ABSTRACT
The stepfamily is the fastest growing family type in the United States (U.S Bureau of the Census, 1992). Approximately 17% of all families headed by a married couple with children under age 18 are stepfamilies (Glick, 1989). However, step-families are diverse in their structures, histories, and circumstances. Biological parents may or may not have been married. Previous adult relationships may have ended with the death of a spouse or partner, a breakdown in a former cohabitation, or a divorce. The custodial parent, noncustodial parent, or both may re-marry. Parents or stepparents may have residential or nonresidential children from previous relationships adding stepsiblings to the family. Slightly more than half of remarried custodial parents have children with their new spouses adding half-siblings to the family (General Household Survey, 1993). Finally, divorces occur more frequently and rapidly in remarriages than in first marriages, with one fourth of remarriages being disrupted within five years (Martin & Bumpass, 1989). Couples with remarried wives are almost twice as likely to divorce as those with remarried husbands, in part because of the 50% higher rates of dissolution in marriages in which children are present (Tzeng & Mare, 1995). One out of every ten children will experience at least two divorces of their residential parents before turning 16 (Furstenberg, 1988). Thus, for many children remarriage is just one link in a chain of marital transitions and household reorganizations involving alterations in family roles and relationships.
