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Family Heterogeneity Over the Life Course

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Handbook of the Life Course

Part of the book series: Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research ((HSSR))

Abstract

This chapter summarizes recent research on family formation and processes from a life course perspective. It reviews research and theory, focusing on increasing heterogeneity in the family and changes in attitudes, behavior, public policies, and reproductive technology that have long-term consequences for family formation and gender roles. It examines broad social changes, including changes in the first half (women’s increased commitment to employment) and in the second half (men’s increasing involvement in the home and, particularly, parenting) of the ongoing gender revolution. It speculates about implications of these changes for the intimate lives of individuals in future generations. The chapter is divided into sections on childhood and adolescence, young adulthood and adulthood, and aging and retirement. The final section focuses on challenges to thinking about families and family change over the coming decade.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The major criticism of Lareau’s conceptualization is that family structure and class are confounded. All of the poor families in her study were single parent families whereas all of the middle class families were two-parent families. Given the large differences in available time in two-parent and single parent families, natural growth may result more from lesser availability of parental time and resources than education/class. Research shows that parental goals and values are similar in both middle and working class families; what differ are the constraints that income and family structure place on them (Hofferth et al. 2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

    Sandra Hofferth & Frances Goldscheider

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  1. Sandra Hofferth
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  2. Frances Goldscheider
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Correspondence to Sandra Hofferth .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA

    Michael J. Shanahan

  2. Life Course Center and Department of Sociology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

    Jeylan T. Mortimer

  3. Department of Sociology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, USA

    Monica Kirkpatrick Johnson

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Hofferth, S., Goldscheider, F. (2016). Family Heterogeneity Over the Life Course. In: Shanahan, M., Mortimer, J., Kirkpatrick Johnson, M. (eds) Handbook of the Life Course. Handbooks of Sociology and Social Research. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20880-0_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-20880-0_7

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