Family Disruption and Intergenerational Reproduction: Comparing the Influences of Married Parents, Divorced Parents, and Stepparents

Abstract

The transmission of individual characteristics and behaviors across generations has frequently been studied in the social sciences. For a growing number of children, however, the biological father was present in the household for only part of the time; and for many children, stepfathers were present. What are the implications of these changes for the process of intergenerational transmission? To answer this question, this article compares intergenerational transmission among married, divorced, and stepparents. Two forms of reproduction are studied: educational attainment and church attendance. For education, divorced fathers were as influential as married fathers, whereas stepfathers were less influential. For church attendance, married fathers were most influential, divorced fathers were least influential, and stepfathers were in between. Divorced mothers, in contrast, appeared to be more influential than married mothers. These findings lend negative support for the social capital hypothesis and positive support for notions of value socialization. The strong role of the divorced father for educational transmission is consistent with genetic processes and hypotheses about early advantages.

Mothers' Time, the Parenting Package, and Links to Healthy Child Development

“…We were surprised by the general lack of any meaningful interaction between mothers' time and other aspects of the parenting package. There is sound theory to suggest that parental involvement should condition the value of parental resources such as time (Coleman, ; Kalmijn, ; Lareau, ). On a more intuitive level, it makes sense that maternal time characterized by talking, warmth, and support for learning would be more strongly associated with child well‐being than time void of these qualities, whether engaged in homework help or just passing the day together.…”

Childhood Family Structure and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States

“…Previous studies of socioeconomic mobility by childhood family structure measured family structure snapshots, not family transitions or coresidential time with both parents (but see Björklund and Chadwick (2003), described directly below; also see Wu’s nonmarital childbearing studies (Wu 1996; Wu and Martinson 1993)). The small literatures on occupational and educational mobility by childhood family structure support the hypothesis that economic advantages are more likely to be reproduced in stable two-parent families (Battle 1997, 1998; Biblarz et al 1997; Biblarz and Raftery 1993, 1999; Kalmijn 2015; Martin 2012; Teachman et al 1996). Yet, findings from the few previous studies of income mobility and family structure are mixed.…”

“…Socialization- and social control–based theories suggest that when children live with both parents for more time, children experience less mobility (Kalmijn 2015). More coresidential time with both parents is associated with more parent-child interaction and more parental supervision (Kalil et al 2014).…”

“…Consequently, it is possible to study educational mobility relative to both resident and nonresident biological parents. Prior studies have addressed this topic (e.g., Kalmijn 2015). Thus, I study income mobility.…”

Compensation and other forms of accumulation in intergenerational social inequality

“…Fathers also tend to have higher income than mothers even when both parents are working. Some empirical evidence suggests that the impact of maternal resources on adult attainment of the children, in terms of both education (Kalmijn 2015) and socioeconomic status (Erola and Jalovaara 2016), tends to increase if parents separate and children continue to co-reside with the mother.…”