Growing Up with Single Parents and Stepparents: Long-Term Effects on Family Solidarity

Abstract

Research on single-parent and stepfamily outcomes tends to focus on the child's well-being (e.g., Amato & Keith, 1990; Hetherington & Jodl, 1993). Despite suggestions that divorce and remarriage are associated with increased stress among family members and greater risk of disengagement (Hetherington & Jodl, 1993; McLanahan & Booth, 1989), much less attention has been paid to family-level outcomes. This research uses the 1987-88 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to address the long-term consequences of childhood family structure for relationship quality, perceived supportiveness, and exchange with parents and siblings in adulthood. It examines two primary questions: Is growing up in a divorced single-parent family associated with less solidarity between parents and children and among siblings than is found in intact families? Is the stepfamily experience associated with more or less solidarity compared with families where the custodial parent does not remarry?This research fills a number of gaps in the literature. It addresses family relationship outcomes of divorce and remarriage, including sibling as well as parent-child relationships, and it addresses what has been called an extraordinary lack of research on long-term effects of family structure (Chase-Lansdale & Hetherington, 1990). It also provides a more realistic look at the consequences of remarriage by comparing stepfamilies with single-parent families rather than with intact families.PRIOR RESEARCHCONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK: FAMILY SOLIDARITYFamily solidarity is conceptualized as a multidimensional phenomenon that includes affection, obligation, interaction, and exchange within and across generations (McChesney & Bengtson, 1988). It is a complex product that reflects societal norms, immediate opportunity structures, and the unique histories of individual relationships. Research shows that large majorities of the population are in close contact with their parents, report quite high levels of affection, and perceive their parents as available for support (Rossi & Rossi, 1990), but that actual exchange between children and parents is relatively low (Hogan, Eggebeen, & Clogg, 1993). Solidarity between children and parents responds to both parent and child characteristics, generally being higher when the child is married and has children, has higher education and income, and is older, female, black or Hispanic, and when parents are in better health (Hogan et al., 1993; Rossi & Rossi, 1990). Adults feel weaker obligations to their siblings than to their parents (Rossi & Rossi, 1990), and sibling relations tend to be stronger for adults who are younger, female, have not yet established their own families, and those who have lost their parents (White & Riedmann, 1992). The question addressed here is whether, net of these general predictors of family solidarity, childhood family structure has a long-term impact.DIVORCE, SINGLE PARENTING, AND FAMILY SOLIDARITYEmpirical research has demonstrated that significant, albeit rather small, disadvantages are associated with parental divorce. Children whose parents divorce are more likely to experience involvement in deviant behavior, school problems, and psychological maladjustment during childhood (Dornbusch et al., 1985; Lindner, Hagan, & Brown, 1992), as well as low educational and occupational attainment, lower psychological well-being, earlier marriage and childbearing, and greater likelihood of divorce and nonmarital childbearing in early adulthood than are children who grow up in intact two-parent families (Amato & Keith, 1992; McLanahan & Bumpass, 1988).Of central interest to this inquiry is the possibility that divorce and single parenting might damage the relationships between parents and children. Strong evidence shows that children's relationships with noncustodial parents suffer and, in many cases, are virtually extinguished after divorce (Furstenberg & Harris, 1992). …