Diverging Destinies
According to McLanahan, these two parental resources are becoming increasingly unequally distributed between advantaged and disadvantaged children.
What is “Parental time” and “Money”.
What factor was more consistently associated with marital quality than the number of years a couple had been married?
What is "age".
In life-course sociology, this term describes a long-term pattern of experiences or development, such as changes in marital quality over time.
What is a "trajectory"?
Umberson et al. (2005) followed married individuals across multiple years rather than studying them at just one point in time. What type of research design is this?
A longitudinal research design.
Both McLanahan (2004) and Umberson et al. (2005) examine the importance of this social institution in shaping individuals' experiences and outcomes.
What is the "family"?
This demographic transformation, beginning around the 1960s, involved increasing divorce, cohabitation, delayed marriage, and nonmarital childbearing.
What is the Second Demographic Transition.
Umberson et al. examine these two dimensions of marital experience to understand how marriage changes over time.
What are "positive" and "negative" marital experiences.
In life-course sociology, this principle emphasizes that individuals' lives are interconnected and that changes in one family member's life can affect others.
What is the "principle of linked lives"?
What does longitudinal research allow researchers to examine?
Changes in outcomes over time
Individual trajectories
Effects associates with life transitions
Differences in starting levels
Differences in rates of change
Which reading focuses primarily on socioeconomic inequality in children's access to parental time and money?
What is "McLanahan's Diverging Destinies" (2004)
What are the social changes associated with the second demographic transition?
Increased divorce
Delayed marriage
Increased nonmarital childbearing
Increased women's employment
Greater cohabitation
According to the authors, what generally happens to negative marital experiences when a couple has a new child?
Negative marital experiences tend to increase more rapidly over time.
Getting married, becoming a parent, and having children leave home are all examples of this life-course concept.
What are "transitions"?
According to McLanahan (2004), which group of women was more likely to experience single motherhood: those with higher education or those with lower education?
What are "women with lower levels of education".
Both readings suggest that family experiences cannot be understood solely through individual choices. What broader social factor does McLanahan particularly emphasise when explaining differences in family outcomes?
What is "socioeconomic inequality (or social class)"
What are the four broader social forces that contribute to diverging family trajectories.
Second-wave feminism
Birth control technologies
Labour-market changes
Welfare-state policies
What can change the quality of a marriage?
Age and maturity
Marital duration
Children leaving
Adult children returning home
Umberson et al. found that having adult children living away from home was associated with more favourable marital trajectories for older parents than for younger parents. What life-course principle helps explain why the same family circumstance may have different implications at different ages?
What is the "principle of timing"?
Umberson et al. studied people who remained married throughout the study. Why might excluding people who divorced affect the findings about marital quality?
Because people who divorced may have experienced poorer marital quality. Excluding them could make the remaining marriages appear more positive or stable than marriages in the broader population.
A couple experiences greater marital conflict after having a child, while their child grows up with fewer economic resources than children in more advantaged families. Which reading would be most useful for explaining each of these two outcomes?
Umberson et al. (2005) for changes in marital conflict following childbirth; McLanahan (2004) for inequalities in children's access to family resources.
McLanahan finds that children from married-parent families often have greater resources. Why might it be misleading to conclude that marriage itself causes these advantages?
Because people with greater economic resources may already be more likely to marry. The advantages could reflect pre-existing socioeconomic differences rather than marriage alone.
Umberson et al. found that older individuals generally reported better marital quality, yet marital quality could still decline over time. How can both findings be true?
Older individuals may start with higher marital quality, but their marital quality can still decline over time. This is because having higher marital quality at the beginning does not mean it will remain stable or improve over time.
Imagine two couples who both become parents: one in their early twenties and another in their late thirties. From a life-course perspective, why might becoming parents affect their relationships differently?
Because the timing of parenthood places couples in different social and economic circumstances. Differences in financial stability, careers, social support, and other responsibilities may shape how they experience the transition.
What assumption do both readings challenge?
That everyone experiences family life in roughly the same way or that major life events have the same consequences for everyone.
McLanahan argues that socioeconomic resources shape children's family experiences, while Umberson shows that family transitions are associated with changes in marital quality. How might these two arguments work together to explain family inequality?
Economic resources may influence how families experience transitions such as childbirth. Families with fewer resources may face greater financial pressures, which could affect marital experiences and the resources available to children.