Increasing complexity of family relationships: lifetime experience of single motherhood and stepfamilies in Great Britain

Publication type

Research Paper

Series Number

96-11

Series

Working Papers of the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change

Authors

Publication date

July 1, 1996

Abstract:

We investigate the lifetime incidence of single motherhood and the stepfamily formation in Great Britain using both retrospective and panel information contained in the British Household Panel Study, 1991-94. Our analysis indicates that about 40 percent of mothers will spend some time as a single parent. The duration of single parenthood is often short, one-half remaining single mothers for 4 years or less. About three-fourths of these single mothers will form a stepfamily, with 80 percent of these stepfamilies being started by cohabitation and 85 percent following the dissolution of a union. Stepfamilies are not very stable: over one- quarter dissolve within one year. Thus, an increasing proportion of today's young children in Great Britain are likely to experience the changes, tensions and strains which life in single- parent families and stepfamilies often entail. As a consequence, the increasing complexity of inter-household relationships between children and parents has serious implications for the relevance of theoretical views of the operation of the family put forward by social researchers.

Subjects

Notes

working paper

#494153

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