4
men lived apart from them. These two trends combined to create a large pool of women
living with their children, and men living apart from their children who were eligible to
create stepfamilies. As a result of these gendered custody arrangements, when new
unions are formed, men are more likely to find themselves in a social parenting role.
Women were more likely to maintain their biological role of “mother” in these new
families, while the role of “father” shifted from biological to a social (or stepparent) one.
While most research on stepfamilies centers on the role of cohabitation and
nonmarital childbearing on the likelihood of stepparenthood, few consider the impact of
age or period effects. No studies as of yet consider cohort effects, or a combination of
age, period and cohort, on the historical likelihood of being a stepparent. Thus, in order
to fully understand the changes in stepparenthood over the last 60 years we use a
variation of an Age-Period-Cohort model. Utilizing IPUMS data for 1940, 1950, 1990
and 2000, we examine gender, age, period, and cohort differences in social parenting in
the United States.
Background and Research Hypotheses
The Changing Definition of Stepparenthood
Overall, there are more than five million stepfamily households in the U.S.
(Norton and Miller 1992), making stepfamilies a likely family form for many men,
women, and children today. However, stepfamilies as a family form are not new and
have existed throughout history. What has changed over time is how one enters into a
stepfamily. In the past, stepfamilies were likely formed by the death of a spouse.
Widows and widowers were likely to marry if they were young and had few children
Convention