Talking with your children about sex is important in setting them up for healthy sexual development, but it’s also really hard work! It can be difficult to know what information your children need from you if you’re not sure where they are at with their own sexual feelings, behaviors, and concerns. You may wonder: “Is my child sexually active or just spending romantic time with her girlfriend?” or “Does my child have questions or insecurities about their body I’m not aware of?” or “Is the information I’ve provided my child enough for where he’s at in his development?”

This is where our research comes in! We wanted to know if how often parents talked with teens about sex, and how open they were during these conversations was related to how much the child would open up to parents about their sexual feelings, concerns, and behaviors. We wanted to know so we could provide tips for parents on how to potentially help their child feel like they can open up about these topics.

Our Study

We surveyed 603 pairs of mothers and their teenage children ages 12-17. We asked each of them questions about how often they talk about sex-related topics together (frequency) and the level of communication openness of these conversations (openness). More open conversations were more comfortable, interactive, honest, and involved the mother actively listening to the teenage child. We also asked about how often the teenager deliberately told their mom about their sexual feelings, concerns, and behaviors (disclosure) and how often they kept secrets related to sex from their mom (secret keeping).

Our analysis showed that:

• Teens who talked with moms more often about sex-related topics were more likely to disclose to mothers about sex, BUT were also more likely to keep secrets from moms about sex.
• Teens who talked with moms more with a more open communication style were more likely to disclose to mothers about sex AND were also less likely to keep secrets from moms about sex.
• When communication about sex-related topics was BOTH frequent AND open, teens were more likely to disclose to mothers about sex AND were also less likely to keep secrets from moms about sex.

What Does It Mean?

Our findings show that how often you talk with teens about sex and how open you are during these talks are both important.

Talking frequently in a way that is not open (e.g., lecturing, not respecting the child’s point of view) may create more conversational opportunities for a child to answer questions, but it may also send negative messages to the child. If parents are constantly lecturing to their children or sending messages that children don’t agree with, children will likely feel unable to disclose certain information about their beliefs, identity, or experiences to parents. For example, a child who is constantly lectured that sex is only okay in marriage may be unlikely to tell their parents if they are sexually active or if they’ve experienced sexual violence, even when they need support.

This is why openness during parent-child talks about sex-related topics is so important! As shown in our analysis, if these conversations were frequent AND open, children shared more with their mothers. Even if parents are talking with their child about sexuality regularly, if these conversations are one-sided, parent-dominated, and discouraging or dismissive of child input or perspectives (typical of most parent-child conversations about sex), this may further cement the message that parents do not want to hear about the child’s true experiences and feelings. Children may not feel safe, comfortable, or able to share secrets related to sexuality.

Start Having Open Conversations with Your Child Today!

If you want to set up a foundation for your child to share with you about their sexual concerns, feelings, and behaviors, you can start today by having open conversations about sex-related topics with your child- no matter what age! Visit my favorite resource Sex Positive Families for tips on how to get started. Parents can be extremely influential in positively influencing their child’s sexual development, so I encourage you to start today!

Shelby Astle, MS, CFLE is a Ph.D candidate in Applied Family Science at Kansas State University. Her research interests include parent-child sexual communication and sexual self-concept. The ultimate goal of her work is to improve young people’s sexual well-being by improving how they are socialized around sex-related topics. You can follow her research on Twitter @astleshelby and LinkedIn

Reprinted from Gender & Society April 20, 2022

In 2021, the number of stay-at-home dads in the United States reached record highs. Does this mean that cultural views about gender, masculinity, work, and family—particularly the idea that men should be breadwinners—are changing? Not necessarily.

Our recent research in Gender & Society assesses cultural views of stay-at-home fathers over three decades, by examining their portrayal in leading newspapers and magazines between 1987 and 2016. We found that news portrayals of stay-at-home dads have indeed become more positive over time. But the growing support for full-time caregiver fathers is conditional. Dads who lost their jobs because of involuntary unemployment are viewed sympathetically, especially since the Great Recession. But dads who are able to work, but choose to stay home with children instead, are still described negatively. As much as we’d like to think that the gender-bending phenomenon of (slightly) increasing numbers of dads at home is a harbinger of more fundamental gender liberalization, our results suggest that this is not unambiguously the case.

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News articles about stay-at-home dads often focused on the stigma and hardships that these dads faced in their everyday lives. In the 94 articles we analyzed, stay-at-home dads discussed being laughed at, dismissed, or even accused of being a pedophile while at the playground with their child. They were often described as being shunned by mothers and ridiculed by their friends. Fathers discussed feeling like “less of a man” because they could not financially provide for their families, and over half were described as feeling isolated and experiencing stress because of their role. Many recounted being called “Mr. Mom”, the title of a 1980s movie about an inept stay-at-home dad. This phrase reinforced the idea that active parenting was something that women do, not men. Further reinforcing this idea, some dads were instead excessively praised for doing the most basic chores with their child (like bringing them to the grocery store).

But the focus on stigma lessened over time, as more dads began to stay home with children. After the Great Recession resulted in high rates of unemployment, dads who had lost their jobs and took on caretaking roles at home were no longer described as experiencing stigma, and were discussed sympathetically and supportively. Accounts of stigma experiences didn’t disappear, however; instead they were mostly confined to another type of stay-at-home dad—those who had chosen to stay home with their children, and hadn’t been forced into the role by lay-offs.

In our article we also compared stay-at-home dads’ depictions to demographic trends. In the figure below, we extend this analysis to 2021 to include another major economic shock—the COVID pandemic. What is clear is that the rate at which fathers were at home rose in the wake of economic downturns, but eventually reversed course and reverted to near pre-downturn levels upon economic recovery. Over the period we studied, staying home became more common among dads—especially after the Great Recession of 2007-9. But the number of dads who reported they were home specifically to take care of children was still very low—less than two percent in 2021. And prior to the pandemic, rates of staying home had begun to go down among dads of younger children, declining almost to pre-Great Recession levels by 2019. These patterns also suggest that the post-recession increase in dads staying home was not a result of long-lasting changes in attitudes and ideologies about gender and work, but rather was a temporary response to economic precarity.

_{Figure 1: Percent of U.S. fathers out of the labor force, and out of the labor force specifically to care for children, 1980-2021.}

Taken together, our findings indicate that cultural views on stay-at-home dads may be changing, but mostly for dads who stay home because they don’t have any other choice. The stigma about stay-at- home dads has been reduced, but only because more dads are out of the workforce because of broader economic circumstances that make it impossible for them to be breadwinners. Dads who choose to stay home and not contribute financially to the family are still stigmatized, presumably seen as failures as breadwinners or as deadbeats for ducking this responsibility entirely. But dads who began to stay home because of the pandemic (or other future economic events) are likely to be viewed sympathetically, suggesting some relaxing of strong male-breadwinner social norms.

And cultural views may continue to change. A recent report found that over 70% of mothers will spend at least part of their children’s childhood as the main financial provider, with the average mother spending 6 years in this role. The pandemic also reversed the beginning of a decline in staying home rates among fathers of young children, and dads are now out of the labor force and home with kids at record high rates. The sustained rate of dads staying home with kids may reduce the stigma of this role even further, as more children grow up with dads at home as caregivers for at least some portion of their childhoods.

On the other hand, support for dads staying home may be reduced if economic conditions improve more broadly, reducing the number of men in that role involuntarily. And during the pandemic, while more dads withdrew from the labor force and increased the time they spent on housework and childcare, in 70% of families it was mothers who were primarily responsible for homeschooling when schools went virtual. Mothers were also far more likely than fathers to withdraw from the workforce or reduce their hours in paid work. These pandemic trends also reinforce the idea that the recent uptick in dads staying home is not an auger of radical gender change, but that traditional ideas about gender and parenting and divisions of labor are still going strong. Until these ideas change, and the stigma of men voluntarily staying home with children is reduced, few men will be willing to take on this role, preventing advancement towards full gender equality in work and family roles.

Arielle Kuperberg is Associate Professor of Sociology and Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Chair of the Council on Contemporary Families.

Pamela Stone is Professor Emerita of Sociology at Hunter College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Follow them on twitter @ATKuperberg and @profpamstone.

Every spring 80,000 NYC eighth-graders receive their matched high school offer. The offer ends a months-long process when families search for potential schools and submit an application to the NYC Department of Education ranking their top twelve preferred schools. And every spring, the high school match season sparks a passioned conversation about how NYC school choice policies abate, reflect, and/or exacerbate racial inequities and segregation. Although students are key policy recipients and actors in school choice and segregation, student perspectives are often absent from this policy debate.  

I wanted to understand students’ opinions of high schools. Unlike elementary and middle school selections, students are deeply involved in their high school selections. I conducted an experiment with over 1,000 NYC eighth grade families to understand their preferences for potential high schools. I separately asked parents and students their willingness to attend hypothetical majority White, Latinx, and Black schools with randomized graduation rates and safety indicators. These schools were essentially the exact same but differed by their racial compositions.

Emphasizing the importance of students to the school segregation conversation, I found that students express different race-based preferences for schools than their parents.  

White and Latinx students’ preferences for schools were less anti-Black than White and Latinx parents. White and Latinx parents’ aversion to attending the Black school compared to White and Latinx schools was two to three times larger than White and Latinx students’ preferences to avoid the Black school. The differences in White and Latinx parents’ and students’ race-based school preferences could be driven by younger generations being less likely to desire racially segregated schools and to endorse anti-Black sentiments and stereotypes. Parents may also feel particularly anxious about making educational decisions that secure students’ socio-economic future and use race as a signal for schools’ academic quality.

Among Black respondents, Black students preferred to avoid the White school relative to the other school options, while Black parents did not express race-based preferences for schools. Black students’ caution with attending the White schools could be due to their awareness and apprehensions about potential racial biases, discrimination, and violence in White social spaces.

Student perspectives of schools yields cautious optimism about the future of segregation.

We could see racial segregation decline, as this generation of White and Latinx students mature into adulthood. They could continue to be less anti-Black than their parents and less avoidant of schools, universities, neighborhoods, and jobs with more Black people. However, as White and Latinx youth become parents, they could also adopt the same socio-economic anxieties and anti-Black preferences as their parents. They could avoid Black spaces and, accordingly, school and residential racial segregation could persist.

As Black youth continue to grapple with publicized racial violence and discrimination, they may choose to avoid predominately White universities and neighborhoods and to select HBCUs and Black neighborhoods. These students could also eventually believe, like Black parents, that there is no right choice that shields them from structural and individual racism.

In cities across the country, like New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, politicians, education administrators, and parents intensely contest school choice policies and segregation. However, we must center student voice in these conversations to both garner hope and grapple with potential difficulties with the future of educational equity.

Chantal A. Hailey is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research is at the intersections of race and ethnicity, stratification, urban sociology, education, and criminology. She is particularly interested in how micro decision-making contributes to larger macro segregation and stratification patterns and how racism creates, sustains, and exacerbates racial, educational, and socioeconomic inequality. You can follow them on Twitter @ChantalAHailey

Recent Articles:

 “Racial Preferences for Schools: Evidence from a Survey Experiment with White, Black, Latinx, and Asian Parents and Students”  Sociology of Education

“Racialized Perceptions of Anticipated School Belonging” Educational Policy 

Reprinted from The Inquirer, March 9, 2022

I’ve been interviewing struggling Philadelphians for decades. “I can’t go to work Monday,” one mother told me. “I have no money to pay the day care.”

When I first met lifelong Philadelphia resident Colleen in 2004, we talked about child care. In the past, she had struggled to pay for care for her child as a part-time server in a restaurant. She felt lucky when she landed a full-time job making $7 an hour but found that it was not enough to afford the reliable child care she needed for her new work schedule. And when she turned to options for child-care subsidies, she was only offered a spot on a months-long waiting list.

The realization stung. “I can’t go to work Monday,” she told me. “I have no money to pay the day care.” Left without any options, Colleen had to quit her new job to take care of her child.

n his State of the Union address, President Joe Biden made clear that he intends to lower the high costs of having a family in America. That includes fixing the decades-long issues plaguing our nation’s child-care system, which has driven costs for families through the roof.

This is particularly crucial in Philadelphia, where the median family income lags more than $20,000 behind the median U.S. household, making child-care costs even more overwhelming.

President Biden’s plan to fix it — including curbing child-care costs to less than 7% of family income for most people, outlined in last year’s Build Back Better Act — would be a major step in the right direction. His State of the Union address should be a wake-up call for our members of Congress to finally come together and pass meaningful child-care reform. Our nation’s families depend on it.

When I first began interviewing people who were financially struggling throughout Philadelphia in the 2000s, I heard many stories from low-income parents like Colleen who were trying to cover the costs of necessities.

Even when the minimum wage was raised to $7.25 per hour in 2009, it was not nearly enough to offset increases in child-care costs. And the fact that the federal — and Pennsylvania — minimum wage has not been increased in nearly 13 years means that families are facing this pinch even more today.

The simplest way to help parents like Colleen, and to get child care to the greatest number of kids, is to expand universal and public options and make child care more affordable for everyone.

In Pennsylvania, kindergarten is not state-mandated. Where kindergarten is available, it is not always full-day. For working parents, half-day kindergarten means they have to spend another year paying exorbitant child-care costs to cover the hours when their child isn’t in school.

The government needs to fully fund public elementary education so that every school district can offer full-day kindergarten and free pre-K. This would enable parents to go to work knowing their children are cared for and that they won’t lose most of their earnings to child care. And we must increase subsidies and federal dollars for child-care providers so that the workers providing this crucial care can finally be paid what they’re worth.

These programs would substantially reduce the cost of child care for families and support an industry that has long been losing talented and passionate workers who are often paid poverty-level wages.

Such proposals were not possible when Colleen was trying to navigate the world of low-wage work. But now there is an opportunity to make child care more affordable for countless families just like hers, including many in the Philadelphia area. Congress should support Biden’s agenda and finally pass meaningful child-care reform.

Joan Maya Mazelis is an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University-Camden and the author of “Surviving Poverty: Creating Sustainable Ties among the Poor.” @JoanieMazelis

At wedding showers, guests are often asked to provide advice to the newlyweds. As someone who values my alone time, one of my favorites has always been, “The key to a happy marriage is spending lots of time apart.” But for many married couples in the US in March 2020, “spending lots of time apart” became unattainable due to workplaces, schools, churches, restaurants, gyms, and other public or semi-public spaces closing their doors. Other couples—in which one or both spouses worked “essential” jobs with high risks of COVID-19 infections—contended with very little time together. At the same time, although shutting down public gathering spaces and public health officials cautioning against social interactions outside of households was clearly beneficial to reducing the spread of COVID-19, it also likely posed unique risks for the mental health and social well-being of single adults, especially those who lived alone or provided care to children and other family members.

These complex dynamics point to a likely reality: Families have been especially salient for our health and well-being during the pandemic period. Family scientists have long shown that family status—including relationship status—is linked to health, with most studies finding (broadly speaking) that married adults have better health outcomes than never married, divorced, and widowed adults. Yet these patterns, like all social science patterns, are context-specific, and studies are only beginning to consider how this may have shifted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

To address this, in my recent study (2022), I analyzed survey data from April to December 2020. I found that never married respondents had increased probabilities of fair or poor health, depression, and anxiety relative to married adults as the pandemic progressed. The dominant ideology within the US even before the pandemic privileged marriages and legal families, as reflected in public policies such as people having access to their spouse’s employer-based health insurance and “greedy marriage” norms which encourage married couples to prioritize their spouse above other relationships. The pandemic may have amplified this social advantage for the married, as the pandemic period was generally characterized by increased reliance on families—giving adults with a spouse a potential health-related benefit. Spouses likely provided important financial and practical support for each other in the context of unstable employment and childcare and emotional support while navigating the death and illness of loved ones and uncertain social times. Given limited opportunities to gather and socialize outside of the household, single adults who lived alone may have had less access to these supports. These dynamics together for never-married and married adults perhaps underlie the patterns I found in my survey analysis of widening health disparities for these two groups.

Yet I also found a narrowing of the difference in health outcomes for married compared to previously married adults over these same months, demonstrating the need to disentangle groups of non-married adults and not treat the “marital advantage” as universal. Although these survey data did not allow me to examine marital quality, other studies have shown that relationship strain increased as the pandemic progressed. Being isolated together as a couple—alongside new financial and health stressors—may have increased tension within relationships. Additionally, many couples experienced conflict around discordant views on masks, social distancing, and (in later months) vaccines. As an additional caution against seeing marriage as universally beneficial for health during the pandemic, my analysis further showed that marriage was more meaningful for men’s mental health than women’s, in line with feminist understandings of his and hers heterosexual marriages where men and women in the same marriage experience starkly different dynamics and benefits.

Figure: Estimated Trends in Reporting Fair or Poor Health by Relationship Status, Household

Pulse Survey, April-December 2020

Note: N=1,422,733. Weighted. Models adjust for gender, race/ethnicity, age, educational attainment, household income, coresidential children, and pandemic-related stressors (lost income, food insufficiency, delayed medical care, and issues with paying for housing).

The patterns I showed in this analysis are not inevitable but rather reflect the public policies and organizational decisions across the pandemic months. Health disparities, including family-based health disparities, are not static, but dynamic—shifting alongside changes within society. During the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, public policies were created to specifically strengthen the social safety net, including changes to unemployment benefits, stimulus payments from the federal government, and protections against evictions and debt repayment. Yet rather than extending these policies, many expired after a short period of time, likely to the detriment of the most vulnerable within society and resulting in strains on families and individuals. Within the current environment, married couples are generally at an advantage because society privileges marriage above friendships, siblings, cohabiting and dating relationships, and other social arrangements. We should aim to create policies that support multiple types of family arrangements beyond marriage, recognizing the multiple forms and functions that families and communities take, and in turn reduce disparities across these diverse family types—not broaden them.

Mieke Beth Thomeer, PhD is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and a Deputy Editor at the Journal of Marriage and Family. Follow her @miekebeth

Marriages and Divorces and the COVID-19 Pandemic in the U.S.

There is no doubt the COVID-19 Pandemic effected multiple domains of American’s lives. Specific to marriage and divorce, these effects were immediate creating literal barriers to those marriages and divorces that were already in motion. Later, as the pandemic continued the economic consequences of the illness, and the mitigation measures became more personally relevant and apparent. But at a population level, how did these events effect Americans’ marital behavior? Recent research on the effect of economic downturns on marriages and divorces suggest they lead to declines in both (see Hellerstein & Morrill, 2011; Schaller, 2013). Looking at data on the effects of The Great Recession I found a significant drop in divorces during the crisis followed by a slight uptick following the recovery (Payne, 2014). These findings led to questions regarding the institution of marriage as the pandemic and mitigation measures wane. Also, marriage and divorce were already on a downward track before the pandemic (Westrick-Payne & Manning, 2022), so it is important to consider these trends in assessments of marriage and divorce during the pandemic. If changes in marriage and divorce are evident, will they be short-term, or will they represent longer term shifts in behavior?

The National Center for Family and Marriage Research has been tracking and archiving national, state, and county-level trends in marriage and divorce over time. When the world began to shutter in response to the COVID-19 pandemic we anticipated rippling effects on marriage and divorce and were well positioned to investigate them as they unfolded. Our initial examination was limited to states with published monthly vital statistics for the year 2020 (Arizona, Florida, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Oregon). Like estimates of excess mortality, we computed expected numbers of marriages and divorces based on what was observed in the months prior to the pandemic. We then compared how the expected number compared to the number that took place. Overall, the pattern indicated shortfalls in both marriages and divorces compared to what we would have expected. However, it’s important to note that, even among the few states in our case study, we found variation. It appeared, by as early as September of 2020, Arizona had nearly recovered all marriages and divorces.

As more data were released, we were able to expand our investigation in our most recent data viz publication to include marriages in 20 states and divorces in 35. Here again, we found shortfalls–10.7% fewer marriages and 12.3% fewer divorces—compared to what we would have expected given counts in the prior 24 months. Likewise, variation between states persisted with marriage shortfalls as high as 43.7% in Hawaii and 20.3% in Nevada. Regarding divorces, most states (31) posted fewer than expected with South Carolina experiencing the largest shortfall (32.9%).

The most recently released data on marriages and divorces by state by National Center for Health Statistics is consistent with our findings. At the Population Association of America’s 2022 Annual Meeting in April and in the NCFMR Family Profile series we presented estimates of shortfalls and excesses in marriages and divorces based on the NCHS report. Consistent with our prior investigations, we found evidence of a 12% decline overall. Forty-one states and Washington D.C. experienced declines and nine states did not. Hawaii, California, and New York had the largest shortfalls and Texas, and Montana had the largest increases. Although four states did not report divorces in 2020, of those that did we expected nearly 715,000 divorces but only observed about 630,000—a shortfall of 12%. Louisiana and Maryland had the largest shortfalls, 57% and 43%, respectively. There were eight states with no shortfalls, with Illinois and Mississippi leading the pack at 42% and 30%, respectively. Arizona ended 2020 with about 300 more divorces than expected. These findings were remarkably consistent with our predictions with over 231,000 fewer marriages and nearly 85,000 fewer divorces. Further, preliminary estimates of states with available monthly counts in 2021 show a continuation of these trends with fewer marriages in six out of seven states and fewer divorces in four out of five states.

In sum, while some states had recovered in respect to marriages and divorces by the close of 2020, the handful of states with available data for 2021 still indicate possible lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on marriage and divorce in the United States. Larger questions remain. Do these results represent marriages and divorce merely postponed, or will they never occur? Only time will tell how far the ripples will extend.

Source: NCFMR analyses of CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System; U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division Annual Estimates of the Resident Population; U.S. Census Bureau, 2020 American Community Survey, 1-year Experimental PUMS

Krista K. Westrick-Payne, PhD, (kristaw@bgsu.edu) is the assistant director for the National Center for Family & Marriage Research, and research affiliate of the Center for Family & Demographic Research both at Bowling Green State University. She is also the data technician for the Henry County Health Department. Trained as a family demographer, her work encompasses a broad range of topics related to marriage, family, place, and health throughout the life course. She also has a particular interest in data visualization. You can follow them on Twitter @kkaypayne. You can follow the NCFMR @NCFMRBGSU

References:

Amato, P. R., & Beattie, B. (2011). Does the unemployment rate affect the divorce rate? An analysis of state data 1960–2005. Social Science Research, 40(3), 705-715.

Hellerstein, J. K., & Morrill, M. S. (2011). Booms, busts, and divorce. The BE Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 11(1).

Payne, K. K. (2014). The Divorce Rate and the Great Recession. Family Profiles, FP-14-19. Bowling Green, OH: National Center for Family & Marriage Research. http://www.bgsu.edu/content/dam/BGSU/college-of- arts-and-sciences/NCFMR/documents/FP/FP-14-19-divorce- rate-recession.pdf   

Manning, W. D. & Payne, K. K. (2021). Marriage and divorce decline during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of five states. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic World, 7, 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1177/23780231211006976 

National Center for Health Statistics. (n.d.). Marriages and Divorces. Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved March 1, 2022, from https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/marriage-divorce.htm?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fnchs%2Fmardiv.htm

Schaller, J. (2013). For richer, if not for poorer? Marriage and divorce over the business cycle. Journal of Population Economics, 26(3), 1007-1033.

Westrick-Payne, K. K., Manning, W. D. (2022). Marriage, divorce, and the COVID-19 Pandemic in the U.S. Family Profiles, FP-22-12. Bowling Green, OH: National Center for Family & Marriage Research. https://doi.org/10.25035/ncfmr/fp-22-12

Westrick-Payne, K. K., Manning, W. D., Carlson, L. (2022). Pandemic shortfall in marriages and divorce in the United States. Socius: Sociological Research for a Dynamic Work, 8, 1-3. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/23780231221090192

Westrick-Payne, K. K., Manning, W. D., Carlson, L. (2022). “Marriage and divorce during the COVID-19 pandemic: State-level analysis” Population Association of America, Atlanta, GA.  

Growing up with undocumented parents can place children at a disadvantage.  Indeed, studies find that children with undocumented parents are likely to face increased levels of poverty, depression and anxiety, housing instability, and educational barriers. As these youth come of age, they can take on additional responsibilities for the family including financial support, sponsoring undocumented parents for Lawful Permanent Residency (LPR), and providing immigration policy updates. However, it remains unclear how the immigration status of the young adults shapes the support they provide to their undocumented parents.

In other words, how does parental support differ between citizen young adults and undocumented young adults?

My recent study examines how U.S.-born citizen and DACAmented college students manage parental illegality in their families. This qualitative study draws on 41 semi-structured interviews with Latinx college students who vary in immigration status. All participants had at least one undocumented parent and lived in Southern California at the time of the interview. 

The findings suggest that young adults’ legal status shaped the strategies used to mediate parental illegality. Young adults engaged in tactics to support their undocumented parents, including informing undocumented parents about their legal rights, sharing tips about how to navigate interactions with police or ICE, easing fears family separation, and creating strategies to minimizing threats of deportation or detention. The in-depth interviews revealed that citizens and DACAmented young adults’ support was facilitated or constrained by their own immigration status.

Citizens attempted to use their protected legal status to support their undocumented parents in two ways. First, citizens investigated the immigration petition process and sought out possible options to adjust their parents’ legal status. Participants detailed how they looked up information about sponsorship on the Web, discussed the family’s case with lawyers, and strategized how to cover the costs of sponsorship. Only three participants were able to successfully petition their parents for Lawful Permanent Residency—with the vast majority unable to do so due to state-sanctioned restrictions. Second, citizens helped their undocumented parents by stepping in to shield parents from threats of deportation. Driving undocumented parents through and around checkpoints was the most commonly used tactic. The strategies used by citizens underscores the advantages and drawbacks of citizenship in mixed status Latinx immigrant families.

DACAmented young adults shared legal capital and immigration policy updates with their undocumented parents. Respondents’ unique social characteristics as acculturated bilingual college students with DACA shaped the set of tactics used to help their undocumented parents. Access to DACA allowed these young people to help in similar ways to that of citizens. For instance, both DACAmented and citizen young adults were able to provide financial support through part-time jobs and open credit cards that parents could use. However, DACA’s temporary and unstable nature during the Trump administration confined DACAmented respondents to a state of precarity wherein their safety and futures were threatened. In response to this uncertainty, DACAmented young adults made use of legal resources on their campus. These youth were able to access targeted on-campus resources and programming for undocumented students including a centralized resource center, classes, conferences, scholarships, legal services, housing, DACA renewal clinics, professional development, academic consultation, support groups, and immigrant rights organizations. This network of resources for undocumented students on campus served as a mechanism as to how DACAmented young adults acquired legal capital. These young adults then shared these resources with their undocumented parents with the intention of mediating the harmful effects of illegality in their families.

In the context of a restrictive sociopolitical climate, this study sheds light on how adult children of undocumented immigrants develop strategies to combat threats of family separation, detention, and deportation. Young adults draw on resources available to them to support their undocumented parents—albeit some are better positioned to provide legal knowledge than others. The strategies implemented by adult children of undocumented immigrants highlight the need for policy addressing the legal vulnerability of undocumented and mixed status families. Until then, children of undocumented immigrants will continue to endure the burden of navigating a broken immigration system.

—

Vanessa Delgado is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Department of Sociology at UC, Irvine. Her research examines the incorporation pathways and educational experiences of Latino/a/x families. Delgado’s research is featured in several journals including Law & Policy, Journal of Latinos and Education, Sociology Compass, Socius, and Journal of Marriage and Family. Follow them on Twitter @VanessaD015

Background

Although people have become more accepting of interracial unions, interracial couples continue to report experiencing family opposition, ostracism from kin, and discrimination from neighbors.  The opposition tends to be stronger for interracial marriages than for interracial cohabitations. Partly reflecting these challenges, interracial couples cohabit at higher rates than same-race couples. Approximately one-in-five cohabitations involved partners of a different ethno-race, which contrasted with one-in-ten marriages.

Interracial couples’ higher cohabitation rates beget the question: does cohabitation serve a different function for interracial couples than for same-race couples?  Specifically, the prospect of facing opposition from family, kin, and friends may mean that interracial couples may have a greater need to cohabit prior to marriage to test their compatibility before entering into a marriage that is meant to be “forever-lasting”.  Simultaneously, cohabitation may be interracial couples may be a substitute for marriage, offering a way to enjoy the benefits of married life without the challenges that accompany interracial marriage.

The extent to which interracial cohabitation serves a different role than same-race cohabitation may vary depending on the couple’s joint race/ethnicity.  Due to the legacy of anti-miscegenation laws, opposition towards White-Black interracial marriages tends to be more pronounced than it is for other interracial couples.

Most prior work either focus on disparities in the stability and outcome of cohabitations by female partner’s ethno-race or differences between interracial and same-race marriages.  Therefore, how the stability and outcome of interracial cohabitation compare with that of same-race cohabitation is largely unknown.

Our study

Our study, published in Demographic Research, examined the stability and outcome of interracial cohabitations before and after transitions into marriage. Using data from the 2002 and 2006-2019 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), we examined whether interracial cohabitations were more likely than same-race cohabitations to dissolve or end in a marriage. We also examined whether premarital cohabitation stabilized interracial marriages to a greater extent than same-race marriages. We also documented variations in the stability and outcome of White-Black and White-Hispanic intermarriages.

Our Findings

How the stability and outcome of interracial cohabitations compare with those of same-race cohabitations varies depending on whether or not the cohabitation resulted in a marriage.

The stability and outcome of premarital cohabitations involving White-Black couples mirror closely those of the same-race Black couples. Their probability of transitioning into marriage is slightly lower than those of same-race Black couples. Their probability of separation is slightly higher than those of same-race Black couples. And the stability and outcome of White-Hispanic couples fall in between those of their same-race counterparts. Their probability of transitioning into marriage is lower than that of same-race White couples but higher than that of same-race Hispanic couples; however, their probability of separation mirror closely that of same-race Hispanic couples.

For the cohort of women in our study, premarital cohabitation tends to be associated with a higher risk of marital disruption. These patterns are commonly attributed to the fact that (a) those who cohabit may be a select group who may be more socioeconomically disadvantaged than those who married and (b) cohabitors may forego behaviors like pooling resources or making joint investments that stabilize marriage.

However, there is an exception to this pattern.  Premarital cohabitation is negatively associated with a lower risk of marital disruption among White-Black couples. Their probability of marital disruption is lower than that of their peers who transitioned directly into marriage. It is also only slightly higher than that of same-race White couples who cohabited before marriage. The exceptional pattern likely emerges because White-Black couples in intermarriages are a select group who are unusually pro-nuptial, are highly compatible, and/or have made joint investments together which lowers their risk of marital disruption.

Implications

Our study offers valuable insights into how structural barriers alter the social significance of cohabitation for interracial couples, particularly White-Black couples. Challenges associated with crossing formidable barriers to intermarriage may have created a greater need for interracial couples to cohabit prior to marriage. Yet, after they transition into marriage, White-Black marriages preceded by cohabitation tend to be stable because only lower shares of White-Black couples transition into marriage.

Kate H. Choi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Research on Social Inequality at Western University in London, ON. Follow them on Twitter @KateHeeChoi

Much of the current conversation about work in the United States focuses on recent gains in workers’ rights, power, and working conditions. In the past year, workers elected to create unions at several Starbucks location, an Amazon warehouse, and an Apple store, and are working to create unions in other retail spaces such as Trader Joe’s. Workers are also witnessing an increase in wages after decades of wage stagnation. However, the overall landscape of work in the 21^st century would not be described as an era of favorable working conditions.

In fact, work is increasingly characterized by a lack of job security, little control over work schedules and work hours, frequent job changes and instability, and limited social benefits from employers. In a recent study, I documented how these aspects of work – often referred to as precarious work – can impact the health of workers. While prior research has found that precarious work can impact the mental well-being and health of workers, I addressed a gap in the research by demonstrating the lasting health consequences of long-term exposure to precarious work.

In the study, I examined the health trajectories of 8,283 adults over age 65 to understand how their exposure to precarious work from age 50 to 65 shaped their health outcomes after age 65. I considered the number of chronic conditions they developed, how many functional limitations impacted their daily lives (e.g., getting up from a chair, climbing a flight of stairs), and their risk of dying after age 65.

What I found is that individuals who were frequently exposed to adverse work experiences such as unemployment, job insecurity, and insufficient work hours experienced more chronic conditions and functional limitations after age 65 compared to individuals who were not frequently exposed to these conditions. These workers also experienced a higher risk of dying after age 65. Thus, long-term exposure to precarious work can take a lasting toll on a person’s health and shorten their life.

Although the specific reasons for the lasting health effects remain unclear, I suspect that the chronic stress from long-term exposure to precarious work can take a toll on workers’ bodies over time. For example, constantly experiencing job insecurity or insufficient work hours can lead to feelings of hopelessness and psychological distress, which can ultimately “get under the skin” to affect chronic conditions and other physical health problems, as evidenced by prior research.

The findings from my study are particularly concerning in light of the persistence of precarious work in the 21^st century. Insecurity and instability at work have seeped into all sectors of the economy over the past several decades, with no sign of abating. Given stark linkages between precarious work and health, precarious work should be considered a public health crisis. If work is causing more health problems and a greater risk of premature death, precarious work will have significant consequences for individuals, their families, and society as a whole.

Although recent improvements in wages and union representation have the potential to help workers and (hopefully) to improve their health outcomes, we have a long way to go. In the United States, we lack protections for workers and social safety net policies that have the potential to alleviate some of the health consequences of precarious work. For example, the United States remains the only high-income country lacking paid leave for workers. Moreover, a number of states have enacted policies to limit the scope and power of unions, at the detriment of workers. We will need a seismic shift in the policy arena to improve the lives of workers in the United States, and my study points to this as a necessary endeavor for public health.

Rachel Donnelly is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University. Her research focuses on health and health disparities across the life course, with an emphasis on how work and family relationships contribute to disparate health outcomes.

In May 2022, Johnny Depp fans heckled Amber Heard and called her a “gold digger” as she left the courthouse in her defamation trial. Depp also called her a gold digger during her 2020 libel trial. Accusations of gold digging in one of the most publicized celebrity conflicts of the twenty-first century is not an accident, and this seemingly minor insult carries tremendous baggage. The history of the “gold digger” stereotype—and its power to shape perceptions of romance, marriage, and family—deserves our close attention.

The term “gold digger” refers to women who pursue romantic relationships for financial gain. To be sure, men have sometimes been accused of being gold diggers but, over the last century, it’s a label overwhelmingly applied to women. From its origin as chorus girl slang in the early 1900s it grew as a popular misogynistic slur. My book American Gold Digger: Marriage, Money, and the Law from the Ziegfeld Follies to Anna Nicole Smith (University of North Carolina Press) traces the history of the gold digger stereotype in the twentieth century. The book shows how depictions of gold diggers distort the conditions surrounding courtship and marriage. Alleged gold diggers absorb blame rightly directed toward structural and historical forces.

Moral panics about gold diggers emerged when American families experienced rapid social change. During the worst years of the Great Depression activists led a campaign to outlaw breach of promise litigation, a legal remedy available to women who were betrayed by their potential suitors. Inside movie theaters, millions of Americans watched stars like Mae West and Joan Blondell portray gold diggers who used so-called “heart balm” laws to con gullible men out of their hard-earned money. Inside courthouses and statehouses, crusaders successfully eliminated breach of promise laws (despite a steady decline in breach of promise lawsuits since the late-nineteenth century). What was once embraced as a remedy to restore a woman’s good name in a cutthroat marriage market now was regarded as a tasteless ploy from lower-class women to marry above their social station. The anti-heart balm campaign drew strength from popular representations of gold diggers, and gold digger narratives created a ready-made scapegoat for economic struggles.

In the 1990s, the American public fixated on the marriage between Anna Nicole Smith, a twenty-six-year-old model, and J. Howard Marshall, an eighty-nine-year-old oil tycoon. After Marshall’s death, his son and Anna Nicole Smith fought over the multi-million-dollar Marshall estate, a decade-long battle that involved two trips to the Supreme Court. During these years, the media’s characterization of Smith as a gold digger destroyed her reputation as a path-breaking fashion model. She became a joke in popular culture, with headlines that referenced popular gold digger movies from the 1950s. Few questioned Marshall’s wealth, evidence of his alleged involvement in criminal tax avoidance, or his connection to far-right figures like the Koch brothers. Marshall was remembered as a victim. Smith was remembered as a punchline. The gold digger trope worked its social magic. Complex legal and economic issues were simplified. Blame and anger were redirected toward an allegedly greedy woman.

For the past 100 years the gold digger trope has allowed structural problems confronting American families to be seen in an individualized, personalized, and stylized way. The effects of legal and economic change on American families are often hard to grasp, but the gold digger is an easily accessible and understandable figure. The durable popularity of the gold digger trope shows how law and popular culture merge together to create powerful stereotypes that have lasting consequences.

Brian Donovan is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Kansas and current President of the Midwest Sociological Society. Donovan is the author of White Slave Crusades, Respectability on Trial, and American Gold Digger. He can be reached at bdonovan@ku.edu. Donovan (and his cats) can also be found on Twitter at @golddiggerbook.