Fifty Years of Family Demography: A Record of Social Change

Written in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Journal of Marriage and the Family this essay tells how family demography developed in the United States and then summarizes findings from selected research projects on the subject since 1940. Early studies examined the family life cycle historical family trends religious and racial intermarriage socioeconomic status and family stability and the marriage squeeze. Later analyses dealt with international trends in marriage health of the married and unmarried cohabitation outside marriage one-parent families and living alone. Still more recent investigations included gender preferences in children marital stability and sex of children no-fault divorce divorce among children of divorce projections of marital status remarriage marital homogamy stepfamilies and some consequences of recent changes in American family demographics. (EXCERPT)