Family relationships beyond the household

The dramatic shift from marriage to cohabitation during the last four decades in most Latin American countries begs the question as to the living arrangements of cohabiting couples and single mothers. The new “Family Interrelationship Variables” in the IPUMS samples of Latin American censuses facilitated the construction of an enlarged LIPRO typology. LIPRO classifies individuals with respect to the type of household in which they are living.
The results indicate that cohabiting women and single mothers of ages 25 to 29 are frequently found in parental households or in other extended or composite households. However there are large variations according to country and education. For instance, cohabitation is mainly in nuclear households, as in Europe, in Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Brazil, and Argentina. It is mainly in extended households in Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Ecuador, Panama, Venezuela and Cuba. Mexico and Chile occupy intermediate positions. In all instances coresidence of cohabiting couples with other kin drops significantly upon the transition to parenthood, and then there are no differences between cohabiting and married couples anymore. Single mothers, however, continue to coreside in extended or composite households, and this holds particularly for the better educated among them.

Relationships between the left behind wives and those who leave, vary, and should not be seen only through livelihood strategies. Hence, an attempt has been made to study the conjugal relations between the wives left behind and their out-migrated husbands. Primary data has been collected during January-March 2010 by undertaking a complete house listing of six villages of Pindra block of Varanasi, a district in the state of Uttar Pradesh in India. The study reveals that the left-behind wives are mostly in contact with their husbands. There are handfuls who feel the aggression of their husbands and feel that they are getting victimized by their husbands’ sexual needs. However, it can be concluded that though there are bound to be exceptions, keeping aside those exceptions it has been found that mostly the left-behind wives in the study area are not stressed out as has been generally conceptualized in various literatures.

Violence against women is rampant in India and spousal violence being its worst form. Spousal violence affect women regardless of their age; teens and young women are especially vulnerable. Spousal violence is a significant public health problem because of the associated physical, psychological, and financial costs to victims, their families, communities, and society in general.violence is repetitive and can sometimes be fatal. The severe consequences of repeated spousal violence necessitate the development of ways to identify male abusers at high risk of perpetrating spousal violence so that actions can be taken to protect victims. While physical and sexual violence perpetrated by married men against their wives are both major public health problems but in India very little research exists on them. With this interest, this paper using “Youth in India: Situation and Needs Study, 2006–2007” data set, tried to examine the association between witnessing parental violence and violence in community and their perpetration of non-consensual sex and spousal violence married men aged 15-29 against their wives. Internalizing behaviors, like exposure to parental violence and community violence were examined as significant moderators of perpetrating violence among young men in India.

The challenge for contemporary research on the family which, in demography and sociology, is often dominated by quantitative survey results is to device research tools allowing to describe family life beyond the household so that the spatial dynamics of kinship relations can be captured (Widmer and Jallinoja, 2008 ; Bonvalet and Lelièvre, 2012). In that respect the latest round of the French Family survey, a nationally representative survey (367,000 individuals aged 18 and over) associated to the 2011 census provides information on the places of residence of all family members outside the household (parents and children of the respondents). Taking advantage of this large-scale survey, our objective is to give an innovative overview of both the spatial configuration of families and the functioning of family spaces. We will address the diversity of family structures and detail the variation of family composition and spatial concentration/dispersion according to the relevant characteristics of both the families (size and age of the respondent) and the locations (proximity, urban/rural). We will then, following on previous work done (Lelièvre and Imbert, 2003 ; Lelièvre and Robette, 2010) describe the family networks and establish a typology of these ‘family spaces’.

This paper analyses socioeconomic differentials in children's likelihood of having shared residence, meaning living equal or near equal time with both parents after parental union dissolution. This is an aspect of modern family complexity that has so far largely been overlooked. The cross-sectional analysis is based on the Swedish Level of Living Study and Surveys of Living Conditions from 2000-2003. The tentative results show an increased likelihood of shared residence for children of women in non-manual occupations compared to children of manual working women after controlling for income and education. There were no occupational differences in the likelihood of shared residence for children living with a male respondent. The results show no educational differences after controlling for occupational category and other characteristics. We see a geographical pattern with shared residence being more common in the Stockholm metropolitan area compared to other major cities and rest of the country.

The kinship network of an individual changes over her life course. This study makes a contribution to kinship research, demography and cultural geography by studying how migration and demographic patterns shape the geographical availability of kin in contemporary Sweden. This study examines how distance to siblings, parents and grandparents change over a person’s life course using longitudinal administrative register data. The study follows the complete 1970 cohort (N=75 000) and all their kin and studies how individuals distance to their kin change from age 10 (1980) to age 37 (2007) by means of data on residence for siblings, parents and grandparents. The study reveals surprising continuity in geographical distance to parents after age 25. Distance to living maternal and paternal grandparents see very minor changes after the index cohort reaches their early 20s. Theories of increasing geographical dispersal of the kinship network as individual ages are not supported.

This paper analyses children’s likelihood of experiencing stress in shared physical custody settings with shared and alternating residence after parental union dissolution. Living in two different households and alternating not just between two geographical locations but also potentially between two different “parental regimes” with different rules and customs may increase children’s feeling of stress.
We use the Swedish Survey of Living Conditions, a high quality cross-sectional data set with information gathered from the parents as well as the children themselves. The sample for this study includes all children living with a single parent or in a stepfamily setting (n=853).
The tentative results show a surprising pattern with children living in a shared physical custody setting with alternating residence between the households of the mother and the father reporting a markedly lower likelihood of feeling stressed. We also see that girls have much higher likelihood of feeling stressed than boys do.

Partnership stability has decreased substantially in Europe, even among families with children. In parallel, new family forms in which not necessarily both parties of a couple are the biological parents of all the children, have become more common. In this paper, we seek to shed more light on the impact of family composition on the dissolution risk among families with children. We focus on Sweden given its strong emphasis on gender equality and generous family support system. We analyze data from the Young Adult Panel Study, conducted in 1999, 2003 and 2009. Hazard regression (exponential model) is our tool of analysis. Our preliminary results reveal that stepfamilies have an elevated breakup risk, but also blended families are more likely to dissolve than intact families. Stepmother families and where both partners have children from previous partnerships but no joint children have the highest breakup risk. Stepfather families that also include joint children have as low dissolution risk as intact families. Hence, our preliminary results suggest that family compositions have a differential impact on family disruption, and it is important to distinguish by the gender of the stepparent as well as between step- and blended families.

The percentage of women who are never married from age thirty and above is increasing in Nigeria, yet, the fact of singlehood in its actual prevalence and determinants are virtually unknown through scholarly research. This study advances a marriage squeeze explanation to the rising prevalence of singlehood among women in Nigeria. An investigation of available census data shows severe imbalance between the numbers of marriageable men and women in Nigeria. Most Nigerian men marry younger women. Typical spousal age difference is between 5 and 10 years. Census data in 2006 shows that there were only 87 single males per 100 single females in age group M20-54/F15-49 for five-year spousal age gap. With ten-year spousal age difference, the severity of marriage squeeze was worse, there were 55 single men age 20-59 per 100 women age 10-49. The regions with more severe marriage squeeze also had higher prevalence of singlehood among women. With increasing penchant for monogamy even among Muslims, this excess supply of marriageable women will result in larger number of older single women and increased incidence of permanent singlehood among women. Reduction in the age gap between men and women at marriage would reduce the influence of marriage squeeze.

Age at marriage is of particular interest because it marks the transition to adulthood. This study aims to examine the impact of educational attainment on the eventual probability of timing of first marriage among women in Bangladesh born during 1944-1987 using data from the last five Bangladesh Demographic and Health Surveys. Cox proportional hazard models were constructed to assess the effect of education on the timing of marriage. The women’s educational attainment has increased over time. The both birth and marriage cohorts indicate that the mean age at first marriage has been increased gradually. The estimated risk ratios and cumulative probabilities of the Cox proportional hazard analyses revealed that the women born in more recent cohorts and those married in the more recent years were significantly more likely to marry later than those born in earlier and married in the early years. The trends and differentials we document in this study reflect delayed marriage due to increased level of education. The factors hidden behind early marriage in Bangladesh are social custom, beliefs, cultural practices, poverty and violation of ordinance of age at first marriage. Any program to reduce early marriage should address the remaining girls in schooling for extended period and poverty alleviation.