ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the issue of family diversity following divorce, using two distinct and complementary data sets, one from young adults who refer to the divorce and remarriage of their parents, the other from older adults with children. Research on parenting following remarriage has produced rather disturbing results. The investment in new partners by parents is associated with a decreased attention towards their children. Divorced parents receive lower levels of support from grandparents. The results of the study on young adults confirm that having parents who experienced divorce and remarriage is associated with a peculiar kind of social capital. A widespread feature within post-divorce family configurations is a lack of transitivity in the triad child biological parent, step-parent. Individuals have to comply with cultural meanings of family statuses that still leave little space for alternative types of family organization such as post-divorce families.
