ABSTRACT Objective Determine how estranged adults narrate pathways to adult sibling estrangement. Background A small but meaningful share of adult sibling ties end in no‐contact estrangement, yet existing research has yet to comprehensively determine the pathways to this relationship dynamic. Method A total of 39 in‐depth interviews with sibling‐estranged adults are analyzed using family system and life‐course theory. Results Respondents describe two interlocking pathways to estrangement: one through the family system and one through sibling behavior. In the family system theme, estrangement pathways were identified as: (1) parental partisanship, through manipulation and favoritism; and (2) collateral damage, in which the sibling tie became a casualty of the respondent's parental estrangement. In the sibling behavior theme: (1) absent foundations, when a meaningful childhood bond never solidified; (2) destabilizing conduct, in the form of substance use, mental illness, or erratic behavior; and (3) risk containment, in which the respondent treated a sibling as a direct threat to self, household, or safety. Most respondents described both pathways, a co‐occurrence we term “layered estrangement.” Conclusion Adult sibling estrangement is in some part a derivative process, wherein parental factors engender both the structure and the quality of the sibling tie. As such, parents shape, directly or indirectly, the dynamics under which sibling ties dissolve in adulthood. Implications Researchers and clinicians should treat sibling and parent–child estrangement as related processes situated within broader family dynamics.
ABSTRACT Objective This study examined whether living with a family member with a health limitation is associated with alcohol use among midlife adults. Background Past research on family health limitations typically focused on caregiving, yet living with a family member with a health limitation may shape health behaviors even without direct caregiving responsibilities. Drawing on the life course perspective, this study explored how such family contexts are associated with alcohol use at midlife. Method Using longitudinal data (2008–2018) from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 ( N = 7892), fixed‐effects models predicted four dimensions of alcohol use (any drinking, drinking frequency, drinks per occasion, and heavy drinking) by variables designating coresidence with a parent or child with health limitations for men and women. Results Living with a child with a health limitation was associated with more drinks per occasion and a higher probability of heavy drinking among men. The alcohol patterns related to living with a parent with a health limitation differed by gender, with more negative associations with heavy drinking among men than women. Conclusion Family members' health limitations are associated with distinct roles and responsibilities that can either constrain or promote alcohol use. These findings underscore how health risks emerge through linked lives within families.
ABSTRACT Objective This study investigates how cisgender lesbian and bisexual Brazilian women constructed and negotiated their path to dual motherhood with their partners, going from an initial desire for motherhood to a shared family project. Background Two‐women couples are increasingly pursuing motherhood, either through assisted reproduction techniques or adoption. In these specific contexts, families led by two mothers engage in multiple planning and decision‐making stages to enable their desire for motherhood, involving important negotiations within the couple. Method In‐depth open interviews were conducted with 10 lesbian and bisexual Brazilian mothers, encouraging them to share their autobiographical memories spontaneously. Based on the analysis of the interview transcripts, two central themes emerged: “The construction of the desire to experience motherhood” and “From the desire for motherhood to negotiations with the partner.” Results The findings illustrate how participants articulated their maternal desire as a project of intentionality, navigating the barriers imposed both by hegemonic heteronormative mandates and socioeconomic vulnerabilities. Ultimately, the study highlights the specificities of dual motherhood as a transformative experience that reclaims kinship imaginaries while simultaneously negotiating traditional social expectations. Conclusion This research contributes to understanding the antecedents and negotiations involved in realizing dual motherhood aspirations within the Brazilian context, where legal advances coexist with deep‐seated social inequalities. By elucidating the interviewees' unique narratives, this study seeks to enhance the visibility of their often‐marginalized experiences, thereby contributing to a more inclusive comprehension of family planning.
Objective:This paper examines employment responses to partners' long work hours among new mothers and fathers and asks how gendered couple dynamics at the transition to parenthood have changed over four decades. Background:Mothers are more responsive than fathers to institutional constraints on managing demands at home, and evidence is mixed on the extent to which couple dynamics have become more egalitarian over time. The current study extends research on the incompatibility of long work hours and motherhood, drawing on a couple perspective to assess the moderating role of partners' long work hours on new parents' employment and its evolution over time. Method:Current Population Survey panels from 1982-2020 (N = 136,336 couple years; https://cps.ipums.org/cps/) are used to measure partners' employment and work hours shortly before and after first birth across cohorts. Fixed effect models account for confounding time-invariant characteristics of couples. Results:New mothers pull back from work more when their partners work long hours. Husbands' employment and work hours, by contrast, are not sensitive to partners' long work hours. Despite changes in men's involvement in housework and caregiving, results show little evidence of change over 40 years in the moderating role of partners' long hours on own employment following birth. Conclusion:This is the first U.S. study to examine change in the role of long work hours in shaping couples' employment responses to parenthood. Findings shed light on couple dynamics at the transition to parenthood and document persistence in husbands' work hour patterns and associations with wives' employment.
ABSTRACT Objective This research examines how women make sense of the persistent inequality in household responsibilities in China, which has in some cases intensified across cohorts. Background Despite women's high employment rates, household divisions remain deeply unequal in China, and surprisingly, men's housework has even decreased over the past decade. Yet little is known about how women interpret this enlarged gender gap in unpaid labor. Method This research draws on snowball sampling to collect and analyze in‐depth interviews and survey data from 40 cisgender, married women in Hefei, Anhui Province. Results Women often embrace an individualist schema of self‐reliance, rejecting the notion that their extensive domestic work reflects gendered subordination. Instead, they interpret household labor as a sign of their personal or gendered superiority, and construct empowering discourses that reframe gender status differences and revalue women's domestic contributions. While these discourses offer an alternative and reconciled understanding of unequal household divisions, they ultimately revive gender essentialist logics beneath the veneer of modern individualist schemas. Conclusions Findings show that women's interpretations function as a culturally situated meaning‐making process through which gender inequality operates in the family. Empowering discourses allow women to reframe inequality as compatible with their empowered sense of self, rendering unequal arrangements livable and durable. Women engage in this interpretive work as adaptive responses to family dynamics marked by men's resistance to domestic duties and by individualist schemas that reinvigorate gender essentialist beliefs in the family.
Objective This study explores how mothers reconstructed their identity after surviving an attempted intimate partner homicide (IPH), in cases where their children were either directly or indirectly impacted by the violence.Background Although growing research has addressed risk factors and relationship dynamics preceding IPH, limited attention has been given to the mothering experiences of attempted-IPH survivors, many of whom are mothers. Surviving such trauma can disrupt core beliefs and alter self-perceptions, particularly within the maternal role.Method Using interpretive phenomenological analysis, this qualitative study explored the experiences of 12 mothers who had survived an attempted intimate partner homicide. Data were collected via in-depth, semi-structured interviews and were analyzed with reference to shattered assumptions theory to interpret shifts in maternal identity.Results Three distinct maternal identities emerged: (1) "Far more than a mother-child connection, we have friendship": Shifting Boundaries and Hierarchies; (2) "What is my job except to keep harm away?" Negotiating Protection; and (3) "I Had to Become a Person Again Before I Could Be a Mother": Navigating Competing Needs After Near-Lethal Violence.Conclusion Attempted IPH reshapes maternal identity, compelling survivors to renegotiate their roles and the meaning of motherhood in the aftermath of extreme violence.Implications Findings underscore the need for trauma-informed, family-centered interventions that support diverse maternal responses and promote healing in families affected by severe interpersonal violence.
Objective Estimate the patterns and prevalence of multisystem exposure among US families with children.Background Contact with systems authorized to regulate, surveil, and use punitive tools to enforce compliance is pervasive among disadvantaged families. These social control systems are often studied in isolation, but a growing body of literature has traced important parallels and overlaps in family experiences of system contact. While this research has identified important implications of multisystem entanglements, their prevalence among US families is less clear.Method Data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study are used to measure maternal, paternal, and family exposure to three social control systems: the criminal legal system (CLS), child protective services (CPS), and child support enforcement (CSE). Survey weights are used to calculate the prevalence of system exposure and patterns of multisystem entanglement among a representative sample of urban families with children born during a period of system expansion.Results Most urban families encountered at least one social control system by the time their child was 5 years old, most commonly the CLS alone or in conjunction with either CSE or CPS, with strong socioeconomic gradients in both the extent and complexity of exposure.Conclusion The patterns identified emphasize the importance of studying social control system exposure at a family level both for understanding family experiences and for scholarship on the effects of system contact and inequality.
ABSTRACT Objective This study examines the association between workers' experience of unpredictable and unstable work schedules and their risk of marital or cohabitation dissolution and whether these associations vary by gender. Background Employment and earnings are well‐established predictors of relationship dissolution, with many studies demonstrating that men's employment and earnings stabilize relationships and debating whether women's employment and earnings have a stabilizing or destabilizing effect. What has gone missing and untested in this research and debate is the role of other job attributes that have profound effects on the rhythm of life, namely the predictability and consistency in the timing of work shifts. Method This study draws on longitudinal survey data of hourly service‐sector workers in the United States collected between 2019 and 2024 by the Shift Project ( n = 6918). Using linear probability models, married or cohabiting couples' risk of relationship dissolution as a function of work schedule instability is estimated. Results Hourly service‐sector workers who are subject to unstable and unpredictable work schedules are at higher risk for relationship dissolution. Work schedule instability is associated with dissolution for both marital and cohabiting relationships, especially when men experience highly unstable and unpredictable schedule conditions. Conclusion These results suggest that the demands of contemporary low‐wage work, predicated on the ideal worker norm, are at odds with the maintenance and stability of marital and cohabiting unions.
ABSTRACT Objective This study examined the language of how fathers of young children perceived and enacted fathering and egalitarian parenting during the early months of the COVID‐19 pandemic. Background Fathering research has increasingly focused on men's involvement in childrearing, yet persistent gendered divisions of labor remain, especially during family transitions. Previous findings suggest that fathers increased their involvement during the global pandemic. More in‐depth insights into men's language, perceptions, and patterns of egalitarian parenting can provide valuable information for understanding parenting negotiations and fathering. Method Semi‐structured interviews with 44 fathers of children aged birth to four, conducted between May and July 2020, were qualitatively analyzed using Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis to examine how fathers described their roles, responsibilities, and beliefs about gender, parenting, and masculinity in the context of macro‐level disruption. Results Fathers expressed support for egalitarian ideals; however, their language revealed contradictions between their beliefs and parenting behaviors. Discursive categories included idealized but uneven enactments of shared parenting, reliance on gendered assumptions about parenting, ambivalence surrounding masculinity norms, and vacillation in parenting competence. Conclusion Fathers' egalitarian aspirations coexisted with deeply naturalized assumptions about maternal expertise and gendered responsibility underscoring the need to challenge subtle norms that define carework as women's work. Implications Results underscore the need for culturally informed family interventions and parental leave policies that support gender equity and promote egalitarian fathering.
Objective This study aimed to explore how individuals in interreligious marriages in India experience and interpret their psychological well-being.Background Interreligious unions in India represent a complex intersection of faith traditions, culture, and social expectations. Such marriages often face unique individual and relational challenges, including socio-familial rejection, dissolution, and religious dissonance, which may influence their mental health and well-being. Understanding these experiences is essential for advancing culturally sensitive psychological and policy support for interreligious couples.Method Using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), in-depth interviews were conducted with 20 interreligious married individuals across India, recruited through purposive sampling. Data were analyzed thematically following IPA procedures. Seligman's PERMA model provided the theoretical lens for interpreting participants' experiences of well-being.Results Results revealed a coexistence of flourishing and distress among participants. Relationships and meaning were often strained by family rejection, pressure to convert, and religious disagreements. However, positive emotions and engagement were strengthened through empathy, shared rituals, and mutual respect. Resilience and persistence in the face of social opposition contributed to participants' sense of accomplishment.Conclusion Interreligious marriages in India foster both psychological challenges and growth, reflecting dynamic adaptations within pluralistic contexts. The findings underscore the need for culturally informed counseling practices and legislative measures that promote pluralism, inclusion, and mental health among interfaith couples.
Objective This study examines how sexual concurrency, when an individual engages in multiple sexual relationships that intersect in time, is associated with pregnancy desire.Background Research on sexual concurrency often overlooks its relationship to broader familial processes. Concurrency is most prevalent in young adulthood, a life stage marked by increasing deliberation over childbearing, and may shape expectations about the relationship's future, including desires to have children together.Method We analyzed high-frequency data collected weekly over 2.5 years from 897 young women in the United States. Using fixed and random effects regression models, we estimated associations between sexual concurrency and pregnancy desire.Results In the short term, sexual concurrency, whether committed by the woman or perceived in her partner, was associated with a decline in pregnancy desire. Over time, repeated concurrency by women was negatively associated with pregnancy desire, whereas ongoing partner concurrency was positively associated with pregnancy desire, particularly, within highly committed relationships.Conclusion Life circumstances that disrupt or reshape relationships can be related to changes in fertility preferences. In the context of sexual concurrency, young adults may adjust their pregnancy desires in ways that may have implications for subsequent fertility and family-related behavior.Implications The application of social exchange and investment theory highlights how relationship context informs fertility preferences and offers a foundation for research on broader implications of sexual concurrency.
Objective This study examined whether emotion regulation (ER) strategies during wartime predicted levels of parental distress and burnout at T2, controlling for baseline levels.Background Parenting under extreme stress, such as war, increases vulnerability to psychological distress and parental burnout. Although ER strategies like reappraisal, suppression, and rumination are known to influence stress responses, their longitudinal role in war contexts remains underexplored.Method A longitudinal study was conducted with 261 Israeli Jewish parents (81% female) who completed self-report measures one month (T1) and seven months (T2) after the outbreak of the 2023 Israel-Hamas war. Measures included parental burnout, psychological distress, and ER strategies. Hierarchical regression analyses assessed whether ER at T1 predicted outcomes at T2, controlling for baseline symptoms, gender, and war exposure (e.g., personal injury or proximity to death/injury of others). Study design and hypotheses were pre-registered.Results Psychological distress significantly declined over time, while parental burnout levels remained stable. Reappraisal at T1 predicted a decline in parental burnout at T2, and rumination predicted a smaller decline in psychological distress. Suppression did not significantly predict either outcome.Conclusion Reappraisal may protect against prolonged parental burnout, whereas rumination hinders recovery from psychological distress.Implications Targeting specific ER tendencies may enhance parental resilience during prolonged exposure to war-related stress.
Objective This study examines how US immigration policies shape family and work decision-making among immigrant women employed in professional occupations who hold lawful immigration status.Background Research documents the family-related consequences of immigration policies for undocumented, mixed-status, and separated immigrant families. This study adopts a life course perspective to investigate policy impacts for immigrant women in professional occupations during early adulthood.Method The study analyzes 29 in-depth interviews with Indian and Chinese immigrant women ages 25 and older working in the US tech sector. Interviews covered life histories, migration, employment, relationships, family, and future plans. Analyses followed modified grounded theory methodology.Results Participant narratives revealed that family-related visa stipulations, administrative burdens, and employment restrictions intervened in family and work decision-making. These mechanisms constrained relationships, childbearing, caregiving, and access to flexible work, with implications for life course timing and sequencing. Women exercised agency in navigating constraints, and impacts varied by nationality and employer practices.Conclusion The findings advance understanding of immigration, family development, and the life course and delineate the differentiated impacts of immigration policies. Participant accounts complicate linear readings of life course trajectories and underscore the temporal dimensions of migration that heighten policy-related family impacts. Policy intervened primarily through bureaucratic and regulatory mechanisms, rather than enforcement or social exclusion emphasized in past research. Women enacted agency, albeit more limited than that of US citizens, in ways foreclosed to those in other visa categories or with undocumented status.
Objective This study provides a comprehensive analysis of the mechanisms driving the association between women's socioeconomic advantage and the risk of relationship dissolution. Background Research consistently finds that different-sex couples in which women have higher socioeconomic status than their partners are more likely to separate. Several competing explanations for this association have been proposed, including the role of gender culture, specialization optimization, partner opportunity structure, and economic mediators. However, robust empirical evidence for these explanations remains elusive. Method This study harmonizes couple-level panel survey data for 29 high-income countries from 2004 to 2020 (N = 544,911 couples). Using hierarchical probability models, it leverages country-level measures on gender norms and other macro-level characteristics to provide new direct tests of key hypothesized mechanisms underpinning the association between women's relative earnings and the risk of separation. Results Consistent with prior research, results show that the association between women's socioeconomic advantage and relationship dissolution is positive and statistically significant. But, contrary to expectations, the results do not provide evidence that this association is moderated by gender culture or driven by other common explanations. Instead, the analyses show evidence that this association is stronger among couples with children in the household, suggesting a potential work-family conflict mechanism.Conclusion The study concludes that our understanding of the mechanisms driving this association is incomplete and that more research is necessary to develop new explanations.
Objective This study quantifies sibling experiences across childhood by birth cohort and maternal education.Background As family structures evolve, sibling complexity-the presence of half and stepsiblings-is becoming more common. Yet, little is known about how sibling constellations unfold across childhood, vary between cohorts, or differ by social background.Method Annual register data of full Finnish birth cohorts 1988 (n = 64,597) and 2000 (n = 56,413) were used to identify all full, half, and step-sibling constellations from birth to age 16. Sequence analysis was employed to create relative frequency plots and calculate the number of and time spent in different sibling constellations.Results By age 16, 35% of children in the 2000 cohort had experienced sibling complexity, nearly 20% more than the 1988 cohort. The most common experience of sibling complexity was growing up with older full and half siblings. Trajectories with stepsiblings were less common, and having both half and stepsiblings remained rare. Children of basic-educated mothers experienced more sibling complexity and instability, with greater increases over time than children of more educated mothers.Conclusion Increases in family complexity extend into changing sibling kinships, but the experiences of sibling complexity vary considerably by social background. Research and policy should acknowledge the growing share of families navigating diverse sibling constellations and attend to both the causes and consequences of these evolving experiences.
Objective This study examines the link between physical attractiveness and partnership outcomes among a group of young male refugees, drawing on Social Exchange Theory, which posits that individuals exchange valued traits-such as attractiveness-for higher status in other domains.Background A large influx of predominantly young, unmarried men from Syria and Afghanistan led to skewed sex ratios within their communities in Germany, heightening refugees' difficulties in forming partnerships.Method The study uses PARFORM data, which is based on a stratified probability sample of male refugees from Syria and Afghanistan who arrived in Germany in 2014-2018 (N = 1742). Employing linear probability models with sample selection correction and multiverse analysis, it examines how multiple dimensions of attractive physical appearance are associated with partnerships involving women of higher education or women holding German citizenship.Results Having an athletic physique and-less consistently-possessing an attractive physical appearance are associated with a higher likelihood of forming partnerships with women holding German citizenship and higher education than a respondent among Afghan-but not Syrian-refugees. In contrast, being well-groomed shows no significant association with any partnership outcomes.Conclusion The findings suggest that athletic appearance is associated with improved (Afghan) refugees' chances of entering partnerships that could offer socio-economic and legal advantages. The study highlights a novel dimension of social exchange by showing how refugees' physical traits might be associated with greater legal security in the host country.
Objective This study examines kinship obligations across nuclear and extended family ties, considering variations by support type, gender, and attitudinal moderators regarding the importance attached to emotional closeness, past conflict, reciprocity, and societal judgment.Background Existing research is predominantly concentrated on support exchanges and obligations in parent-child relationships. Therefore, it remains unknown to what extent kinship obligations extend beyond the nuclear family.Method We present the findings from an ad-hoc online survey (N = 5601) that examines kinship obligations in Italy using a vignette-based factorial experiment, randomly assigning kin types and genders. The dependent variables measure to what extent the vignette protagonist should provide emotional, practical, care, and financial support to a relative in need.Results Obligations to provide support to nephews/nieces, uncles/aunts, and cousins are weaker and surrounded by less consensus than those of supporting parents and children, with siblings' obligations occupying an intermediate position. Differences between extended and nuclear kin ties are larger with regard to financial support and care than to emotional and practical aids. Extended kinship obligations are more conditional on attitudes concerning societal judgment for not providing help, while those guiding parent-child ties are more dependent on the importance attached to emotional closeness and past conflict.Conclusion We interpret these results in terms of hierarchical kin obligations that diminish with genealogical distance and are backed up by attitudes regarding emotional closeness and societal judgment.
Objective:This study examines care arrangements for children before, during, and after maternal incarceration. Background:Family systems theory suggests that maternal incarceration may drastically alter family life for marginalized children, but little is known about how children's care arrangements change during and after maternal incarceration versus other forms of criminal legal system (CLS) involvement. Method:Leveraging longitudinal linked administrative data on 14,704 children whose biological mothers encountered the CLS in early and middle childhood, we use linear probability models and difference-in-difference analysis to examine how maternal incarceration shapes placement in foster care, adoption or guardianship, and other informal relative care. Results:Among children with maternal CLS contact, children with upcoming maternal incarceration had higher probabilities of foster care, adoption or guardianship, and informal relative care than those without upcoming maternal incarceration. Maternal incarceration was associated with a 2 percentage point increase in both foster care placement and informal nonparental care within the 6 months following onset; adoption and guardianship arrangements increase by nearly 2 percentage points within three years. Associations were largely driven by children whose mothers were incarcerated immediately upon the onset of CLS involvement or entering carceral spells longer than 6 months. Conclusions:Maternal incarceration has both immediate and long-term implications for children's family environments.
Objective This study investigates changes in sibling tension following the deaths of sibship members in midlife, as well as the processes underlying these changes, particularly as they vary by the gender of the deceased sibling.Background Relationships with siblings are among adults' most enduring ties across the life course, serving as important sources of support and shaping well-being. Despite the salience of these ties, there has been little attention to the ways in which the deaths of adult siblings shape the quality of relationships among surviving sibship members.Method Quantitative and qualitative data were collected from 505 adult siblings nested within 261 families at two points approximately a decade apart. Multilevel modeling was used to test the association between sibling death and changes in sibling tension. Qualitative analyses were based on interviews at both time points with 62 respondents who lost a sibling between waves, their mothers, and in some cases, the deceased siblings in the wave prior to their deaths.Results Multilevel models showed that brothers' deaths were associated with decreases in sibling tension, whereas there were no changes following sisters' deaths. Qualitative analyses revealed that deceased brothers were typically described as having been sources of conflict and disappointment, fostering tension in sibling relationships. Conversely, deceased sisters were typically described as supportive, rather than conflictual, but faced challenges in their lives which elicited concern, rather than derision.Conclusion These findings underscore how the deaths of brothers and sisters differentially shape changes in the quality of adults' relationships with their siblings following the loss of a member of the sibship.
Objective This study offers the first population-based evidence on how young adults from same-sex families fare when entering the labor market shortly after leaving full-time education.Background Same-sex couples' parenting rights remain controversial in many countries. Although most studies suggest that children from same-sex families perform at least as well as children from different-sex families in childhood or adolescence, data limitations have prevented investigation of how children from same-sex families perform in adulthood.Method Using Dutch longitudinal tax registers, we observe 381,131 young adults who are no longer in education at age 25, of which 760 are from same-sex families. We use linear regression models to compare young adults from same-sex and different-sex families on a range of early labor market outcomes (annual earnings, hourly earnings, employment, full-time employment).Results Young adults who lived in a same-sex family earn just as much, are equally employed, and have equal probability of being full-time employed as young adults from different-sex families. Moreover, especially young adults raised by same-sex parents from birth more often choose industries dominated by the opposite sex. Nonetheless, such choices are not reflected in earnings differentials.Conclusion These findings suggest that children of same-sex parents do well on the labor market, and are less inclined to follow traditional gender norms when choosing occupations.
