531378ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYINTRODUCTION

research-article2014

Introduction Keywords: family complexity; multiple-partner fertil-

ity; union instability; family change

T his volume is motivated by the dramatic

changes in family life that have occurred in
the United States over the past half century.
Marriage has become less central to the life
Family course, as individuals marry at older ages or not
at all. Divorce rates rose rapidly until the 1980s
Complexity: and then plateaued and declined somewhat,
although about half of marriages in the early
Setting the twenty-first century were still predicted to end
in divorce or permanent separation (Amato
Context 2010); and the majority of those who divorce
will remarry within 10 years (Bramlett and
Mosher 2002). Cohabitation before (or instead
of) marriage has become much more wide-
spread; the percentage of women ages 15 to 44
whose first union was cohabitation (rather than
By marriage) increased from 47 percent in 1995 to
Marcia J. Carlson 68 percent by 2006–2010 (Copen, Daniels, and
and Mosher 2013). Also, nonmarital childbearing
Daniel R. Meyer has risen dramatically since the 1960s, such
that today fully 41 percent of all births occur
outside of marriage (Hamilton, Martin, and
Ventura 2013).

Marcia J. Carlson is a professor of sociology and affili-

ate at the Center for Demography and Ecology and the
Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of
Wisconsin–Madison. Her primary research interests
center on the links between family contexts and the
well-being of children and parents, especially for
unmarried families.
Daniel R. Meyer is the Mary C. Jacoby Professor of
Social Work at the University of Wisconsin–Madison;
he also has affiliations with the Institute for Research
on Poverty and the American Academy of Social Work
and Social Welfare. His current research interests
include family change and family policy, especially
child support and welfare policies.

DOI: 10.1177/0002716214531378

6 ANNALS, AAPSS, 654, July 2014

INTRODUCTION 7

Rising union instability (owing to high rates of cohabitation, nonmarital child-

bearing, divorce, and repartnering) in the context of persistent fertility rates has
led to an increase in family complexity. Particularly notable is multiple-partner
fertility, or adults who have biological children by more than one partner (result-
ing in children who have at least one half sibling). A sizable fraction of adults
today will have children with more than one partner (for example, 13 percent of
men ages 40 to 44 in 2006–2010 [Guzzo, this volume])—with even larger propor-
tions among some disadvantaged subgroups. These changes and trends in family
life are important for understanding both the causes and consequences of pov-
erty and likely have implications for broader trends in inequality. And as the
reach and effects of many antipoverty policies vary with family structure, changes
in family life will pose challenges to the effective design and operation of a host
of social programs and policies.

What Is Family Complexity?

It is difficult to define family complexity in a way that scholars and policy-makers
find useful, since it can encompass many aspects of variation and instability in
families. We observe that simple nuclear families are easier to describe. For
example, a woman and man marry, begin living together around the time they
marry, have children together following marriage, and do not dissolve the mar-
riage or have children with others. This means that marriage is lifelong, that
coresidence and marriage always go together, and that fertility occurs only within
marriage. In contrast, complexity occurs when marriage and legal ties, living
arrangements, fertility, and parenting are not coterminous, that is, when roles
and relationships diverge from the simple nuclear family scheme. Members of a
family (however defined by a given individual) may have differences among them
in biological ties, legal relationships, where they live, and how long they live
there. In fact, individuals in the same family or household may differ notably in
who they “count” when asked to describe who is in their family (Braithwaite et
al. 2010).
Conceptually, complexity can result from differential attachment across a cat-
egory that is and only can be discrete. For example, different children in the
same residence may have different biological parents. In addition, complexity can
emerge due to the variability in categories that were previously thought to be—
but are not necessarily—discrete. For example, an old two-part classification in
which children live with either one or two parents will not capture the complexity
of parental cohabitation that occurs a few nights per week, or children who may
regularly live in more than one home due to shared custody arrangements. This
discussion does not even begin to address individuals who are considered to be
family members by those with whom they do not share biology, legality, or coresi-
dence (i.e., fictive kin).
Given our concerns for children’s well-being and the success of the next gen-
eration—and for effective public policies to support disadvantaged families with
8 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

children—in this volume we limit our focus to families with minor children
(under age 18). We do not focus on other important aspects of complexity that
arise among adults only, such as elders living with their adult children. Key exam-
ples of complex families for our purposes include (1) stepfamilies, where one
parent is biologically related to his or her child(ren) and the other adult has a step
or social relationship to the child(ren) of the first parent; (2) single-parent fami-
lies where the mother has children with two or more partners (who may or may
not have lived with her); and (3) three-generation families, where children, par-
ents, and grandparents share the same residence.
Even as we note the rapid pace of family change in recent decades, it is impor-
tant to recognize that family complexity is not new. With high mortality rates
through the early twentieth century, it was not uncommon for a man or woman
to lose a spouse (partner) to death during the child-rearing years, and it was not
uncommon to then remarry (repartner) (Bumpass 1984). A woman could, thus,
have children with a new partner after losing her husband while still in her repro-
ductive years. A man of any age could have children with a new woman, after
losing his wife or partner.
The newer forms of union instability are less exogenous than death and occur
primarily because individuals do not enter a (stable) union before having children
(i.e., nonmarital childbearing) or because childbearing occurs within unions that
do not last until the end of a woman’s reproductive years (i.e., separation or
divorce). With rising divorce in the latter half of the twentieth century, remar-
riage and subsequent childbearing also increased family complexity. Bumpass
(1984) found that in 1980, fully 19 percent of children living with their mother
had at least one half sibling. Because those with low education are more likely to
have nonmarital births (England, Shafer, and Wu 2012), to get divorced (Martin
2006), and to begin childbearing earlier and have more children (Wilde,
Batchelder, and Ellwood 2010) than those with high education, today’s family
complexity disproportionately occurs among those with low socioeconomic
status.

Why Do We Care?
There is some disagreement in the empirical research literature over the extent
to which complexity in and of itself is detrimental to children; this question is
addressed throughout the articles in this volume. Some argue that the primary
issue is the economic resources available to children, and that complexity is pri-
marily a problem if it diminishes the resources necessary to provide a rich envi-
ronment for children’s development. Indeed, there is little disagreement that
complexity is more common among disadvantaged families, nor is there much
controversy about asserting that relationship dissolution often leads to economic
difficulties, or that economic difficulties often create additional difficulties for
children’s well-being. For the purposes of this article, then, we do not feel a need
to try to determine precisely the extent to which complexity causes difficulties for
INTRODUCTION 9

children directly—it is enough to say that complexity can create difficulties indi-
rectly or be correlated with markers of disadvantage, which policy may intend to
address.
Family complexity is of concern because it affects the character, composition,
and resource-sharing within families—the social institution that (especially in a
liberal welfare regime) is still expected to take primary and ongoing responsibility
for the care and socialization of children. In the midst of family complexity,
resources that would otherwise be concentrated within a single household are dif-
fused across households. For example, men who have fathered children with more
than one woman and do not live with their children often do not have the economic
resources to provide significant levels of support to all of these families (Cancian
and Meyer 2011; Sinkewicz and Garfinkel 2009). Moreover, family complexity
means there is greater ambiguity in family roles and responsibilities; for example,
the stepparent role is not well defined, and children may not receive the level of
emotional support that they need from either their nonresidential biological father
or their stepfather (Cherlin 1992; Stewart 2006). Finally, complexity may mean
greater fluidity in living arrangements, as romantic partners of one parent move in
and out of children’s lives. Since complexity is most concentrated among disadvan-
taged populations—and living amid a complex family may further diminish fami-
lies’ ability to support their children—growing family complexity may contribute to
broader societal inequality both within and across generations. As such, family
complexity represents an important aspect of the “diverging destinies” of children
in different socioeconomic groups (McLanahan 2004).
Complexity is also of concern from the perspective of public policy, in two
respects. First, public policy is charged with supporting the diverse range of
families that currently exist. To do so, programs must accurately assess the com-
position, size, and living arrangements of families for purposes of determining
eligibility and benefit levels; but this becomes more complicated in the context
of family complexity. Second, public policy may affect family patterns in the next
generation (whether intended or not). As such, policy could either increase or
reduce complexity via the various incentives and disincentives of programs that
target particular family units and hence encourage or discourage particular fam-
ily behaviors. We return to the implications of family complexity for public policy
in our concluding article to this volume.

This Volume
In this volume, leading scholars explore multiple aspects of contemporary family
complexity in the United States, focusing particularly on families with minor
children. The articles are grouped into three broad areas. The first several arti-
cles provide important conceptual and descriptive background for exploring fam-
ily complexity. Frank F. Furstenberg summarizes the broad context for the
emergence of family complexity in the United States over the past 50 years. He
identifies the gender-based division of labor as the key driving factor that
10 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

increased complexity; he highlights the growing stratification by socioeconomic

status in the prevalence and nature of family complexity; and he reminds us to
reserve judgment about how complexity may affect children before we have
direct evidence. Maria Cancian and Ron Haskins provide new descriptive evi-
dence about how changing family patterns are linked to income and poverty.
Representing diverging viewpoints, they summarize the facts about family and
economic change and then highlight areas of agreement and disagreement in
what could and should be done in terms of public policy. The last article in the
first section, by Wendy Manning, Susan Brown, and J. Bart Stykes, uses data from
the Survey of Income and Program Participation to provide new estimates of
children’s experiences of family complexity over 1996 to 2009. They highlight
variation by race/ethnicity and parental education, and demonstrate that family
complexity is more common among disadvantaged children.
The second set of articles explores key aspects or domains of family complex-
ity. Karen Benjamin Guzzo provides new evidence about the prevalence of
multiple-partner fertility among particular subgroups using data about men and
women in their forties. Lawrence Berger and Sharon Bzostek use data from the
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to evaluate the extent to which adults
occupy particular combinations and sequences of partner and parental roles at
particular ages. Rachel Dunifon, Kathleen Ziol-Guest, and Kimberly Kopko
highlight the role of grandparents in caring for children in particular complex
family arrangements—either grandparent coresidence with parents and children,
or grandparents serving as primary caregivers for children when their parents are
not present. Bryan Sykes and Becky Pettit draw our attention to family complex-
ity as linked to the criminal justice system amid the rising share of men (espe-
cially minority and low-educated men) who spend time in jail or prison.
The third set of articles provides information about key elements of family
processes amid complexity. Ariel Kalil, Rebecca Ryan, and Elise Chor provide
new estimates of time spent with children by multiple caregivers across various
family types. Laura Tach, Kathryn Edin, Hope Harvey, and Brielle Bryan explore
fathering behaviors in the context of complexity, and they highlight that most
fathers are involved in intensive parenting of some children, whether biological
children or nonbiological children (who are the children of their partner). Linda
Burton identifies the challenges for mothers to pursue romantic relationships
amidst their responsibilities as mothers to their own children and the children of
their partners.
Finally, we include several articles and commentaries that point to the broader
implications of family complexity for public policy and society. Leonard Lopoo
and Kerri Raissian summarize what we know about how public policy affects
family behaviors that lead to complexity. Andrew Cherlin and Judith Seltzer com-
ment from the perspective of family demographers, Isabel Sawhill from that of a
policy scholar, and Elizabeth Thomson from an international perspective. The
volume concludes with our own reflections on future directions for policy and
research.
INTRODUCTION 11

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