We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 12,140 person–waves) to identify characteristics associated with mothers’ having or lacking “personal safety net” support from family and friends. We focus on characteristics that are likely to increase the importance of having support available but may also interfere with the maintenance of supportive ties: poverty, poor physical and mental health, and challenging child rearing responsibilities. By capitalizing on distinctions among these types of personal disadvantages and among types of personal safety nets (financial, housing, child care, and emotional), we help to explain why personal disadvantages are associated with weaker support. Our paper contributes to the literature emphasizing the importance of reciprocity in support relationships and introduces the idea that families that are more difficult to help will have less support available.

The intergenerational stake hypothesis suggests that parents are more invested in their children and experience better quality parent–child ties than do their children. In this study the authors examined variation in reports of relationship quality regarding parents and children intraindividually (do people report better quality ties with their children than with their parents?) and whether within-person variations have implications for well-being. Participants age 40–60 (N = 633) reported on their relationship quality (importance, positive and negative quality) with their parents and adult children. Individuals reported their relationships with children were more important and more negative than relationships with parents. Individuals with feelings that were in the opposite direction of the intergenerational stake hypothesis (i.e., greater investment in parents than children) reported poorer well-being. The findings provide support for the intergenerational stake hypothesis with regard to within-person variations in investment and show that negative relationship quality may coincide with greater feelings of investment.

Reducing unintended pregnancies – particularly among Hispanic and Black women, who have relatively high rates – is a key public health goal in the United States. However, descriptive literature has suggested that Hispanic women are happier about these pregnancies compared with White and Black women, which could mean that there is variation across groups in the consequences of the resulting births. The purpose of this study was to examine variations in happiness about unintended births by race-ethnicity and to assess possible explanations for these differences. Using data from the National Survey of Family Growth (n=1,462 births) I find that Hispanic women report being happier about unintended births compared with White and Black women. Higher happiness among Hispanics was particularly pronounced among a subgroup of women: those who were foreign-born and very religious. Overall, results confirm previous findings that intention status alone is incomplete for capturing pregnancy experiences. Happiness offers complementary information that is important when making comparisons by race-ethnicity and nativity.

Using data from the 2004 and 2007 waves of the European Social Survey (ESS), we find that for every 100 births intended, about 60 births occur, on average, across 22 countries. This shortfall in fertility masks substantial heterogeneity between subgroups within the populations surveyed. Motherhood status, age, partnership status, and the strength of fertility intentions moderate the relationship between women's childbearing plans and births measured at the country level. Individual-level analyses using data from three countries included in the 2005 and 2008 waves of the Generations and Gender Survey are consistent with our country-level analyses. We demonstrate that repeat cross-sectional data can be used to analyse the correspondence between childbearing plans and births when longitudinal data are lacking.

Previous research has found that financial transfers from parents to young adult children decline as children age and that age is one of the strongest predictors of support. Using data collected from young adults (ages 18 to 34) and their parents (ages 40 to 60; N=536 parent-child dyads), we explore the possibility that the relationship between age and financial support is mediated by offspring needs, acquisition of adult roles, or geographical and emotional closeness. We find that age-related declines in offspring’s needs help to explain why financial support falls with age. However, offspring age remains a robust predictor of financial support after controlling for a wide range of factors, suggesting that age norms condition support from parents to offspring.