Living arrangements after divorce: cohabitation versus remarriage

"The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics of all [U.S.] couple households in which one or both partners were previously married. In this examination, we will consider not only households maintained by married couples...; we will also consider households formed by cohabiting couples. In addition, we will examine the living arrangements of children in these households, with particular attention to whether children are from the current union or a previous union."

The household structure of second-generation children: an exploratory study of extended family arrangements

"Using data from the Children of Immigrants Survey, the antecedents of extended family arrangements among [U.S.] immigrant households with children are examined. The incidence and form of such arrangements, especially the presence of grandparents, are analyzed in relation to single parenthood, national origin, cultural assimilation, and socioeconomic variables. The findings serve to underscore the complexity of the correlates of extended family arrangements. While there is a relationship with single parenthood, more research is needed on the economic basis for the presence of relatives in the household. The analysis uncovered the need to also treat presence of grandparents as an independent variable, especially in the cultural assimilation of children of immigrants."

[Family structure, parental support, and leaving home among young Americans in the twentieth century]

"This paper examines the effects of childhood family structure on patterns of home leaving (route and timing). The analysis uses data from the [U.S.] National Survey of Families and Households.... Family disruption is linked with leaving home via all routes except college attendance.... We interpret the results as indicating the ways the parental home provides the resources needed for a successful launching into adult independence or prompts leaving home either too early, or to new living arrangements likely to make establishing a stable independent adult role set more difficult." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND SPA)

[The changing family contexts of children in the United States]

"This paper reviews the roles of divorce, nonmarital childbearing, and cohabitation in the changing family contexts of children, and then provides new estimates of current family composition which incorporate cohabitation. The underlying process is viewed in terms of the declining significance of marriage linked to long-term trends in individuation. Half of all children in the U.S. will spend some time in a single-parent family, and nonmarital childbearing is an important factor creating these families. At the same time, increased cohabitation requires that family definitions which are based on marital status in the U.S. be replaced with those that include cohabitation. A sixth of traditionally defined ¿mother-only' families are cohabiting two-parent families, and the one-fourth of current stepfamilies that are cohabiting are missed by marriage-based definitions." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND SPA)

Understanding the living arrangements of Latino immigrants: a life course approach

"Using data from the 1990 [U.S.] Panel Study of Income Dynamics Latino Sample, this study examines three competing hypotheses for understanding extended family living among Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban immigrants. The findings indicate no significant relationship between living with extended kin and cultural indicators--such as English fluency--or economic factors--such as employment and income. Rather, the data support a life course explanation. Extended family living arrangements among Latino immigrants represent a resource generating strategy for caring for young children and older adults."

A cross-national analysis of family and household structure

"Profound demographic change has taken place in the past few decades in many countries including decreases in fertility and household size, and increases in divorce and non-traditional living arrangements. This paper analyzes the cross-national variation in these trends by utilizing two data sets. Fertility, marriage/divorce and household structure are modeled as separate domains of family life and tested in a LISREL model. The correlations across these domains are examined along with indicators of socioeconomic development and cultural context. Findings indicate that the level of economic development has direct and negative associations with all three family domains. Culture has an independent effect on family demographics but it does not override the forces of development."

[The family environment of children in France and Canada]

"Two fundamental changes have influenced family demographics in both France and Canada over the past 25 years: the rise in the number of births to unmarried parents and the rapid growth in the proportion of children separated from one parent or another before they reach adulthood. The impact of these changes on the family life of children must, however, be seen in perspective. Parents not married at the time of the child's birth nevertheless tend to live together. As well, the separation of birth parents allows for the formation of new families, giving the child a stepmother or stepfather and step-siblings. International or interregional comparisons give a further dimension to these phenomena; for example, Quebec, France and the rest of Canada rank in that order for the frequency of births outside marriage, while Quebec and the rest of Canada come ahead of France with a higher frequency of separations." (SUMMARY IN ENG AND SPA)

Proximity of adult children to their parents in Great Britain

Much of the authors' knowledge of kin interaction and exchange in Britain is partial, in that it is based on studies of co-resident groups and excludes consideration of kin "beyond the household". It is known that there have been large declines in intergenerational co-residence, raising fears that family bonds have weakened. It is also commonly assumed that family members are less likely to live in close proximity than in the past. In this paper the authors examine one important aspect of kin relationships--proximity of adult children to their parents--using nationally representative data from 1986, 1995, and 1999. The analyses presented focus on: differences between 1986, 1995, and 1999 in proximity of adults to their parents; sociodemographic characteristics associated with variations in proximity, and temporal differences in the pattern of these variations. The paper concludes with an assessment of some of the policy implications of the findings.

The stratifying force of family size, urbanization and parental education in socialist-era Poland

The strength of influence upon statural variation of: (1) the degree of urbanization of the locality of habitat, (2) family size, (3) paternal and (4) maternal educational status was analysed in three generations of 19-year-old Polish conscripts, examined in 1965, 1986 and 1995. Each of the above factors of an individual's social situation was described by a 4-level scale. Each factor was found to exert a highly significant residual effect on stature throughout the three decades considered, even after the effects of other correlated factors were partialed out by three-factor ANOVA. However, the stratifying force of each factor, as expressed by the dispersal of the level-specific main effects around the national mean, has been changing over time. For example, the growth-stunting effect of the condition of coming from a large sibship was dramatic in the 1965 cohort and considerably attenuated in 1986 but ceased to diminish thereafter. The growth-enhancing effect of the condition of being a large-city dweller, initially marked, has almost disappeared; but the growth-stunting effect of the condition of being a rural dweller has remained equally strong across all cohorts. These and other shifts in the relative importance of the social factors, as presumed determinants of family living standards, are described and some explanations attempted.

Household scenarios for the European Union

"This article reports on three Household Scenarios for the countries of the European Union.... These scenarios predict the numbers of persons living alone, living with a partner, living as a child at the parental home and living in another household position, as well as the institutional population. The period covered is 1995-2025. In all three scenarios, the number of persons living alone will grow.... The total number of households increases in all scenarios, whereas the average household size will decline in all scenarios."

Aging of population and elderly care in Sri Lanka

"The main purpose of this paper is...to examine the trends [and] characteristics of the elderly population [in Sri Lanka] and to inquire into the status of elderly support and care.... There is considerable evidence to show that [the] mechanisms of family support and care of the elderly have weakened. There is an increasing demand for institutional support by the elderly. This paper attempts to identify some of the underlying reasons that have prompted the elderly to make the decision to move out of the family kinship network and seek institutional support."

Migration of elderly people to join existing households: some evidence from the 1991 Household Sample of Anonymised Records

"In this paper the extent to which migration of the elderly is linked to changing family living situations [in Great Britain] is explored.... [The authors] estimate the number of older people making moves of this type, and...identify their age, sex, and marital status, and their relationship to the household they have joined. It is also possible to say something about the households which these people are joining, in terms of tenure and house type, and to describe the distribution of distances moved."

Nonmetro elders better off than metro elders on some measures, not on others

The author examines characteristics of the nonmetropolitan elderly in the United States. "A larger share of the nonmetro population was age 60 and older (18 percent) in 1996 than the metro population (15 percent). At ages 75 and older, half of all elderly persons are living alone. This is associated with a greater likelihood of being poor: 42 percent of nonmetro persons age 75 and older were poor or near-poor, compared with 28 percent of their metro counterparts."

Are young people leaving home earlier or later?

"Although the popular view is that young people are leaving home later, a closer investigation of [Australian] data from 1979 to 1995 shows that this is not entirely true. Decreases are observed in the proportion of 15-19 year old men and women living at home at least since the mid-1980s, the increase for 20-24 year old men ceased in 1990, and only 20-24 year old women show a sustained increase. If only unattached young adults are considered instead of the conventional measure, any increases are even more subdued. The overall trend seems to be that while late leavers may be leaving home later, early leavers are leaving earlier or at the same time."

[Same-sex cohabitation]

"Little is known about the number of homosexuals [in the Netherlands] in general and about homosexual couples in particular. In the so-called continuous population system information has been collected on all persons in the Netherlands who do not live in a family context. On the basis of a number of assumptions an estimated total of 21.3 thousand couples have been found who may have a homosexual relationship and who are living at the same address. Three out of five of these couples consist of males. Only 2 thousand couples, mostly females, live with one or more children. Half the number of all same-sex couples without children live in the highly urbanised municipalities. These findings correspond with studies on the prevalence of homosexuality." (SUMMARY IN ENG)

Children in single-father families in demographic perspective

The purpose of this article is to examine single-parent families headed by fathers. "We use specially constructed child files from the 1960-1990 Public Use Microdata Samples data from the Census of Population to address two general questions: (a) To what extent has both the likelihood and the demographic characteristics of these families changed over time? (b) What are the consequences for children of living in different kinds of father-only families? We find that single-father families are comparatively rare, but increasing rapidly, especially since 1980. Increasingly, these families are formed by fathers who are young, never married, with low incomes, and fewer children. Analysis of the 1990 data reveals wide diversity in living arrangements among children in single-father families. Furthermore, the social capital of children's fathers, the availability of adults, and children's economic well-being vary markedly across these types of families."

Demographic transition and population aging in Korea

"This paper describes the process of population aging in conjunction with the demographic transition in [South Korea]. Korea has recently experienced rapid decreases of both mortality and fertility, which have brought about the rapid process of population aging. The speed of...population aging in Korea is projected as one of the fastest in the world. Population aging brings about changing patterns of family composition, especially new trends of living arrangements of the elderly. Since the process of population aging [began] in Korea, the proportion of [those] living alone and [of those] living with spouse only have significantly increased."

Living arrangements and economic support for the elderly in Taiwan

"This paper aims to find out the role of living arrangements in economic support for the elderly in Taiwan.... To fulfill this goal, primary and secondary sources of living costs are used to derive four types of economic support for the elderly.... Our analytical results suggest that living arrangements play a role of specification. Of the elderly who are not living with children, these have substantially greater proportions of the independent type than those living with children." (SUMMARY IN CHI)

[Dependency structure of the elderly: an examination of women's social position in Taiwan]

"The purpose of the paper is to examine the nature and the structure of elderly women's dependency [in Taiwan] and the underlying socio-cultural-political forces. From the social constructive perspective, we focused on three constructive forces--the Chinese patriarchal/patrilocal family system, the gender role, and the state policy on elderly welfare. Three types of dependency--economic dependency, dependency for personal and health care, and living arrangement--were examined." (SUMMARY IN ENG)

Older women in an aging world: achieving health across the life course

This article, based on a report (Women, aging and health: achieving health across the life span) prepared for the WHO Global Commission on Women's Health under the guidance of WHO's Aging and Health Programme, presents demographic data that clearly demonstrate the need for recognition of the health of aging women as a global issue of major public health concern. The authors show that, while female life expectancy at birth is significantly different in developed and developing countries (because of high infant and maternal mortality in the latter), these differences tend to decrease for women in developing countries who reach middle age. The authors review the various facets of the "gender transition" brought about by demographic and epidemiological transitions, drawing attention to contrasts between the situation in developing countries in Asia and Latin America and that in Eastern Europe, for example. The role of older women as care-givers is discussed, as is the likelihood of a future increase in the proportion of older women living alone in the developing world (a factor which renders them particularly vulnerable in many socioeconomic and health respects). Suggestions are made on methodologies for monitoring health trends in aging women, and on the role of WHO in this respect. A basic goal for global strategies relating to the health of older women is formulated: reduction of the inequities in life expectancy between developed and developing countries.

Distribution of time of first birth in presence of social customs regulating physical separation and coital frequency

The interval between marriage and the first birth in India, particularly in rural areas, is much longer than what is observed in western countries. In eastern Uttar Pradesh, the mean interval is observed to be even longer, possibly due to traditional customs such as the female partner's visits to her parents in the early years of marriage and the smaller chance of coition because of the observance of rigid intercourse taboos. Thus the models to explain the length of the interval of marriage to first birth proposed by Western demographers, which assume that the period of cohabitation between marriage and first birth is uninterrupted, often do not describe the data satisfactorily when applied to rural India. In this paper a model to describe data on first birth interval is proposed that takes account of the distributions of timing and periods of physical separation and variation in fecundity with effective marriage duration.

The European marriage pattern as solution and problem: households of the elderly in Verviers, Belgium, 1831

"The essay considers the effects of marriage patterns on the support of the elderly with empirical evidence from Verviers, a small industrial city in nineteenth-century Belgium. The (Northwest) European Marriage Pattern offered a solution for those elderly who had children, especially those with large families, because coresidence with children was the main source of support. The larger community experienced a problem...in the form of large numbers of persons who never married or reached old age with no surviving children. Moreover, while those who had married were able to maintain their economic status, those who never married liquidated their property holdings and became boarders and lodgers in the households of nonkin."

Understanding aging in Korea

"This study discusses demographic trends, sociocultural characteristics, and policy choices of aging in [South] Korea.... Although the proportion of the elderly was not so high as to worry about aging before 1990, it is projected that one in eight Koreans will be aged 65 or more in 2020. Because the care for the elderly is mostly expected to be provided by each family, not by the state or Korean society, the role of the family is pivotal in coping with [the] aging problem.... Although adult children currently understand that their aged parents need assistance and support from them, they want to solve the issue of support for the elderly in a way different from the traditional.... This paper examines how the changing attitude toward the old is reflected in family life in terms of living arrangement and physical contacts. This paper also describes and discusses the current situation of various welfare policies on the elderly in Korea."

Elderly poverty alleviation through living with family

"We estimate here the extent of United States elderly poverty alleviation through living with family. These estimates are motivated by public-policy concern about the well-being of the elderly, and by the relevance of the process for fertility under the old-age-security hypothesis. An inter-temporal poverty-measurement model is estimated with 1984 Survey of Income and Program Participation income and wealth data. Without extended-family co-residence, and assuming no bequests, poverty rates would increase 42% over observed rates. Female elderly account for almost all the alleviated poverty. As a population, their impoverishment with age is effectively prevented by co-residence. Proportionately more black than white elderly are beneficiaries of poverty alleviation through living with family, but white elderly are more likely to be beneficiaries if at risk."

Housing aspirations and migration in later life: developments during the 1980s

"This paper tests hypotheses concerning the differentiation of early and late old age in the United Kingdom with reference to housing preferences and requirements and their translation into migration. Evidence is drawn from the 1991...census and from a representative sample of elderly people in SE England. The sources demonstrate the continued elaboration of long-distance, metropolitan-decentralizing migrations around the age of retirement. Also shown are relatively high rates of residential mobility among people in their seventies and eighties. Most of their migrations are short distance, but nonetheless with a net redistributional effect that sustains urban decentralization at the oldest ages. There is no evidence of significant return migration to London at advanced ages. From the survey responses, distinctive housing dissatisfactions are identified in early and late retirement, but neither set exactly matches expressed motivations for moves."

Migration and marital status. The case of Switzerland

"The present study describes...a part of the interrelation of living arrangements and migration: The connection between marital status and spatial mobility. Moreover, the significance of the reasons for family migration will be assessed. [Section] 2 covers the relationship between family or household structure and change of residence and refers to the findings of other studies. The third [section] presents the empirical findings which are to be seen against the background of changing household and family patterns in Switzerland over the last 20 to 30 years. With the aid of aggregated data from censuses and population registration offices, the differences in migratory behaviour by socio-demographic characteristics are first shown: by age, sex, marital status and nationality. In addition, a distinction is made between intercommune, intercantonal and international migration. The initial findings of the descriptive analysis are followed by multivariate statistics produced with the aid of microdata from the Swiss Labour Force Survey." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND GER)

[Household situation and health of elderly people]

"As in other developed countries, the number of elderly people is growing rapidly in the Netherlands.... Compared to younger people, little is known about household formation of the elderly people. Almost two thirds [are] still part of a family (with spouse and/or children). One third live alone. Only about 4.5% of the elderly people cohabit with other people (for instance relatives).... The analysis points out that the physical and mental health of people who live alone is worse than those of people who live with spouse or partner. It also shows that the health of people with a high level of education is better than the health of those with little education." (SUMMARY IN ENG)

[Strong increase in unmarried couples: some main results from the Annual Household Statistics, 1988-1994]

"The [Netherlands] Annual Household Statistics are based on the Labour Force Survey. Since 1988 the main trends show an increase of not-married couples who live together (with or without children), an increase of married couples without children and an increase of one-person households. Households consisting of married couples with children are on the decrease." (SUMMARY IN ENG)