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The Standard Family Life Course: An Assessment of Variability in Life Course Pathways

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Book cover Negotiating the Life Course

Part of the book series: Life Course Research and Social Policies ((LCRS,volume 1))

Abstract

Despite dramatic changes in family life over the past several decades, survey data demonstrate that a ‘standard’ family life course remains a goal for the vast majority. The ideal family life course is to have a stable partnership with two or more children, and to have all of one’s children with the same partner. Achievement of a standard family life course may, however, depend on the opportunities and constraints encountered along one’s life path, in particular those associated with the pursuit and attainment of higher education. Analyses of survey data from France, Sweden and the United States document the family experiences to age 40 of persons born in the 1950s. Overall, about half of the cohorts had experienced a standard family life course. For women, education had both positive and negative influences – greater childlessness but more stable childbearing unions. For French and Swedish men, fatherhood and union stability were both associated with higher education. Educational differences in family transitions – especially childbearing out of union and dissolution of unions with children – are much greater in the U.S. than in the other countries, resulting in a significant educational gap in the likelihood of achieving a standard family life course that is not observed in Sweden or France.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We are unable to use the more recent 2002 NSFG survey because an error in the interview schedule omitted questions about the end date of a previous union for a non-random set of women. Although men were surveyed for the first time in the 2002 NSFG, they were not asked to provide complete birth and union histories.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the French National Institute for Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) for providing data to the Vienna Institute of Demography. The research was further supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, and our respective institutions. We also appreciate the comments and suggestions of the editors and reviewers.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Demography Unit, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden

    Elizabeth Thomson

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA

    Elizabeth Thomson

  3. Vienna Institute of Demography, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, Austria

    Maria Winkler-Dworak

  4. University of Minnesota, Minnesota Population Center, St. Paul, MN, USA

    Sheela Kennedy

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  1. Elizabeth Thomson
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  2. Maria Winkler-Dworak
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Correspondence to Elizabeth Thomson .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Australian Demographic & Social, Research Institute, Australian National University, Canberra, 0200, Aust Capital Terr, Australia

    Ann Evans

  2. School of Social Science, University of Queensland, St. Lucia, 4072, Queensland, Australia

    Janeen Baxter

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Thomson, E., Winkler-Dworak, M., Kennedy, S. (2013). The Standard Family Life Course: An Assessment of Variability in Life Course Pathways. In: Evans, A., Baxter, J. (eds) Negotiating the Life Course. Life Course Research and Social Policies, vol 1. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8912-0_3

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