# Family Complexity, Resources, and the Transition to Adulthood

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2020 · $400,357

## Abstract

During the last 40 years, family organization in the US has become increasingly complex. In 1970, 85 percent
of children lived with both married parents; by 2009, 56 percent resided with both married parents and no step-
or half-siblings1,2 The balance, comprising 44 percent of today's children, experience a multiplicity of non-
traditional family arrangements that may include having at least one parent's residence outside the child's
household, parents' changes in union status with new partners, or the inclusion of step- or half-siblings. This
family complexity produces an intricate and evolving network of biologically and socially-based family
relationships that transcend household boundaries. Family complexity is associated with children receiving
fewer economic resources from parents and other kin, with consequences for their well-being across the early
life course. However, existing research has not accounted for the multiple dimensions of family complexity
simultaneously; nor has it fully accounted for the dynamic nature of family complexity or for the antecedents to
family complexity that might explain its association with resource distribution to children. As a result, research
findings about this association are fragmented and potentially misspecified. We address these limitations by
applying rigorous statistical methods to data from a multigenerational national study to focus on a critical phase
of the life course: the transition to adulthood. In particular, we ask whether and how exposure to family
complexity in childhood shapes the family resources available to children as they embark on a sequence of
consequential and intensive life events including homeleaving, labor force entry, educational attainment, and
family formation. We focus on three components of family complexity: union instability, multipartner fertility, and
nonresidential status. We ask how these dimensions of family complexity operate independently and in concert
to shape the distribution of available family-based resources over children's early life course through the
transition to adulthood. We use data from the 1968-2015 Panel Study of Income Dynamics and its
supplements to connect children to mothers' and fathers' union and childbearing trajectories from prior to the
child's birth through the transition to adulthood even where children have little or no contact with nonresident
parents. This design allows us to 1.) provide new descriptive estimates of family relationships and resources
that span households, 2) assess the factors that play into resource allocation in complex families, and 3)
connect time-varying measures of resource allocation in complex families to the transition to adulthood net of a
rich set of background information and controls. Our analytic models improve estimates of how the unfolding
and dynamic relationship between family complexity and family economic resources during childhood impacts
children's transition to adulthood by reducing bias i...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9924585
- **Project number:** 5R01HD088506-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** PAULA W FOMBY
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $400,357
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2016-08-15 → 2023-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9924585

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9924585, Family Complexity, Resources, and the Transition to Adulthood (5R01HD088506-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9924585. Licensed CC0.

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