ABSTRACT
In the US and western Europe, there are now many paths to forming families, which have different welfare implications for women, men, and children. This chapter provides a statistical overview of these trends and reviews the relevant economic theories. It also provides a statistical picture of the incidence and sequencing of childbearing, cohabitation, and marriage. Legal recognition of same-sex marriages has to some extent offset the decline in the likelihood of marriage. In the economic theory of family formation, the main questions are to what extent families form because of mutual gains for all members, to what extent family formation is contingent on the distribution of gains to individual family members, and to what extent allegiance to gender norms overrides conventional economic incentives. The growth of non-marital parenting in the US is not because of the growth of the welfare state. In fact, American welfare reform in 1996 greatly reduced public support for indigent single mothers.
