Discussion questions

Barber 2000

1. To what extent has she proved that having a mother who wants many grandchildren influences the child's fertility?

2. To what extent does the reverse of hypothesis 1 hold?, i.e. hypothesis 1 implies that mothers that have preferences for their children oriented towards the family tend not to have preferences towards high levels of education, small families, and later marriage. In my South African experience, mothers tend to want their children to have both.

3. In hypothesis 3, she states "Mother's preferences also affect children's first birth rates independent of young adult behaviors". Does thiis seem contradictory? Or might it also suggest the reverse influence, i.e. that mothers shape their preferences based on observed children's behavior?

4. To what extent could the differences in the wording of questions asked about schooling and career affect the results of the study? e.g. regarding schooling, mothers were asked the minimum amount of schooling preferred for the child, and children were asked about the maximum.

5. I find it hard to believe that "mother's preferences have a strong impact on their children's first birth timing independent of their children's own preferences". Does this imply that children will time first births according to their mother's preferences even if they do not prefer to do so personally? Or are there mechanisms of indirect causation that the authors have not explored?

Aquilino1996

1. To what extent does the use of retrospectively collected information affect the study?

2. The author places emphasis on how the results oppose the current literature that suggest that Blacks are more likely to live with grandparents than Whites, this makes me think of the differences in the effect of living with a grandparent, and having a grandparent living close by and taking care of the child. Are such arrangements predominant in the US? and could the fact that the study focuses on defacto household living arrangements misses some more complex intergenerational relations?

3. What does the finding that controlling for socioeconomic status does not attenuate the differences in education outcomes between respondents in single parent households and those who move to two-parent adoptive or step families, imply for the actual aspect of single parent household that negatively affect childhood outcomes?

4. The author does not spend much effort in explaining factors that might be causing children who have made multiple transitions in their living arrangements during childhood to have similar probability of completing high school compared to children who did not. This finding seem surprising, what could it mean? Furthermore, what makes children who made multiple transitions have less probability of making it to post-high school?

5. The results in general do show that children making different household transitions have different outcomes, what are the policy implications of this research though?

Amato and DeBoer 2001

1. Are the measures of marital instability (for children) they used adequately capture instability? In other words, are people who report to think about divorce more likely to divorce than those who do not report this?

2. Based on this study, is it the actual experience of parental divorce that effect children's chance of having a marital dissolution, or it is the parent's marital quality that does?

3. The causal link between parental divorce and possibility of divorce of their children is shown, but what are the factors that causes this? Is other words what are the mechanisms thorough which relationship skills and interpersonal behaviors are transferred from parent to child?

4. How does their definition of commitment affect their results? Commitment according to them is the tendency to remain in a marriage even when it is in trouble. Does it ultimately mean that children who are more committed to their marriage are less likely to divorce? To what extent are they more likely to postpone divorce rather than avoid it completely?

5. Hypothesis 4 implies that for parental marital discord prior to divorce to affect children's subsequent decisions to divorce, children should be aware of these discord. The scales that measure discord include measures that may not me seen by children. To what extent does this affect the finding that children are more likely to be prone to divorce if their parent's divorce was preceded by marital discord?

Axinn and Thorton 1993

1. The authors acknowledge that parental endorsement of non-marital cohabitation vary by gender, but argue that there is no theoretical reason to posit that the forces connecting attitudes and behaviors of individuals should differ by gender? Is this not contradictory to some extent?

2. What does it mean that children's attitudes towards cohabitation have a smaller effect on their entry into marriage, which is overshadowed by the effect of maternal attitudes? Does it mean children's choice to cohabit or marry is based more on their mother's attitudes that their own?

3. The authors show that intergenerational influences do occur from children to parents as well, what are the implications of this in ultimately understanding the effect of parental attitudes to children's behavior?

4. The results show that mother's influence on children's behavior is weaker for men than for women, does it mean father's are expected to have more influence on sons, or that men's behavior is more independent on parental attitudes? How does this affect results given that men are the ones who predominately initiate marital unions?

5. The authors conclude that recent increase in cohabitation was a causal factor in the accompanying decline in marriage. Have they explained factors that lead to the increase in cohabitation based on their intergenerational transfers perspective? Is it the changing attitudes of children towards cohabitation, or the changing attitudes of their mothers?

Cherlin, Kiernan, and Chase-Lansdale 1995

1. Why would the loss of a parent (through death) increase the likelihood of cohabitation for men?

2. The finding that parental marital disruption increases the odds of entry into a union, even thought this is shown mainly to be due to increases in cohabitation seem interesting. Why would witnessing of parental marital disruption increase the likelihood of forming a union?

3. Have the factors causing an experience of parental marital disruption during childhood to increase the odds of having a pre-marital birth been explored? Is it meant to imply that these children lose trust in marriage as an institution and decide that having children out of wedlock is better?

4. The effect of emotional problems at age 7 is associated with chances of leaving home due to conflict later. What does having emotional problems at age 7 (based on their emotional indicators) mean for the outcomes discussed?

5. One of the main findings of the study is that young adults, whose parents divorce are more likely to leave home because of friction. It leaves me wondering what kinds of living arrangements they are subjected to after parental divorce that causes friction. Is it friction between the parent and a step-parent, friction due to single parenthood living arrangement, or friction due to other factors?

6. On a non-sociological note, where are these children leaving home early going to? and how does this affect their outcomes later in life?

7. On a separate issue, I found it interesting how the authors included a paragraph on how their study in Great Britain is relevant for the United States. Its almost as though they believe it would not be credible if it did not?