intergenerational transmission. Given that serial partnering has become increasingly commonplace it is important research considers those who experience multiple partnership dissolution. This paper examines, using data from the 1970 British Birth Cohort Study, the early life mediators underpinning the association between parental separation and the number of offspring partnership dissolutions. Among both men and women there is a significant unadjusted relationship between parental separation and the experience of multiple partnership dissolutions in adulthood. These associations were reduced once parental confounders and childhood mediators are included. Formal mediation analyses demonstrated that early life mediators accounted for more of the association in men than women. Mediators included childhood living standards, and for men child cognition and child behaviour, and for women maternal mental wellbeing. Parental separation and many early life mediators were related to the likelihood of multiple partnership dissolutions through age at first partnership.

New Partner, New Order? Multipartnered Fertility and Birth Order Effects on Educational Achievement

A substantial amount of research shows that younger siblings perform worse than their older sisters and brothers in several socioeconomic outcomes, including educational achievement. Most of these studies examined stable families and excluded half-siblings. However, the increasing prevalence of multipartnered fertility implies that many children grow up in nonnuclear families. We examine whether there is evidence for birth order effects in this context, which offers an opportunity to test and potentially expand the explanatory scope of the two main theories on birth order effects. We use comprehensive Norwegian registry data to study siblings in the 1985-1998 cohorts born to mothers or fathers who parented children with at least two partners. We provide evidence for negative effects of birth order on lower secondary school grades in both cases. Children born to fathers displaying multipartnered fertility tend to have lower grades than older full siblings but perform more similarly or better compared with older half-siblings. For siblings born to mothers with the multipartnered fertility pattern, later-born siblings do worse in school compared with all older siblings. This indicates that negative birth order effects tend to operate either within or across sets of full siblings, depending on the sex of the parent displaying multipartnered fertility. We argue that these findings can be explained by a combination of resource dilution/confluence theory and sex differences in residential arrangements following union dissolutions. We also suggest an alternative interpretation: maternal resources could be more important for generating negative birth order effects.

Childhood family structure and complexity in partnership life courses

This study investigated the associations between childhood living arrangements and complex adult partnership trajectories. The authors defined first union dissolution as the event initiating a complex partnership life course, and measured the level of complexity using a weighted cumulative index of subsequent partnership episodes. The analyses were based on a representative sample of the German population born in 1971-73 from the German Family Panel and used multivariate hurdle models to estimate the probability of experiencing the initiation of a complex partnership trajectory, as well as the level of complexity. Results showed that respondents who did not grow up with both biological parents (i.e. those who experienced an alternative family structure) had both a greater likelihood of experiencing the dissolution of their own first union, and followed more complex subsequent partnership trajectories. These associations varied across types of (alternative) family structures experienced during childhood and according to the level of parental partnership (in)stability. This study contributes to our understanding of contemporary partnership complexity and its precursors using a long term life course theoretical and methodological frame. We acknowledge that continuities and disruptions in the development of adult (complex) partnership trajectories can be linked to a growing diversity of family structure in childhood. Thereby, we expand knowledge on intergenerational interdependencies of family instability and complexity beyond the reproduction of the event of union dissolution.

Multiple-Partner Fertility and Cohort Change in the Prevalence of Half-Siblings

The transformation of the American family under the second demographic transition has created more opportunities for parents to have children with multiple partners, but data limitations have hampered prevalence estimates of multiple-partner fertility from the perspective of children. This study uses nationally representative data from the 1979 and 1997 cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth to examine cohort change in children's exposure to multiple-partner fertility. We find that one in five children in the 1979 cohort had at least one half-sibling by their 18th birthday, and the prevalence grew to more than one in four children by the 1997 cohort. A strong educational gradient in exposure to half-siblings persists across both cohorts, but large racial/ethnic disparities have narrowed over time. Using demographic decomposition techniques, we find that change in the racial/ethnic and socioeconomic composition of the U.S. population cannot explain the growth in exposure to half-siblings. We conclude by discussing the shifting patterns of fertility and family formation associated with sibling complexity and considering the implications for child development and social stratification.