Kinship and Cohort in an Aging Society: From Generation to Generation

2. Intergenerational Solidarity in Blended Families: The Inequality of Financial Transfers to Adult Children and Stepchildren

chapter two Intergenerational Solidarity in Blended Families The Inequality of Financial Transfers to Adult Children and Stepchildren R. Corey Remle and Angela M. O’Rand The dramatic increase of blended families over the past four decades has introduced new contexts for studying the dynamics of parent-child relationships in aging families. The growing diversity of family arrangements includes those who are related by marriage, birth, or adoption and those who join existing families voluntarily through remarriage (Ahrons, 1994; Marks, 1995) or as a result of intergenerational linkages (e.g., as children of a remarried partner). However this occurs, remarriages alter kinship statuses and probably affect family solidarity in ways we still do not understand. As such, a broader definition of family that includes blended families strengthens, but also complicates, our understanding of family solidarity (Amato & Booth, 1997). In this chapter, we define blended families as kin networks that include biological kin and stepkin encompassing several generations and households (Cohler & Altergott, 1995; Riley & Riley, 1993). Riley (1983) conceptualized the kin network as a latent kin matrix of biologically and socially related individuals that transcends generations and households. Latency in the network reflects the underlying potential of members to share instrumental, emotional and other resources that is activated primarily when someone within the net- 32 Family Connections work is in need. Otherwise, family support systems are not always active or manifest. Silverstein, Bengtson, and Lawton (1997) stressed this aspect of the latent kin matrix: “If family relationships alternately shift between latency and activity, then it is important to consider the latent potential of kinship relations—insofar as it triggers or enables manifest functions” (p. 431, emphasis in the original). The latent potential of stepkin relationships has received less attention than that of biologically related family members. Instead, theories of family solidarity have focused more on biological relationships (e.g., Bengtson, Biblarz, & Roberts, 2002; Bengtson & Harootyan, 1994). We argue that stepfamilies and the probable reconfiguration of family solidarity after remarriages deserve more attention and can extend our current understanding of latent and manifest patterns of family support. We use several waves of the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) initiated in 1992 to examine patterns of financial transfer receipt by adult children from parents over time. We consider financial transfer as a form of solidarity and compare the prevalence of and conditions that precipitate transfers to biological children and stepchildren by biological parents and step-parents. Multilevel models permit us to examine these processes while controlling for nonindependence of observations within families. Stepfamilies Bumpass, Sweet, and Castro-Martin (1990) reported that 42% of divorced parents in 1984 chose to remarry within five years—a decline from the 49% who reported having done so in 1970. They also estimated that over 70% of separated and divorced women would eventually remarry. A large majority of separated and divorced women at that time also had children under age 18. The high remarriage rate caused a sharp increase in the number of stepchildren in the United States (Bumpass, Raley, & Sweet, 1995). Depending on the timing of the remarriage, the structure of blended families could include children of either the father or the mother, children who were the biological progeny of both parents (i.e., those born after the remarriage), or a combination of both (Connidis, 2010; Rossi & Rossi, 1990). Thus, for this research, the term “blended families” refers to any remarriages that included children from previous relationships as well as to remarriages that included both children from previous relationships and children born after the remarriage (i.e., half siblings). Intergenerational Solidarity in Blended Families 33 Estimates indicate that 30–35% of American children will live with a stepparent before turning 18 years old (Bumpass, Raley, & Sweet, 1995). However, little research has examined the impact of living with a parent and stepparent on intergenerational solidarity. While not all of the adult stepchildren of respondents in the HRS sample necessarily lived with a stepparent, it is reasonable to assume that many of them did and, further, that many lived with mothers and stepfathers. (The average length for HRS remarriages in the sample was 13.5 years. Many adult children in 1992 would likely have been minors at the time of remarriage. Physical custody was most often awarded to the mother after a divorce at the time.) The Effects of Divorce and Remarriage on Family Solidarity Previous work has demonstrated that divorce results in significant declines in intergenerational solidarity...