Journal of Marriage and the Family

OBJECTIVE: This article examines how parent-child geographic proximity changes around the onset of parental health shocks in the United States. Differences in the likelihood of moving closer across social groups are also investigated. BACKGROUND: Adult children often care for older parents with health problems, but this requires relatively close proximity. As families are becoming smaller and many adult children live away from their parents, it is unclear how responsive families will be to older adults' health problems...

OBJECTIVE: Our study assesses how women and men's health indicators are shaped by their spouse's retirement. BACKGROUND: The retirement process can reshape the health of a retiree, but these effects can also extend onto the health of spouses. Although past research has largely focused on how men's retirement might negatively shape their wife's health outcomes, it is possible that wives' retirement has detrimental effects on their husband's health as well. METHOD: Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we employ a fuzzy regression discontinuity design to identify the causal effects of spousal retirement on indicators of physical and mental health in married older adults...

OBJECTIVE: The goal of this study is to examine the association between parental incarceration and parent-youth closeness. BACKGROUND: Despite the established complex repercussions of incarceration for relationships between adults, and the well-known intergenerational consequences of parental incarceration, little is known about how incarceration structures these intergenerational relationships. METHOD: In this paper, I use data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study ( N = 3,408), a cohort of children followed over a 15-year period, to examine how parental incarceration is associated with relationships between youth and their (incarcerated and non-incarcerated) parents...

OBJECTIVE: The study examines the association of gender, parenthood, and marriage with reports of perceived pandemic precarity among Mexican and Central American immigrants during the COVID-19 pandemic (Fall 2020) to understand predictors of vulnerability in periods of crisis. BACKGROUND: Latinos/as, immigrants, parents, and women have faced significant challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic. Family structure, along with social expectations for gender (i.e., self-sacrificing femininity for women and hegemonic masculinity for men), parenthood, and marriage may explain perceptions of pandemic precarity - defined as the material deprivation and economic anxiety resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic...

OBJECTIVE: This study examined changes in geographic proximity to family members among race and income groups in the United States from 1981 to 2017. BACKGROUND: Close geographic proximity to family members can facilitate mutual support and strengthen family bonds. Some scholars argue that institutional sources of support have replaced many core family functions, which might mean that households are likely to live increasingly farther away from family. Advancing technology and changing labor market opportunities might reinforce this pattern...

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of perceived racial discrimination on the satisfaction and dissolution of different-gender, nonmarital relationships among African American young adults. BACKGROUND: Racial discrimination has proven detrimental to relationship quality among married couples. Racial disparities in relationship processes begin long before marriages form, however. Racial discrimination may also weather and disrupt nonmarital relationships earlier in the life course...

OBJECTIVE: This study examines work and care patterns and their association with experienced well-being over the course of the day and tests a moderating effect of gender. BACKGROUND: Many family and unpaid caregivers to older adults face dual responsibilities of work and caregiving. Yet little is known about how working caregivers sequence responsibilities through the day and their implications for well-being. METHOD: Sequence and cluster analysis is applied to nationally representative time diary data from working caregivers to older adults in the U...

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this article is to examine the relationship between mother-youth closeness and stigma stemming from police contact. BACKGROUND: Research increasingly indicates that stigma stemming from police-youth encounters links police contact to compromised outcomes among youth, though less is known about the correlates of stigma stemming from this criminal legal contact. Close mother-youth relationships, commonly understood to be protective for youth outcomes, may be one factor that buffers against stop-related stigma, especially the anticipation of stigma...

OBJECTIVE: This Brief Report examines links between environmental attitudes and fertility desires over time in the U.S. BACKGROUND: To understand fertility decision making, it is important to identify factors that influence fertility desires. Concerns about environmental problems may be associated with lower desired fertility, especially in recent cohorts transitioning to adulthood. Youth may feel that having one less child can reduce their "carbon footprint" or may be unwilling to bring children into an uncertain and difficult future due to climate change...

OBJECTIVE: To provide nationally-representative estimates of parent-adult child estrangement. BACKGROUND: Population-level research is needed on parent-adult child estrangement to understand the full range of family dynamics in the U.S. METHOD: We estimate logistic regression models using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Child and Young Adult supplement to determine estimates of estrangement (and subsequent unestrangement) from mothers (N=8,495) and fathers (N=8,119) by children's gender, race/ethnicity, and sexuality...

OBJECTIVE: This study investigates shifts in marriage desires during singlehood and the potential consequences associated with these shifts in Japan, a country epitomizing later and less marriage without substantial increases in nonmarital childbearing. BACKGROUND: Despite researchers' long-standing interest in values potentially motivating demographic changes, few have systematically examined marriage desires among unmarried adults. Even fewer have considered how marriage desires may change during adulthood and how relevant such changes are to marriage and family behavior...

OBJECTIVE: We used the Social Relations Model to inspect the individual- and dyad-specific components of attachment among young adults and their parents, and examined relations between these components and parenting stress. BACKGROUND: Young adulthood is a transitional period in which the whole family is concerned with "launching" the young adult and exploring new ways to interact with and attach to one another. However, research on young adulthood attachment has primarily focused on young adults' attachment style rather than reciprocal attachments among family members...

OBJECTIVE: This article examines the transmission of older women's relationship quality with their mothers and fathers to their relationship quality with their own adult children in midlife. We also investigate how the transmission is moderated by the dimension of relationship quality (closeness vs. strain) and the gender of both the older women's parents and their adult children. BACKGROUND: Prior research has primarily examined parents' transmission of relationship quality to young children with little attention to whether and when this pattern occurs in later-life families...

OBJECTIVE: This study analyzes the victimization trajectories of partner violence against women surrounding divorce, depending on whether the couple has children together. BACKGROUND: Prior studies have found that partner violence is associated with an increased risk of divorce. No study has assessed the victimization trajectories surrounding divorce for women with and without children, although women with children may remain at higher risk of violence following divorce...

OBJECTIVE: This brief report presents national estimates of transfers of time and money from cohabiting adult children (ages 18 to 65) to their parents (own and in-laws) to test whether cohabiting adults give differently from their counterparts. BACKGROUND: Previous U.S. studies use data collected in the late 1980s and mid-1990s, when cohabitation was an emerging family form; they find mixed results. Rising rates of cohabitation and an aging population of parents who may rely on transfers from adult children necessitate updated estimates that can help develop the theory of institutionalization of cohabitation...

OBJECTIVE: This study explores whether household income moderates the predictive association from adaptive processes (positive and negative interactions and commitment), enduring vulnerabilities (psychological distress), and stressors (financial strain) to future relationship satisfaction? BACKGROUND: Theory and research have long conceptualized socioeconomic status as a predictor of couple relations, but recent work questions whether socioeconomic status may moderate basic couple relationship processes...

OBJECTIVE: Our goal was to illuminate associations between specific characteristics of under-resourced neighborhoods (i.e., socioeconomic deprivation, danger) and specific aspects of parenting (e.g., parental praise, parental nurturance, harsh parenting, parental control). BACKGROUND: Prior work has highlighted associations between level of neighborhood disadvantage and the parenting of its residents. However, this work has yet to clarify the specific characteristics of the neighborhood or the types of parenting involved...

OBJECTIVE: This study uses time diaries to examine how parents' work arrangements shaped their time use at home and work during the COVID-19 pandemic. BACKGROUND: The pandemic transformed home and work life for parents, disrupting employment and childcare. The shift to work from home offered more flexibility to manage increased care burdens, but the lack of separation between work and family also likely contributed to more challenging work environments, especially among mothers...

OBJECTIVE: This study documents life course patterns of vicarious exposure to the criminal legal system among parents and siblings in the United States. BACKGROUND: The criminal legal system shapes family outcomes in important ways. Still, life course patterns of vicarious exposure to the system-especially to lower-level contacts-among parents and siblings are not well documented. METHOD: Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Kaplan-Meier survival curves, and Cox regression models, we estimate cumulative risks of vicarious exposure to arrest, probation, and incarceration among parents (n=3,885 parents; 185,444 person-years) and siblings (n=1,875; 44,766 person-years) and examine disparities by race-ethnicity, gender, and education, and at their intersections...

OBJECTIVE: Using components of the Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response Model, Critical Race Feminism, and Sites of Resilience this study explored how street-identified Black American mothers engage in street life, while juggling the pressures of childrearing, family, and home life within a distressed, urban Black community. BACKGROUND: Street-identified Black American mothers are vilified for their intersecting identities of being Black women who are experiencing poverty, and who may also be involved in illegal activity...