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. 2020 Feb;82(1):9-34.
doi: 10.1111/jomf.12612. Epub 2020 Jan 5.

The Demography of Families: A Review of Patterns and Change

Pamela J Smock  1 , Christine R Schwartz  2
Affiliations

The Demography of Families: A Review of Patterns and Change

Pamela J Smock et al. J Marriage Fam. 2020 Feb.

Abstract

The authors review demographic trends and research on families in the United States, with a special focus on the past decade. They consider the following several topics: (a) marriage and remarriage, (b) divorce, (c) cohabitation, (d) fertility, (e) same-gender unions, (f) immigrant families, and (g) children's living arrangements. Throughout, the authors review both overall trends and patterns as well as those by social class and race-ethnicity. The authors discuss major strands of recent research, emphasizing emerging themes and promising directions. They close with a summary of central patterns and trends and conclude that recent trends are not as uniform as they tended to be in earlier decades, making the description of family change increasingly complex.

Keywords: Cohabitation; Divorce; Family; Fertility; Marriage; Same-Sex Marriage.

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Figures

FIGURE 1.
FIGURE 1.
Median Age at First Marriage (1890–2018) and Percent of Adults Living With Spouse (1967–2018). Note: Dashed lines between years are linearly interpolated between data points. Sources: Median age at first marriage: U.S. Census Bureau (2018b). Percent of adults aged 18 years and older living with spouse: U.S. Census Bureau (2018a).
FIGURE 2.
FIGURE 2.
Refined Divorce Rate (Divorces per 1,000 Married Women): 1890 to 2017. Note: Dashed lines between years are linearly interpolated between data points. Sources: 1890 to 1920, decennial divorces per 1,000 married women aged 15 years and older, National Center for Health Statistics (1973, Table 1); 1920 to 1995, annual divorces per 1,000 married women aged 15 years and older, Haines (2006); 2008 to 2017, annual number of women aged 15 years and older who divorced in the previous 12 months and annual number of married women aged 15 years and older, American Community Survey, Ruggles et al. (2018).
FIGURE 3.
FIGURE 3.
Percentage of Women (15–44) Who Cohabited With Their First Husband by Marriage Cohort and Educational Attainment. Sources: 1980 to 1984 marriage cohort, 1988 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG); 2010 to 2014 marriage cohort, 2011 to 2015 NSFG, reproduced from Hemez and Manning (2017, Figure 3). H.S. = high school.
FIGURE 4.
FIGURE 4.
General Fertility Rate (Births per 1,000 Women Aged 15–44): 1909 to 2018. Sources: 1909 to 2003, National Center for Health Statistics (2003, Table 1–1); 2003 to 2015, Martin, Hamilton, Osterman, Driscoll, and Mathews (2017, Table 1); 2016, Hamilton, Martin, Osterman, Driscoll, and Rossen (2018); 2017 to 2018, Hamilton, Martin, Osterman, and Rossen (2019).
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