Diversity and Fluidity in Children's Living Arrangements: Family Transitions in an Urban Afro-American Community

Abstract

The article presents a study exploring the evolution of urban African-American children's living arrangements in a community-defined population. African-American children are more likely than non-black children to spend significant portions of their childhood in households that are not dual parent and are more likely to coreside with extended relatives. In addition, the rates of marital disruption and never-married childbearing among Afro-American parents, and the fluidness of extended family house-holds, suggest that change is a common experience for black. The family as an evolving social context has been a major theme in family research, for several decades. The family developmental perspective in concert with demographic work on the family life cycle has emphasized the dynamic nature of families both in composition and developmental tasks. The prevalence and stability of two-parent nuclear family households has changed for all Americans and the forces of change have been particularly pronounced in African-American communities.