Living arrangements have changed enormously over the last two centuries. While the average American today lives in a household of only three people, in 1850 household size was twice that figure. Further, both the number of children and the number of adults in a household have fallen...

Little is known about whether breastfeeding may prevent disabilities throughout childhood. We evaluate the effects of breastfeeding on child disability using data from the National Survey of Family Growth merged to the National Health Interview Survey for a large nationally representative sample...

We use Census of Population microdata for 1980 and 1990 to examine the labor supply and wages of immigrant husbands and wives in the United States in a family context. Earlier research by Baker and Benjamin (1997) posits a family investment model in which, upon arrival, immigrant husbands invest...

Marriage in colonial North America was notable for being early (for women) and marked by low percentages never marrying. This was different from the distinctive northwest European pattern of late marriage and high proportions never married late in life. But the underlying neolocal family...

Three cohorts of college women are considered here. The first, graduating from 1900 to 1920, was faced with a choice of "family or career,? while the second, graduating from 1945 to the early 1960s, opted for family and employment serially - that is, "family then job." The third, graduating...

This paper examines U.S. family exchange and support, its levels and trends. The paper points out the importance of demographics and geographic mobility in affecting the amount and form of family exchange. It then considers family economic exchange in the form of shared living. financial...

This paper analyzes cohort marriage patterns in the United States in order to determine whether declining rates of first marriage are due to changes in the timing of marriage, the incidence of marriage, or both. Parametric models, which are well-suited to the analysis of censored or truncated...

In contemporary America, racial gaps in achievement are primarily due to gaps in skills. Skill gaps emerge early before children enter school. Families are major producers of those skills. Inequality in performance in school is strongly linked to inequality in family environments. Schools do...

Income tax burdens on family units are adjusted to reflect differences in ability to pay attributable to whether the unit consists of a single individual or a married couple and how many dependents are present. Substantial controversy exists over the appropriate forms of adjustment, and existing...

Cultural transmission arguably plays an important role in the determination of many fundamental preference traits (e.g., discounting, risk aversion and altruism) and most cultural traits, social norms, and ideological tenets ( e.g., attitudes towards family and fertility practices, and attitudes...