Parent-child relationships and interracial first union formation in the United States

Aging Parents and the Ties That Bind: Intergenerational Relationship Quality Among Culturally Diverse Canadian Families

Drawing from a life course perspective, this paper examines mid/later-life parent-child relationship quality among ethnically diverse families. Focus is on the role of culture, child, and parental characteristics. Data are drawn from a study of 588 parents aged 50+ of a least one child aged 19-35 who reside in Metro Vancouver, B.C. from four Canadian cultural groups: British, Chinese, Persian/Iranian, and South Asian. Using OLS regression methods, we use two dependent variable scales: positive and negative support/interaction appraisals of the relationship. The positive relationship quality scale is associated with South Asian versus British-Canadian parents, mothers, those with greater income satisfaction, and daughters. The negative scale is inversely associated among South Asian versus British-Canadian parents, income satisfaction, parental health, and being unpartnered (vs. partnered). Interaction effects are found between gender and ethnicity. Implications for theorizing and applied recommendations for those who work with culturally diverse aging families are discussed.

Children of immigrants: Racial assortative mating and the transition to adulthood

Few studies have followed immigrant-origin individuals from adolescence to adulthood or examined their spousal choices. Using longitudinal data from Add Health, we present a life-course model that examines the differences in racial assortative mating between children of immigrants and non-immigrants. The results reveal substantial variation in racial endogamy from generation to generation. Racial endogamy was highest in the third generation, but this is due entirely to high racial endogamy among whites. Out-marriage was most pronounced among first- and second-generation immigrants. Our life-course approach shows that the effects of race and generation on intermarriage were mediated by family background (e.g. language proficiency and residence) and educational attainment (at time of marriage), a finding largely indicative of processes of marital assimilation that unfold over time and generation. Evidence of acculturation and structural assimilation, however, could not fully account for the large, persistent, and uneven effects of race and generation on interracial marriage.

Union and Family Formation During Young Adulthood: Insights From the Add Health

Family formation patterns among US young adults are shifting, reflecting an accelerating retreat from marriage coupled with significant increases in cohabitation and nonmarital childbearing. Drawing on a selection of published longitudinal studies, this article reviews key contributions to the literature on these trends in union and family formation that have stemmed from research conducted using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, or Add Health. Add Health is integral to deciphering the adolescent precursors to young adult union formation and childbearing, allowing researchers to gauge the roles of multiple social contexts such as family, schools, peers, and adolescent romance, with attention to variation across racial-ethnic groups and by socioeconomic status. In turn, researchers use Add Health to assess how young adult family formation behaviors are related to numerous indicators of health and well-being, ranging from mental and physical health to relationship quality and stability, interpersonal violence, and crime. With its sibling and couples samples, genetic data, and detailed partnership histories for both different- and same-sex relationships, Add Health is an invaluable data source for tracking the familial experiences (formation and dissolution) of a large cohort from adolescence into middle age.