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United States of America (Washington, DC) 09

DEMOGRAPHY

FEBRUARY 1995 - VOLUME 32, NUMBER 1

96.09.1 - English - Douglas Lee ECKBERG, Department of Sociology, Winthrop University, Rock Hill, SC 29733 (U.S.A.) Estimates of early twentieth-century U.S. homicide rates: An econometric forecasting approach (p. 1-16)

Bureau of the Census death registration records, as reported in Mortality Statistics, are a primary source for early twentieth-century U.S. homicide statistics. Those data appear to show a massive rise in homicide during the first decade of the century, with a continuing increase through 1933. This increase is quite at variance with the trend away from violence in other industrialized societies. During the first one-third of the century, however, death registration was incomplete; it occurred only in an expanding "registration area" that was composed, in the earlier years, primarily of states with typically low rates of homicide. Further, in the first decade of the century homicides within the registration area often were reported as accidental deaths. As a result, apparent increases in rates of homicide in the United States between 1900 and 1933 may be illusory. I use a two-step process to address these problems. Drawing on internal evidence and commentaries in early volumes of Mortality Statistics, I use GLS regression to estimate the prevalence of undercounts. Then I create a series of GLS models that use registration area data to estimate early twentieth-century national rates. These estimates call into question the extent of homicide change early in the century. (UNITED STATES, HOMOCIDE, UNDERREGISTRATIION, MORTALITY TRENDS

96.09.2 - English - Diane J. MACUNOVICH, Department of Economics, Williams College, Williamstown, MA 01267 (U.S.A.), Richard A. EASTERLIN and Christine M. SCHAEFFER, Department of Economics, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 9089-0253 (U.S.A.), and Eileen M. CRIMMINS, Andrus Gerontology Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0191 (U.S.A.)

Echoes of the baby boom and bust: Recent and prospective changes in living alone among elderly widows in the United States (p. 17-28)

Today the great majority of noninstitutionalized elderly widows live alone, a striking increase from a quarter-century ago. A noticeable difference has occurred, however, in trends by age; the proportion of the young-old widows living alone is starting to decline, while that of the old-old continues to increase. We use a model suggested by earlier studies to explain the emergence of this difference, and assess the prospects of its continuing over the next three decades. We find that the recent differential change in the proportions of younger and older widows living alone is due primarily to a differential change in kin availability that has emerged as the baby boomers' parents have begun to reach retirement age. Over the next decade, the same type of differential change by age in kin availability will continue; living alone is likely to become less common among young-old than among old-old widows, in a reversal of the pattern of the last quarter-century. In the first two decades of the next century, as the baby boom affects kin availability among the old-old, and as the subsequent baby bust affects that among the young-old, the age pattern of living arrangements among elderly widows will reverse once again. (UNITED STATES, WIDOWS, AGED, LIVING CONDITIONS, SINGLE PERSONS, FAMILY SIZE)

96.09.3 - English - Merril SILVERSTEIN, University of Southern California, Andrus Gerontology Center, University Park, Los Angeles, CA 90089-0191 (U.S.A.) Stability and change in temporal distance between the elderly and their children (p. 29-46)

Drawing on a developmental model of late-life migration, this paper investigates how older people's health and social characteristics influence stability and change in their temporal distance from their children. Data from the Longitudinal Study of Aging are used to examine both discrete transitions and continuous change in distance over a four-year period. Decline in older parents' physical health increased the propensity of parents and children to become temporally closer to each other. Among those parent-child pairs who had become closer, the conjunction of declining health and widowhood increased both the degree of non-coresident proximity and the likelihood of transition to coresidence. The findings portray a geographically resilient family that adjusts to the changing needs of its older members. (UNITED STATES, AGED, LIVING CONDITIONS, FAMILY, SPATIAL DISTANCE, MIGRATION)

96.09.4 - English - Neil G. BENNETT, Department of Sociology, Yale University, PO Box 208265, Yale Station, New Haven, CT 06520 (U.S.A.), David E. BLOOM, Department of Economics, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027 (U.S.A.), and Cynthia K. MILLER, Office of Population Research, Princeton University, 21 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, NJ 08544 (U.S.A.)

The influence of nonmarital childbearing on the formation of first marriages (p. 47-62)

We document a negative association between nonmarital childbearing and the subsequent likelihood of first marriage in the United States, controlling for a variety of potentially confounding influences. Nonmarital childbearing does not appear to be driven by low expectations of future marriage. Rather, it tends to be an unexpected and unwanted event, whose effects on a woman's subsequent likelihood of first marriage are negative on balance. We find that women who bear a child outside marriage and who receive welfare have a particularly low probability of marrying subsequently, although there is no evidence that AFDC recipients have lower expectations of marriage. In addition, we find no evidence that stigma associated with nonmarital childbearing plays an important role in this process or that the demands of children significantly reduce unmarried mothers' time for marriage market activities. (UNITED STATES, UNMARRIED MOTHERS, FIRST MARRIAGE)

96.09.5 - English - Susan L. ETTNER, Department of Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School, 25 Shattuck Street, Boston, MA 02115 (U.S.A.) The impact of "parent care" on female labor supply decisions (p. 63-80)

Data from the 1986-1988 Survey of Income and Program Participation panels were used to analyze how informal caregiving of disabled elderly parents affected female labor supply. Instrumental variables analyses suggested that coresidence with a disabled parent leads to a large, significant reduction in work hours, due primarily to withdrawal from the labor force. Although the impact of nonhousehold member caregiving was insignificant, evidence of an effect was stronger when commitment of caregiving time was greater. Projections of female labor force participation rates should account for potential increases in caregiving demand due to the aging of the U.S. population. (UNITED STATES, AGED, DEPENDANTS, FEMALE EMPLOYMENT, LABOUR FORCE PARTICIPATION)

96.09.6 - English - Elizabeth THOMSON and Yvonne BRANDRETH, Department of Sociology and Center for Demography and Ecology, 1180 Observatory Drive, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706 (U.S.A.) Measuring fertility demand (p. 81-96)

We propose a multidimensional conceptualization of fertility demand and evaluate potential measures of each dimension, using data from a telephone survey of Wisconsin residents age 18-34. Most of the measures met tests for interval-level measurement; all produced high estimates of test-retest reliability. We found support for only two dimensions of demand, intensity and certainty; potential measures of centrality had relatively low associations with any of the latent dimensions. Demand certainty improved prediction of fertility expectations beyond a trichotomous (yes, no, don't know) measure, but demand intensity did not. We found mixed evidence for the conceptualization of fertility demand as a single continuum on which desire to avoid pregnancy is the opposite of desire to have a child. (UNITED STATES, THEORETICAL MODELS, FERTILITY DETERMINANTS, DEMAND, MEASUREMENT)

96.09.7 - English - Larry L. BUMPASS, Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1393 (U.S.A.), and R. Kelly RALEY, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-3997 (U.S.A.)

Redefining single-parent families: Cohabitation and changing family reality (p. 97-110)

This paper explores the implications, for the measured prevalence and duration of mother-only families, of marked changes in nonmarital fertility, unmarried cohabitation, and homeleaving and re-entry. Throughout, estimates are compared on the basis of marital definitions and definitions including cohabitation. The duration of the first single-parent spell appears to have increased under the marital definition, but declines substantially when cohabitations are taken into account. A substantial proportion of single mothers have spent some time as single parents while in their parents' household. Hence we argue that definitions of single-parent families must be based on living arrangements rather than on the parents' marital status. (ONE-PARENT FAMILY, MARRIAGE, COHABITATION, LIVING CONDITIONS)

96.09.8 - English - Kenneth A. BOLLEN, David K. GUILKEY and Thomas A. MROZ, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-3997 (U.S.A.)

Binary outcomes and endogenous explanatory variables: Tests and solutions with an application to the demand for contraceptive use in Tunisia (p. 111-131)

Many demographic studies examine discrete outcomes, and researchers often suspect that some of the explanatory variables may be influenced by the same unobserved factors that determine the discrete outcome under examination. In linear models, the standard solution to this potential endogeneity bias is an estimator such as two-stage least squares. These methods have been extended to models with limited dependent variables, but there is little information on the performance of the methods in the types of data sets typically used in demographic research. This paper helps to fill this gap. It describes a simple analytic framework for estimating the effects of explanatory variables on discrete outcomes, which controls for the potential endogeneity of explanatory variables. It also discusses tests for erogeneity and joint determination of the outcomes and the explanatory variables. It summarizes the results of a Monte Carlo study of the performance of these techniques and uses these results to suggest how researchers should approach these problems in practice. We apply these methods to the examination of the impact of fertility intentions on contraceptive use, based on data from the 1988 Tunisia Demographic and Health Survey. (TUNISIA, METHODOLOGY, DEPENDENT VARIABLES, CONTRACEPTIVE USAGE)

MAY 1995 - VOLUME 32, NUMBER 2

96.09.9 - English - Kofi D. BENEFO, Department of Sociology, Brown University, Box 1916, Providence, RI 02912 (U.S.A.)

The determinants of the duration of postpartum sexual abstinence in West Africa: A multilevel analysis (p. 139-158)

The question of how postpartum sexual abstinence responds to social change in West Africa is important because declines in the practice could increase fertility levels and worsen child and maternal health. This study uses data from the late 1970s in Cote d'lvoire, Ghana, and Cameroon to examine effects of modernization and women's status on the length of abstinence. The results show that modernization and female status should be associated with declines in abstinence, which could lead to an increase in fertility and deterioration in maternal and child health. (COTE D'IVOIRE, GHANA, CAMEROON, POST-PARTUM ABSTINENCE, MODERNIZATION, WOMEN'S STATUS)

96.09.10 - English - Adrian E. RAFTERY, Steven M. LEWIS, University of Washington (U.S.A.), and Akbar AGHAJANIAN, Fayetteville State University (U.S.A.) Demand or ideation? Evidence from the Iranian marital fertility decline (p. 159-182)

Is the onset of fertility decline caused by structural socioeconomic chances or by the transmission of new ideas? The decline of marital fertility in Iran povides a quasi-experimental setting for addressing this question. Massive economic growth started in 1955; measurable ideational changes took place in 1967. We argue that the decline is described more precisely by demand theory than by ideation theory. It began around 1959, just after the onset of massive economic growth but well before the ideational changes. It paralleled the rapid growth of participation in primary education, and we found no evidence that the 1967 events had any effect on the decline. More than one-quarter of the decline can be attributed to the reduction in child mortality, a key mechanism of demand theory. Several other findings support this main conclusion. (IRAN, FERTILITY DECLINE, FERTILITY DETERMINANTS, DEMAND, IDEOLOGIES)

96.09.11 - English - William A. V. CLARK, Department of Geography, UCLA, 405 Hilgard Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90024 (U.S.A.), and Peter A. MORRISON, RAND, 1700 Main St., Santa Monica, CA 90407 (U.S.A.) Demographic foundations of political empowerment in multiminority cities (p. 183-202)

As U.S. cities accommodate increasing ethnic and racial diversity, political choices may unify or divide their local populations. Those choices pull communities toward two different modes of pluralism: traditional "melting pot" assimilation or a complex mosaic of racial and ethnic assertiveness. Central to this issue is equity and empowerment, which may be accentuated by minority populations' size, structure, and spatial concentration. We examine two potential modes of local empowerment: "dominance," whereby each group is the majority of voters in single election districts (reinforcing, separative tendencies), and "influence," whereby a group gains "influential minority" status in several districts (reinforcing unifying tendencies). (UNITED STATES, CITIES, ETHNIC MINORITIES, RACES, POLITICS)

96.09.12 - English - Douglas S. MASSEY, Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6298 (U.S.A.), and Audrey SINGER, Population Research Center, University of Chicago, 1155 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 (U.S.A.) New estimations of undocumented Mexican migration and the probability of apprehension (p. 203-214)

Using a new source of data, we estimate the probability of apprehension among Mexican migrants attempting to cross into the United States without documents. Over the period 1965-1989 we found an average apprehension probability of .35, confirming earlier estimates. We then applied annual probabilities to estimate the gross volume of undocumented Mexican migration and adjusted these figures to derive estimates of the net undocumented inflow. (UNITED STATES, MEXICO, ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, ESTIMATES)

96.09.13 - English - Bruce A. CHRISTENSON, American Institutes for Research, 1791 Arastradero Road, PO Box 1113, Palo Alto, CA 94302 (U.S.A.), and Nan E. JOHNSON, Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824-1111 (U.S.A.) Educational inequality in adult mortality: An assessment with death certificate data from Michigan (p. 215-230)

Education was added to the U.S. Standard Certificate of Death in 1989. The current study uses Michigan's 1989-1991 death certificates, together with the 1990 Census, to evaluate the quality of data on education from death certificates and to examine educational differences in mortality rates. With log-rates modeling, we systematically analyze the variability in educational differences in mortality by race and sex across the adult life cycle. The relative differences in mortality rates between educational levels decline with age at the same pace for all sex and race categories. Women gain a slightly greater reduction in mortality than men by reaching the secondary-education level, but a modestly smaller reduction by advancing beyond it. Blacks show a reduction in predicted mortality rates comparable to whites' by moving from the secondary to the postsecondary level of education but experience less reduction than whites by moving from the primary to the secondary level. Thus, the secular decline in mortality rates that generally accompanies historical improvements in education might actually be associated with an increase in the relative differences between blacks' and whites' mortality. We discuss limitations of the data and directions for future research. (UNITED STATES, ADULT MORTALITY, DIFFERENTIAL MORTALITY, RACES, LEVELS OF EDUCATION)

96.09.14 - English - James C. CRAMER, University of California, Davis, CA (U.S.A.) Racial and ethnic differences in birthweight: The role of income and financial assistance (p. 231-248)

This paper attempts to explain the differences in birthweight observed between blacks, white Anglos, Chicanos, and other racial and ethnic groups. The analysis focuses on the role of income and financial assistance from relatives and public programs. Using data from the NLS Youth Panel, I construct a causal model of birthweight containing exogenous social and demographic risk factors and intervening proximate determinants of birthweight. A substantial part of the gap in birthweight between white Anglos and other ethnic groups (especially blacks) can be explained by the unfavorable socioeconomic and demographic characteristics of the latter. On the other hand, blacks and other minorities smoke less and have other favorable proximate characteristics that depress differences in birthweight. When these proximate determinants are controlled, large ethnic differences in birthweight remain unexplained by income and other sociodemographic factors. (UNITED STATES, BIRTH WEIGHT, RACES, ETHNIC GROUPS, INCOME)

96.09.15 - English - Pedro M. HERNANDEZ, Andrea H. BELLER, Division of Consumer Sciences, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801 (U.S.A.), and John W. GRAHAM, Department of Economics, Rutgers University, Newark, NJ 07102 (U.S.A.) Changes in the relationship between child support payments and educational attainment of offspring, 1979-1988 (p. 249-260)

We examine changes over the 1980s in the effect of child support payments on the educational attainment of children age 16 to 19 in the United States, and why child support has a stronger impact than other sources of income. We use 1979 and 1988 Current Population Survey data, covering a period when improvements in enforcement should have increased the proportion of reluctant fathers paying support. We hypothesize and find that the positive effect of child support on education diminished somewhat over this period, both absolutely and in relation to other income. (UNITED STATES, ALIMONY, CHILDREN, LEVELS OF EDUCATION)

96.09.16 - English - Diane N. LYE, Department of Sociology, University of Washington, Box 353340, Seattle, WA 98195-3340 (U.S.A.), Daniel H. KLEPINGER, Battelle Centers for Public Health Research and Evaluation (U.S.A.), Patricia DAVIS HYLE and Anjanette NELSON, University of Washington, Seattle, WA (U.S.A.) Childhood living arrangements and adult children's relations with their parents (p. 261-280)

We examine the relationship of childhood living arrangements to adult child-parent relations. Compared with adult children raised in intact families, adult children whose parents divorced have less frequent contact with their parents and report a lower-quality relationship with their parents. We observe these negative effects for both custodial and noncustodial parents, although the effects are larger for noncustodial parents. Remarriage of the custodial parent tends to offset the negative impacts of divorce on relations with the custodial parent and to amplify the negative impacts on relations with noncustodial parents. Further, the longer the adult child lived apart from the parent, the weaker are relations with noncustodial parents. (INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS, PARENTS, CHILDREN, DIVORCE, CHILD CUSTODY)

96.09.17 - English - Robin M. WEINICK, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, 2101 East Jefferson Street, Suite 500, Rockville, MD 20852 (U.S.A.) Sharing a home: The experiences of American women and their parents over the twentieth century (p. 281-297)

Trends and determinants of daughter-parent coresidence over the twentieth century are examined by using the 1987-1988 National Survey of Families and Households. Young women from more recent birth cohorts leave their parents' homes for the first time at earlier ages, but are more likely to make return trips home than those born earlier. Thus cohorts show remarkable consistency in the proportion of life lived in the parental home. For the 1900-1929 birth cohorts, daughters' lifetime probability that a parent will move in with them is approximately 15%; younger cohorts show similar age-specific probabilities to date. Explanations for these trends are considered. (UNITED STATES, COHABITATION, DAUGHTERS, PARENTS)

AUGUST 1995 - VOLUME 32, NUMBER 3

Special Issue on Family and Household Demography

96.09.18 - English - Andrew J. CHERLIN, Johns Hopkins University (U.S.A.), Kathleen E. KIERNAN, London School of Economics and Political Science, Londres (U.K.), and P. Lindsay CHASE-LANSDALE, Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago (U.S.A.)

Parental divorce in childhood and demographic outcomes in young adulthood (p. 299-318)

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. (UNITED KINGDOM, DIVORCE, PARENTS, CHILDREN, NUPTIALITY, FERTILITY)

96.09.19 - English - Frank F. FURSTENBERG Jr., Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania (U.S.A.), Saul D. HOFFMAN, Department of Economics, University of Delaware (U.S.A.), and Laura SHRESTHA, Population, Health, and Nutrition Department, The World Bank (U.S.A.)

The effect of divorce on intergenerational transfers: New evidence (p. 319-334)

This paper draws on new data on intergenerational transfers of time and money that were collected in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We use these data to examine the effects of divorce on these transfers. We find that the timing of divorce is critical. Fathers and mothers involved in late divorces have similar levels of transfers with their adult children, while divorce during a child's childhood years increases transfers with mothers and sharply lowers them with fathers. Somewhat surprisingly, we find no evidence that divorced fathers who paid child support are more likely to be involved in intergenerational transfers than those who did not pay child support. (UNITED STATES, DIVORCE, PARENTS, CHILDREN)

96.09.20 - English - Ellen A. KRAMAROW, Population Studies Center, University of Michigan, 1225 South University Avenue, Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2590 (U.S.A.) The elderly who live alone in the United States: Historical perspectives on household change (p. 335-352)

One of the most dramatic changes in the life of the elderly in the United States in the twentieth century is the rise in the proportion of elderly widows living alone. This paper examines this transformation by comparing the determinants of elderly widows' living alone at four points in time, in 1910, 1940, 1960, and 1990. Logistic regression models of the probability of living alone are estimated. The results of these models are used to calculate the expected proportion of elderly widows living alone in various hypothetical scenarios of social change. This analysis suggests that no single factor is responsible for the rise in living alone among the elderly. Value changes, as represented by a variable for time, are shown to have strong and direct effects on the increased probability of living alone in old age in the late twentieth century, independent of the effect of rising income levels. These results are discussed in light of previous research on living arrangements of the elderly, which articulates demographic, economic, and cultural explanations for change. (UNITED STATES, AGED, SINGLE PERSONS, WIDOWS)

96.09.21 - English - John R. LOGAN and Glenna D. SPITZE, Department of Sociology, State University of New York at Albany, Albany, NY 12222 (U.S.A.) Self-interest and altruism in intergenerational relations (p. 353-364)

Self-interest and altruism in the relationships between generations can be manifested both within the family and in the public arena. The present study compares levels of support between age groups 40-49, 50-59, 60-69, 70-79, and 80+ on a series of attitudes about "appropriate" parent-child relations and governmental programs for older people. On both kinds of measures, older people tend consistently to be least likely to adopt the "pro-elderly" position. This association is maintained when controls are introduced in multivariate analyses. Altruism, not self-interest, seems to govern the attitudes of the older generation in this sample. This finding should mitigate potential conflicts over issues of intergenerational equity and fairness, both within the family and in public policy. (UNITED STATES, INTERPERSONAL RELATIONS, OLD AGE, SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY)

96.09.22 - English - Arleen LEIBOWITZ and Jacob Alex KLERMAN, RAND, 1700 Main Street, PO Box 2138, Santa Monica, CA 90407-2138 (U.S.A.)

Explaining changes in married mothers' employment over time (p. 365-378)

Employment of married mothers with preschool children rose dramatically between 1971 and 1990. Using CPS data, we find that about one-fifth of the increase in labor supply can be attributed to changes in mothers' demographic characteristics (age, education, and number of children). Changes in the earnings opportunities of new mothers and their husbands explain another one-fifth of the growth in employment. Over the two decades, infants up to three months old became less of a barrier to employment, while women's labor supply became more sensitive to their own earnings opportunities and less sensitive to those of their husbands. (UNITED STATES, MOTHER, FEMALE EMPLOYMENT, LABOUR SUPPLY)

96.09.23 - English - Lynn A. KAROLY, RAND Corporation, 1700 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90407 (U.S.A.), and Gary BURTLESS, The Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20036 (U.S.A.) Demographic change, rising earnings inequality, and the distribution of personal well-being, 1959-1989 (p. 379-406)

This paper uses new methods to determine the sources of the sharp fall and then the steep rise in personal income inequality between 1959 and 1989. The increase in the proportion of single-head families tended to boost inequality over the entire period. Forty percent of the reduction in income inequality in the 1960s occurred because of the decline in earnings inequality among male heads of families; more than one-third of the increase in inequality after 1969 occurred because inequality in male earnings soared. Since 1979 females' gains in earnings have increased inequality because these gains have been concentrated increasingly in families with high incomes. (UNITED STATES, ECONOMIC DEMOGRAPHY, INCOME DISTRIBUTION)

96.09.24 - English - Robert A. MOFFITT, Department of Economics and Population Studies and Training Center, Brown University (U.S.A.), and Michael S. RENDALL, Department of Consumer Economics and Housing, Cornell University (U.S.A.)

Cohort trends in the lifetime distribution of female family headship in the United States, 1968-1985 (p. 407-424)

We use the PSID Relationship File to estimate cohort trends in the lifetime incidence and duration of female family headship. Hazard (event-history) techniques are used to estimate movements into and out of headship, accounting for duration dependence and left-censored spells. The mean number of years spent in headship between ages 14 and 59 rose dramatically over the period. The increase arose from an increased number of headship spells, including an increase in the number of women ever experiencing headship, but not at all from an increase in durations of headship spells; those decreased slightly. (UNITED STATES, WOMEN'S STATUS, HEAD OF HOUSEHOLD, EVENT HISTORY ANALYSIS)

96.09.25 - English - Larry L. BUMPASS, Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1393 (U.S.A.), R. Kelly RALEY, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-3997 (U.S.A.), and James A. SWEET, Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706-1393 (U.S.A.) The changing character of stepfamilies: Implications of cohabitation and nonmarital childbearing (p. 425-436)

Divorce, nonmarital childbearing, and cohabitation are reshaping family experience in the United States. Because of these changes, our traditional definitions of families decreasingly capture the social units of interest. We have noted how a significant proportion of officially defined single-parent families actually are two-parent unmarried families. The present paper expands on this perspective with respect to stepfamilies. We must broaden our definition of stepfamilies to include cohabitations involving a child of only one partner, and must recognize the large role of nonmarital childbearing in the creation of stepfamilies. We find that cohabitation and nonmarital childbearing have been important aspects of stepfamily experience for at least two decades, and that this is increasingly so. To define stepfamilies only in terms of marriage clearly underestimates both the level and the trend in stepfamily experience: when cohabitation is taken into account, about two-fifths of all women and 30% of all children are likely to spend some time in a stepfamily. (UNITED STATES, FAMILY DISINTEGRATION, COHABITATION, ILLEGITIMATE FERTILITY)

96.09.26 - English - Lee A. LILLARD, RAND, 1700 Main Street, Santa Monica, CA 90407 (U.S.A.), Michael J. BRIEN, Department of Economics, University of Virginia, 114 Rouss Hall, Charlottesville, VA 22903 (U.S.A.), and Linda J. WAITE, Population Research Center, NORC and The University of Chicago, 1155 E. 60th Street, Chicago, IL 60637 (U.S.A.) Premarital cohabitation and subsequent marital dissolution: A matter of self-selection? (p. 437-458)

Married couples who began their relationship by cohabiting appear to face an increased risk of marital dissolution, which may be due to self-selection of more dissolution-prone individuals into cohabitation before marriage. This paper uses newly developed econometric methods to explicitly address the endogeneity of cohabitation before marriage in the hazard of marital disruption by allowing the unobserved heterogeneity components to be correlated across the decisions to cohabit and to end a marriage. These methods are applied to data from the National Longitudinal Study of the High School Class of 1972. We find significant heterogeneity in both cohabitation and marriage disruption, and discover evidence of self-selection into cohabitation. (UNITED STATES, DIVORCE, COHABITATION)

96.09.27 - English - Vicki A. FREEDMAN, Agency for Health Care Policy and Research, 2101 E. Jefferson Street, Suite 500, Rockville, MD 20852 (U.S.A.), and Douglas A. WOLF, Center for Policy Research, Syracuse University, 426 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244 (U.S.A.)

A case study on the use of multiple imputation (p. 459-470)

Multiple imputation is a relatively new technique for dealing with missing values on items from survey data. Rather than deleting observations for which a value is missing, or assigning a single value to incomplete observations, one replaces each missing item with two or more values. Inferences then can be made with the complete data set. This paper presents an application of multiple imputation using the 1987-1988 National Survey of Families and Households. We impute several binary indicators of whether the respondent's elderly mother/mother-in-law is married. Descriptive statistics are then presented for the sample of adult children with an unmarried mother or mother-in-law. (METHODOLOGY, DATA CLEANING)

96.09.28 - English - Frances K. GOLDSCHEIDER, Population Studies and Training Center, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912 (U.S.A.) Interpolating demography with families and households (p. 471-480)

This paper argues that the field of household and family demography serves a critical role in the development of our understanding of the determinants and consequences of population trends. Like the community, families and households are situated between the two levels at which demographic research is ordinarily conducted - the individual and the nation-state. The results of the papers in this issue are used to illustrate the critical ways that intergenerational and gender relationships shape demographic processes. (DEMOGRAPHIC RESEARCH, HOUSEHOLD, FAMILY DEMOGRAPHY)

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