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Demography
Published in: Demography 4/2019

Open Access 01-07-2019

Fraying Families: Demographic Divergence in the Parental Safety Net

Author: Heeju Sohn

Published in: Demography | Issue 4/2019

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Abstract

Parents are increasingly supporting their children well into adulthood and often serve as a safety net during periods of economic and marital instability. Improving life expectancies and health allows parents to provide for their children longer, but greater union dissolution among parents can weaken the safety net they can create for their adult children. Greater mortality, nonmarital childbearing, and divorce among families with lower socioeconomic status may be reinforcing inequalities across generations. This article examines two cohorts aged 25–49 from the 1988 (n = 7,246) and 2013 (n = 7,014) Panel Study of Income Dynamics Roster and Transfers Files. In 1988, adults with a college degree had two surviving parents living together for 1.8 years longer than nongraduates. This disparity increased to 6.8 years in 2013. This five-year increase in disparity was driven predominantly by higher rates of union dissolution among parents of adults with less education. Growing differences in paternal mortality also contributed to the rise in inequality.
previous article A Cohort Perspective on the Demography of Grandparenthood: Past, Present, and Future Changes in Race and Sex Disparities in the United States
next article Randomness in the Bedroom: There Is No Evidence for Fertility Control in Pre-Industrial England

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Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
Respondents in the PSID are slightly more advantaged than the general U.S. population.
 
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Metadata
Title
Fraying Families: Demographic Divergence in the Parental Safety Net
Author
Heeju Sohn
Publication date
01-07-2019
Publisher
Springer US
Published in
Demography / Issue 4/2019
Print ISSN: 0070-3370
Electronic ISSN: 1533-7790
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13524-019-00802-5

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