ABSTRACT
During the last third of the 20th century enormous demographic and economic changes occurred in American families. These include (a) declines in marriage among some groups, delays in marriage in most groups, and in-creases in cohabitation; (b) increases in marital dissolution due to divorce; (c) increases in nonmarital births but concomitant increases in childrearing in cohabitating unions; (d) increases in single-parent families; (e) increases in maternal employment and changes in fathers' roles; and (f) increases in same-sex households. Although children's living arrangements have changed, increased parental education, increased earnings, and smaller families have improved the lives of children during the past few decades. In addition, changes in attitudes and values toward parenting have led to children in two-parent families spending increased time with their parents in the late 1990s compared with the early 1980s.
