1 Family Demography Lecture guided by Nan Astone, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

2 Objectives Like fertility, mortality, family is a very personal thing – It is also one of the institutions that guarantees the continuation of societies At the end of the lecture & readings, You should be able to Define a demographic approach to the study of family Know a bit about demographic trends relevant to the family in Developed and Less developed countries

3 What is a demographic Approach to the familyHere the interest is in how vital rates and population distribution affect kinship structures And in how kinship structures affect vital rates and population distribution (Huh? What does Berry mean by that? Well, think about the idea of cultural press and situationally specific factors that influence child bearing.)

4 Perspectives on familyStudy family & kinship structure Co-residence Timing of marriage, divorce, parenthood Spacing of children Health researchers Use family structure as predictors of health outcomes E.g. do children from single-parent families have poorer health? OR use health to predict family structure: E.g. are healthy people more likely to marry? (does that explain why married people live longer?) Example of family structure and vital rates: US working class white mortality

5 What are the outcomes or predictors of such studies?Polygynous vs. monogamous marriage (who has more children?) Are women more or less empowered in one type of marriage or another? Single-parent vs. two-parent family: child outcomes? Intergenerational exchange Co-residence of parents & adult children Extended vs. nuclear households (what are differences in health and social outcomes?

6 How? How do the outcomes or predictors in these studies get defined?Some model of what “families” and “households” are Almost always implicit When explicit, generally thought of as a normative scheme Assumption: The group being studied has a culturally & historically specific set of kinship rules, which may be formal (written into law) or informal, or a mixture & which can be accurately described by any legitimate or competent group member as a “family”

7 How demographic behavior affects kinship structuresChanges in demographic rates (fertility decline, epidemiologic transition, rural-to-urban migration, immigration) can put kinship systems under intense pressure & bring about social change (think wealth-flows) For example, Watkins et al took a schedule of mortality, fertility, marriage, divorce & remarriage rates for 1800, 1900, 1960 and 1980. Calculated various life table quantities – average years lived in different states – e.g. as a daughter – under different fertility, mortality, marriage & divorce rates

8 Proportion w/ at least 1 surviving parent

9 Surviving with both parents alive

10 Thus! Changed Role of being an “Adult Child”!!!!!!Obligations (on both sides) go on much longer Benefits (on both sides) go on much longer Happened simultaneously with a decline in fertility, on parent side reduced & on child side increased!

11 Adult person-years lived by marital statusWatkins, Menken & Bongaarts, ASR 52(3)

12 Changes in marital behavior# of years married rose from 27 to 42 & THEN declined to 35 Rising age at marriage & increase in divorce DUE TO declining death rates Puts enormous strains on married couples In 1800, a certain # of “bad” marriages ended in death of one partner before they could consider divorce

13 Associated with the cohabitation are other challenges

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16 Marriage and parenthood were once the hallmark of becoming an adult: they no longer are. Only a minority of younger and older Americans thinks that individuals become adults by forming marital unions and having children. These status changes are now regarded as more optional. We suspect that they are becoming more discretionary— not only because individuals want more freedom to make family formation decisions as they see fit, but also because a growing number of young adults are feeling less confident about whether they have the means to enter marriage and have children. Frank Furstenberg, “Growing Up is Harder to do.2_Contexts, Nov. 4, 2016

17 Another example, from Linda MartinObserved changes in co-residence b/n elderly parents & children in 3 Asian societies Interpreted as change in norm of co-residence Actually, no change whatever in propensity of widows (male or female) to live with children Rather, Declining mortality meant elderly were living longer as married couples & being widowed at older ages So, it looked like change, but it was actually the same, just more folks doing it.

18 Thus, a demographic approach to the family reflects….An interest in how vital rates & population distribution affect kinship structures And An interest in how kinship structure affects vital rates & population distribution

19 How kinship structure affect demographic rates?Example: Late marriage in Europe caused low natural fertility (think age at first union and think proportions not marrying as a result of lateness in life) Example: polygyny lowers fertility (multiple wives have fewer children per woman than do singlet wives)

20 Impact of 2nd demographic transitionRemember – it refers to a set of changes in sexual behavior, contraceptive behavior, living arrangements, marriage, fertility and employment that results in: Delays in fertility & marriage Increases in cohabitation, divorce & nonmarital childbearing Increases in employment of mothers, particularly the employment of mothers of very young children (i.e., under age 3)

21 Reasons? Many have been put forth: Individualism Secularism FeminismContraceptive technology Declining manufacturing Policies about public provision for the poor

22 Family impact: Very large changes in children’s living arrangementsNo indication that this is good for children, but also the research on whether it is bad for children has been questioned Changes are highly associated with low socioeconomic status

23 Family impact: “now” or “ever” issueCohabitation in the US No particularly good estimates using standard surveys that measure household composition at time of interview Why? Cohabitations are typically very short Half-life is about 18 months Marry Break-up For those 30-44, about 4% cohabiting with opposite sex; 68% married; 28% single For those w/out college, 54% married; 8% cohabiting; 38% singles

24 Partnership status by education (from Pew)

25 Prevalence of cohabiting doubled since 1995

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27 The economics of cohabiting

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31 Life table estimates of the prevalence of cohabitationBirth Cohort % who have ever cohabited by age 25 3 7 16 26 37 From Astone

32 How do children end up in single-mother families?Analysis of children’s living arrangements for 17 countries (Europe or w/ large European-origin populations (see chart next page) How do children end up in single-mother families? Predominantly, by means of parental separation rather than being born to a woman whose household does not include a sexual partner Marital status of mother is NOT IRRELEVANT (except perhaps in Sweden) since non-marital unions are more unstable.

33 Heuveline, PDR

34 Heuveline, continued How do children who spend some time living apart from both parents spend their time? Mostly in single-parent families “Re-partnering” of single mothers varies in prevalence (high in the US for example)

35 McLanahan Women with the most resources who opt to have children are largely doing so within stable formal marriages & in so doing, endowing their children with Older mothers Two custodial parents Involved fathers & More money The latter in part due to maternal employment outside the home Women with the least resources who opt to have children are largely doing so either outside co-residential unions entirely or less stable unions (e.g. unmarried cohabitation) & are endowing their children with Younger mothers Lesser probability of residing with fathers Less involved fathers when the fathers are co-residential & Less money The latter in part cuz mothers are less likely employed outside the home

36 McLanahan To think about it broadly, demographic transition in the family has led to public policy responses to the stresses placed on social institutions Old age pensions – a result of epidemiologic transition Family planning programs – a result of fertility decline Public housing – a result of urbanization Policies that increase the returns to work in the low wage sector: Earned income tax credit Subsidized child care Pre-school Policies that increase private transfers from noncustodial parents (child-support) Means testing based on individual rather than family resources (so that co-residence of parents not penalized)

37 Trends in less-developed countriesRise in the age at marriage Has occurred everywhere except Latin America where it was high to begin with Means that duration b/n puberty & marriage increased Difficult to know what the reasons are for later marriage: In some countries age is so late as to be of concern Leading to very low fertility

38 Baby Nuclear Blast (a baby boom only bigger)Relatively high infant/child mortality in past Now only moderately low old age mortality Very high fertility/declining infant and child mortality means….. Baby nuclear blast!

39 e.g. Brazil in 1990s

40 Or population by region showing differences in youthful population

41 Rising age at marriage & large cohort of adolescentsImplications for public health of the rising marriage & Large cohort of adolescents Good news Opportunities for human capital development “demographic gift” Very, very low dependency ratio Delay of first birth May be good in itself & other things equal will lower fertility

42 Rising age at marriage & large cohort of adolescentsBad news: Unmarried post-pubescent people are at high risk for negative reproductive health outcomes Longer period of exposure (slightly lower age at menarch & rising age at marriage) and huge increase in the size of the population at risk means higher levele of problems even in the face of stable or improving behavioral risk factors Huge cohort for the labor force to absorb Violence

43 Divorce

44 144 years of marriage & divorce in the US – from CDC-NCHS data (randyolson.com)

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46 Family demography The end….!