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Well-Being and Stability among Low-income Families: A 10-Year Review of Research

• Published: 25 October 2020
• Volume 42 , pages 107–117, ( 2021 )

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• Yoshie Sano   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1741-2736 1 ,
• Sheila Mammen 2 &
• Myah Houghten 3  

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A Correction to this article was published on 28 December 2020

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Scholarship on families in poverty, in the last decade, documented various struggles and challenges faced by low-income families and expanded our understanding of their complicated life circumstances embedded within the contexts of community, culture, and policies. The research articles published in the Journal of Family and Economic Issues during this time, that highlighted poverty, focused primarily on three topic areas: economic security, family life issues, and food security. Overall, findings conclude that family well-being and stability cannot be promoted without the consideration of environmental factors. They depend on the interaction among individual (e.g., increased human capital), family (e.g., positive co-parental relationship), community (e.g., affordable childcare), and policy changes (e.g., realistic welfare-to-work programs). Collectively, the articles have provided a road map for future research directions.

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Introduction

Family well-being, essential to the smooth functioning of communities and societies, is hindered when there is high incidence of poverty. Poverty rate in the US hovered around 14% prior to the enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PROWRA) of 1996 (U.S. Census 2019a ). Following welfare reform, the poverty rate started to decline (to a low of 11.3% in 2000) (U.S. Census 2019a ), although scholars have questioned if PROWRA is the cause of this decline. Uncertainties in the economy, including the 2008 Great Recession, caused the poverty rate to climb again and remain at around 15% until 2014. With the fading effects of the recession, the US poverty rate was at 11.8% in early 2020, right before the current Coronavirus pandemic. One group that is most vulnerable to poverty, however, are female-headed households, who consistently comprise 50% of all households living in poverty. Other vulnerable groups include non-Whites [poverty rate in 2018, Blacks: 22%; Hispanics: 19%; Native Americans: 24%] (Kaiser Family Foundation 2020 ); rural communities [poverty rate in 2018, non-metro: 16%; metro: 13%] (Economic Research Service 2020 ); and children [poverty rate in 2018, 16%; i.e. 1 in every 6 children] (US Census 2019b ).

Family well-being is a multidimensional concept that refers to a family’s subjective sense of overall welfare, taking into account the physical and emotional health of family members as well as their interconnectedness, which in turn results in family stability (a sense of consistency, predictability, and continuity). There are many components that contribute to the well-being of families such as income sufficiency, food security, stable family environment, mental and physical health security, safe housing and communities, employment opportunities, and adequate transportation. These components, taken as a whole, provide the necessary foundation for the well-being of families. For low-income families, in particular, the lack of some or all of these dimensions can be severely detrimental to their well-being since this could lead to poverty. Such a direct link between lack of well-being and poverty can ultimately lead to family instability.

In this paper, we will review select research findings of the past decade published in the Journal of Family and Economic Issues from 2010 to 2019 that have increased our understanding of low-income families living in poverty. Each study employed a unique approach to its particular topic. Some studies utilized large secondary datasets including both metropolitan and non-metropolitan residents while others collected their own data from a smaller sample generated by non-probability sampling. However, all studies focused on low-income families in the United States with the exception of one study that examined poverty-related social policy in Columbia. The 29 papers, Footnote 1 while highly diverse, all illustrated the strengths and challenges faced by individuals and families living with limited resources.

Our review was carried out in multiple stages. First, each author independently reviewed the 29 articles, and then the authors qualitatively compared and contrasted the main themes that emerged from these articles. In the last step, the authors identified three specific dimensions of well-being Footnote 2 : economic security, family life, and food security. Our objective was not to provide a comprehensive summary of all poverty-related issues addressed in these articles but, rather, to synthesize the research findings along these three dimensions to see how they have contributed to the current knowledge base regarding low-income families and to provide a path for future research in order to improve family well-being and stability.

Families in Poverty: Decade in Review

Economic security among low-income families.

In the last decade, research on the economic security of low-income families has centered around poverty dynamics, the effectiveness of welfare-to-work programs, employment issues, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and banking behavior.

Poverty Dynamics

Mammen et al. ( 2015 ) developed the Economic Well-Being Continuum (EWC) as a comprehensive measure to describe the circumstances of low-income families in eight specific dimensions (child care, employability, food security, health care security, housing security, transportation, reliance of assistance programs, and capabilities) and establish their level of economic functioning (persistently poor, struggling, and getting by). When certain life circumstances and trigger events experienced by low-income mothers, which contributed to their entry into and exit from poverty, were examined with the EWC, the authors found that family health issues and changes in mothers’ intimate relationships acted as significant trigger events that established or altered the economic functioning of the families. We believe that what mitigated families’ hardships was their support networks. Prawitz et al. ( 2013 ) reported on the centrality of locus of control among low-income individuals who expressed less financial distress and more hopefulness when locus of control was more internal to them. When low-income individuals were able to make financial adjustments, however, they had more financial distress, accompanied with more hopefulness, possibly implying that while the current situation may be bleak, their adaptive responses may have fostered hopefulness that things would improve.

Effectiveness of Welfare-to-Work Programs Among Low-Income Families

One of the goals of PRWORA was to enable recipients of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to exit the program and enter the job market. The transition from welfare to work, however, was not as effective when low-income individuals were trained only through labor force attachment (LFA) programs. Kim ( 2010 , 2012 ) found that former TANF recipients were more likely to obtain employment when LFA programs were combined with human capital development (HCD) programs as participation in HCD programs were related to longer employment durations and lower probability of TANF re-entry.

Participants in Welfare-to-Work programs, who succeeded leaving assistance and obtaining employment, disclosed low wages; informal labor market activity; notable levels of unmet needs; and continued government, community, and social support use (Livermore et al. 2011 ). Those with higher earnings and regular nonmonetary help from family and friends were likely to have more needs met; those who had fewer needs met reported lower wages, had more young children, used government support programs (including childcare subsidies), and engaged in informal labor market activity (Davis et al. 2018 ; Grobe et al. 2017 ; Livermore et al. 2011 ).

Employment Issues

An important way to exit poverty and attain economic security is through employment. Unfortunately, many low-income mothers, especially rural low-income mothers, face daunting challenges to remain employed. Son and Bauer ( 2010 ) reported that mothers who were able to remain in the same job did so because they utilized their limited resources and developed strategies to combine work and family life. These strategies included utilizing social support network for childcare and other household activities as well as relying, where possible, on flexibility at work such as non-standard work hours and supportive supervisors.

One way that low-income mothers were more likely to be employed, and especially employed full-time, was if they were provided state childcare subsidy (Davis et al. 2018 ) and the receipt of childcare subsidy was tied to their employment (Grobe et al. 2017 ). High level of job instability (job loss, major reduction in work hours), however, created a greater likelihood of losing the childcare subsidy. While job changes per se was not related to loss of childcare subsidy, parents required the subsidy to remain employed.

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC)

The EITC program, initiated in 1975, is the largest federal assistance program targeted towards working poor families in order to supplement their household wages and to offset their Social Security taxes (Mammen et al. 2011 ). Despite the many benefits of the EITC, a substantial portion of working families, especially in rural communities, do not participate in the program. Mammen et al. ( 2011 ) found that, among rural low-income women, the EITC non-participants were more likely to be Hispanic, be less educated, have larger families, perceive their income as being inadequate, live in more rural counties, and possess little understanding of the EITC. Participating rural working mothers, on the other hand, were more likely to be single, food secure, and satisfied with life.

One important element of the EITC program is the frequency with which the tax credit payments are received by the working families: lumpsum, periodic, or monthly. Kramer et al. ( 2019 ) reported that periodic EITC payment recipients experienced significantly lower levels of perceived financial stress. This relationship was partly mediated by less need to borrow money, lower levels of food insecurity, and fewer unpaid bills. Therefore, periodic EITC payments may enhance the positive association between the EITC and financial well-being of families.

Banking Behavior of Low-Income Families

Having a bank account is more likely to enable low-income families to build assets and to offset unexpected financial expenditures. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Commission (FDIC), among households with incomes less than $30,000, 38% of them were unbanked in 2017 (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation 2018 ). Grinstein-Weiss et al. ( 2010 ) found that low-income households who did not have a bank account (unbanked) were more likely to be younger, Black, unpartnered, have more children, and have less income. They were also less likely to have attended college and less likely to be employed full-time. Banked participants, however, were more likely to have better saving performance in Individual Development Accounts (IDA) Footnote 3 programs and lower risks of dropping out the IDA programs. According to Rao and Malapit ( 2015 ), for female-headed households, having an additional child increased their likelihood to be underbanked or unbanked. Such financial behavior is more prevalent among female-headed households compared to couples or male-headed households, likely due to the opportunity cost of time for women and the intimidation they feel, perhaps, based on their lack of banking sophistication.

Family Life Issues

Family is where individuals seek rest and support, take nutrition, promote good health and, perhaps, most importantly, raise the next generation. In this section we will discuss findings from the last decade on work-family balance, parenting dynamics, and child well-being and poverty.

Work and Family Life

Many rural low-income families face daunting challenges to balance work and family life. Katras et al. ( 2015 ) found low-income families were able to juggle the demands of work and family life if they had access to resources such as informal social support, could manage both work and family time, and were in jobs that supported work and family life. Difficulties regarding availability of resources or inflexibility in employment created problems in work and family life balance (Katras et al. 2015 ). As mentioned previously, low-income mothers relied on informal support for childcare and household tasks. They also depended on sympathetic supervisors who provided flexible work hours (Son and Bauer 2010 ).

Work-family life balance that working mothers try to achieve can be easily sabotaged by housing instability. Kull et al. ( 2016 ) reported that higher residential mobility was associated with changes in employment status and relationships, experiences of intimate partner violence, as well as private-market rentals, substandard housing, and bad neighborhoods.

Parenting Dynamics

In their study of unmarried couples who coparented children, Jamison et al. ( 2017 ) documented that the difficulties of living in poverty, combined with the demands of parenting young children, can create stress and chaos. Parents who were successful in coparenting were those who were able to manage their limited resources well. Jamison et al. concluded that the best way of assisting low-income couples manage day-to-day stress is by providing them with adequate resources as well as information on how to use these resources effectively.

Traditionally, poverty research has focused on low-income mothers. Myers ( 2013 ), however, studied how low-income fathers defined responsible fatherhood. Previous findings on middle-class fathers have emphasized the importance of breadwinning and childcare rearing roles (Schoppe-Sullivan and Fagon 2020 ). Low-income fathers, who did not provide finances or primary care, on the other hand, did not consider responsible fatherhood to include provision for either of these two functions. Instead they defined responsible fatherhood as spending time in non-caregiving activities, voluntarily distancing themselves from a child when it is in the child’s interest to do so, acknowledging paternity in non-legal settings, spending money on presents, engaging in fun activities, attending to special needs, keeping abreast of what is going on in the child’s home, and ensuring that they are not absent from the child’s life (Myers 2013 ).

Child Well-Being and Poverty

The association between poverty and negative child outcomes has been well-established. Children growing up in poverty are more likely to experience negative health outcomes, poor academic performance, higher dropout rates, and behavioral issues compared to children in middle- and upper-income households (Brooks-Gunn and Duncan 1997 ). Focusing on three economic indicators (income, material hardship, and non-liquid assets), Kainz et al. ( 2012 ) found an association among them and variations in 36-month old children’s social and cognitive development. Poverty status, measured by income-to-needs ratio, was related to lower cognitive skills while the presence of non-liquid assets was associated with higher cognitive skills. Greater material hardship was correlated with more social problems for these children.

Investing in children’s education produces positive child outcomes (Chaudry and Wimer 2016 ). Child subsidy programs expand childcare options for low-income parents. De Marco and Vernon-Feagans ( 2015 ) found that parents who received child subsidies tended to choose center-based care. They concluded that childcare, regardless of type, was of higher quality when these families received child subsidies. Okech ( 2011 ), whose focus was on parents’ decision to enroll in preschool children’s college education accounts, found that decisions were influenced by parental education level as well as parents’ participation in information sessions about the account.

Another indicator of child well-being is good health. According to Valluri et al. ( 2015 ), low-income mothers chose healthcare visits for themselves and their child simultaneously. Pediatric visits increased with new medical conditions and greater number of chronic conditions among children, and maternal healthcare use increased with higher maternal depression scores, chronic conditions, new medical conditions, more children, more pediatric visits, prenatal/post-partum needs, and having health insurance coverage. Maternal health visits, on the other hand, decreased with maternal depression, pregnancy, being Latina or Black, having more children, and if mothers were covered through private health insurance.

Food Insecurity

Consumption of nutritious food is necessary for a healthy, productive life for both adults and children. Having enough food at home contributes to an enhanced sense of family well-being. In this section, we will discuss findings related to the measurement of food insecurity, factors influencing food insecurity, and food-related assistance programs.

Measurement of Food Insecurity

Balistreri ( 2016 ) argued that the commonly used measure of food security (18-item U.S. Household Food Security Survey) only captures the prevalence of food insecurity, not its depth or severity. He has, instead, proposed the Food Insecurity Index (FII) to assess the degree of food insecurity. Using the FII, Balistreri found that low-income households without children experienced the most rapid increases in the depth and severity of food insecurity since the 2008 Great Recession until 2018. Although White non-Hispanic households, with or without children, had lower food insecurity prevalence rates, they experienced steeper increases in both depth and severity throughout the last decade. Finally, Black non-Hispanic households, with and without children, were most likely to suffer food insecurity.

Factors Leading to Food Insecurity

Guo ( 2011 ) documented that, regardless of socio-economic status, family food security is related to household assets. This is because the interaction between household assets and income loss buffered changes in food consumption patterns. Further, regardless of household income level, the risk of food insecurity increased, when faced with liquidity constraint and asset inadequacy (Chang et al. 2014 ). This relationship was strongest among low-income families. Financial constraint was found to be an exogenous factor in the determination of food insecurity. Food insecurity also resulted partly from the interaction between unstable income and nonstandard work schedules (multiple jobs, part-time, varied hours). While this association differed across household types, it was most pronounced in male- and female-headed households, and weakest among married couples (Coleman-Jensen 2011 ). The above findings, taken together, implies that food insecurity should be considered in the broader context of asset building and work environment.

The food security of Latino immigrant families in rural communities was influenced by multiple ecological layers. This included family characteristics (higher literacy and life skills), community conditions (state of the local economy, embrace of diversity, affordable housing, and access to health care), cultural values (familism), as well as federal immigration policy (Sano et al. 2011 ). The rapidly expanding growth among Latino families in rural areas of the US requires that attention be paid to the food security needs of this mostly vulnerable population (Hanson 2016 ). In rural Colombia, conditional cash transfers (CCT) increased the perception of food insecurity and subjective poverty among marginalized families (Morales-Martínez and Gori-Maia 2018 ). The conditionalities (families’ commitment to education, good health, and proper nutrition) imposed on the beneficiary families reduced their dissatisfaction with health and education.

Food-Related Assistance Programs

In 2005 and 2010, metro and non-metro households had relatively similar levels of food insecurity. Yet, Nielsen et al. ( 2018 ) reported that a higher proportion of non-metro households received government food assistance (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program [SNAP], Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children [WIC], free and/or reduced school meals, and related local and/or federal programs) compared to metro households. After the Great Recession, when government resources were expanded, this assistance gap widened even further. Nonetheless, according to Chang et al. ( 2015 ), participation in SNAP and WIC programs increased fruit and vegetable consumption significantly among disadvantaged families. Other factors such as exercise habits, family support, and willingness to adopt a healthy lifestyle played a bigger role in increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables. For some families, however, nutrition knowledge seemed to decrease actual intake of the same.

In a study that identified nonfood needs of low-income households who patronized food pantries, Fiese et al. ( 2014 ) classified product needs into three categories: products for survival (water, food, medicine), products to keep the household together (soap, toilet paper, hygiene products), and products to “make do” (paper plates, dish soap, household cleaning supplies). When households went without these products, it resulted in stress, personal degradation, and in illegal activities.

Overall Summary of Findings

The research findings from JFEI articles presented above have identified multiple challenges and have suggested future research directions to improve the well-being and stability of vulnerable families. Taken together, the findings imply that family economic functioning depends on the interaction among individual, family, and contextual factors (e.g., social network, culture, policies). Additionally, emphasizing employment alone, without consideration of factors such as childcare (availability, accessibility, affordability) or jobs (availability, flexibility), is not adequate to successfully enable welfare recipients to exit the program. Governmental and institutional support also play an important role in the economic security of low-income families, such as participation in the EITC, for those who are eligible, and in the banking sector.

In order to balance work and family life, which would contribute to family well-being, working poor mothers require informal social support, especially for childcare and household tasks. In addition to effective resource management skills, it is important for low-income mothers to have a reliable co-parent who is more likely to decrease day-to-day stress and chaos in the household. Even those low-income fathers, unable to provide finances and primary care, may provide support in non-traditional ways, thereby, contributing to family stability. Utilizing available resources such as childcare subsidies, college savings programs, or local financial institutions enhance child well-being.

Food security is another important aspect of family well-being. New measures combined with traditional approaches should be used to capture the true extent of the depth and severity of food insecurity. Multidimensional in nature, food insecurity is impacted, not only by income, but also by household assets, food management knowledge and skills, cultural values, community resources, as well as federal policies. This is particularly true for racial/ethnic minorities and rural immigrant families.

Future Research Directions

The 29 articles from the Journal of Family and Economic Issues, that are reviewed here, suggest strategies for improved family well-being and increased stability. These strategies incorporate the true needs of low-income families with a variety of support systems at the individual (e.g., increase human capital), family (e.g., positive co-parental relationship), community (e.g., affordable childcare), and policy (e.g., realistic welfare-to-work programs) levels. The findings of these studies have provided a road map for future research directions. In this section, we will present a general direction for future research; detailed research recommendations, tied to specific findings, can be found in Table 1 (Economic Security), Table  2 (Family Life Issues), and Table  3 (Food Security).

Future research should examine life circumstances and trigger events that may affect changes in families’ economic functioning including the size and duration of its impact. Recent examples of trigger events that could cause a cascading effect on low-income families include natural disasters, the opioid crisis, technological displacement of jobs, and the novel Coronavirus pandemic. Research should also look at how such events may be mitigated in vulnerable families by individuals’ agencies such as internal locus of control, hopefulness, and financial literacy. The evaluation of current welfare programs and policies strongly suggest that future research must explore the impact of variations of state welfare policies including work requirements, strategies to incentivize employers to provide flexible work policies, and community-based support systems for parents of young children. Scholars should also explore low-income families’ attitudes, knowledge, and decision-making processes in the area of finances including their reluctance to participate in the banking sector and, for those who qualify, in the EITC program. At the same time, scholars should also not neglect to identify disincentives created by financial institutions that stand in the way of families participating in the banking system.

Previous research has established that work-family balance is vital for low-income mothers to obtain and maintain their employment in order to promote family well-being. Future research should focus on strategies to incentivize employers to provide flexible work policies and to establish community-based support systems. This current pandemic has created a loss of employment opportunities and loss of income especially for low-income working families; future research should, therefore, evaluate the meaning of work flexibility to include off-site work and job sharing.

Positive child development is embedded in family and social contexts. To prevent generational poverty, future lines of inquiry should go beyond mothers’ perspectives alone to include multiple voices of other family members such as co-parents (especially fathers), older and step-children, and grandparents. Additionally, research should focus on the impact of parental decisions regarding childcare enrollment and healthcare visits on the long-term outcome of children. Finally, the association between receipt of governmental assistance and the stigma experienced by low-income families, particularly among rural families, would be another important area of study.

Future research must investigate the role of economic volatility, market conditions, and policy changes in understanding the relationship between family finances and employment of low-income families and food insecurity. For poor immigrant families, the effect of documentation status and immigration policy changes on food insecurity cannot be understated and, to capture the nuances of their food needs, qualitative and mixed-methods studies would be preferred. Future studies should also incorporate geographical information to identify reasons why urban–rural disparity occurs among food insecure families when attempting to access food and possible strategies that would enable food-insecure metro families to access food. It is equally important to assess family income and food budgeting on families’ dietary habits as well as parental modeling and family food environment on healthy food behavior.

Change history

28 december 2020.

A Correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-020-09746-0

The 29 articles reviewed in this paper were assigned by the special editor of this issue of the Journal of Family and Economic Issues. More information is in the introduction to the special issue.

Other dimensions of family well-being are being reviewed by other authors in this special issue. A topic of “health” was covered by Chaudhuri and “health and family” issues were covered by Tamborini.

An individual development account (IDA) is an asset building program designed to enable low-income families to connect to the financial mainstream by saving towards a targeted amount usually used for building assets.

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Sano, Y., Mammen, S. & Houghten, M. Well-Being and Stability among Low-income Families: A 10-Year Review of Research. J Fam Econ Iss 42 (Suppl 1), 107–117 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-020-09715-7

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s10834-020-09715-7

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Family Relationships and Well-Being

Patricia a thomas.

1 Department of Sociology and Center on Aging and the Life Course, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

2 Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, East Lansing

Debra Umberson

3 Department of Sociology and Population Research Center, University of Texas at Austin

Family relationships are enduring and consequential for well-being across the life course. We discuss several types of family relationships—marital, intergenerational, and sibling ties—that have an important influence on well-being. We highlight the quality of family relationships as well as diversity of family relationships in explaining their impact on well-being across the adult life course. We discuss directions for future research, such as better understanding the complexities of these relationships with greater attention to diverse family structures, unexpected benefits of relationship strain, and unique intersections of social statuses.

Translational Significance

It is important for future research and health promotion policies to take into account complexities in family relationships, paying attention to family context, diversity of family structures, relationship quality, and intersections of social statuses in an aging society to provide resources to families to reduce caregiving burdens and benefit health and well-being.

For better and for worse, family relationships play a central role in shaping an individual’s well-being across the life course ( Merz, Consedine, Schulze, & Schuengel, 2009 ). An aging population and concomitant age-related disease underlies an emergent need to better understand factors that contribute to health and well-being among the increasing numbers of older adults in the United States. Family relationships may become even more important to well-being as individuals age, needs for caregiving increase, and social ties in other domains such as the workplace become less central in their lives ( Milkie, Bierman, & Schieman, 2008 ). In this review, we consider key family relationships in adulthood—marital, parent–child, grandparent, and sibling relationships—and their impact on well-being across the adult life course.

We begin with an overview of theoretical explanations that point to the primary pathways and mechanisms through which family relationships influence well-being, and then we describe how each type of family relationship is associated with well-being, and how these patterns unfold over the adult life course. In this article, we use a broad definition of well-being, including multiple dimensions such as general happiness, life satisfaction, and good mental and physical health, to reflect the breadth of this concept’s use in the literature. We explore important directions for future research, emphasizing the need for research that takes into account the complexity of relationships, diverse family structures, and intersections of structural locations.

Pathways Linking Family Relationships to Well-Being

A life course perspective draws attention to the importance of linked lives, or interdependence within relationships, across the life course ( Elder, Johnson, & Crosnoe, 2003 ). Family members are linked in important ways through each stage of life, and these relationships are an important source of social connection and social influence for individuals throughout their lives ( Umberson, Crosnoe, & Reczek, 2010 ). Substantial evidence consistently shows that social relationships can profoundly influence well-being across the life course ( Umberson & Montez, 2010 ). Family connections can provide a greater sense of meaning and purpose as well as social and tangible resources that benefit well-being ( Hartwell & Benson, 2007 ; Kawachi & Berkman, 2001 ).

The quality of family relationships, including social support (e.g., providing love, advice, and care) and strain (e.g., arguments, being critical, making too many demands), can influence well-being through psychosocial, behavioral, and physiological pathways. Stressors and social support are core components of stress process theory ( Pearlin, 1999 ), which argues that stress can undermine mental health while social support may serve as a protective resource. Prior studies clearly show that stress undermines health and well-being ( Thoits, 2010 ), and strains in relationships with family members are an especially salient type of stress. Social support may provide a resource for coping that dulls the detrimental impact of stressors on well-being ( Thoits, 2010 ), and support may also promote well-being through increased self-esteem, which involves more positive views of oneself ( Fukukawa et al., 2000 ). Those receiving support from their family members may feel a greater sense of self-worth, and this enhanced self-esteem may be a psychological resource, encouraging optimism, positive affect, and better mental health ( Symister & Friend, 2003 ). Family members may also regulate each other’s behaviors (i.e., social control) and provide information and encouragement to behave in healthier ways and to more effectively utilize health care services ( Cohen, 2004 ; Reczek, Thomeer, Lodge, Umberson, & Underhill, 2014 ), but stress in relationships may also lead to health-compromising behaviors as coping mechanisms to deal with stress ( Ng & Jeffery, 2003 ). The stress of relationship strain can result in physiological processes that impair immune function, affect the cardiovascular system, and increase risk for depression ( Graham, Christian, & Kiecolt-Glaser, 2006 ; Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001 ), whereas positive relationships are associated with lower allostatic load (i.e., “wear and tear” on the body accumulating from stress) ( Seeman, Singer, Ryff, Love, & Levy-Storms, 2002 ). Clearly, the quality of family relationships can have considerable consequences for well-being.

Marital Relationships

A life course perspective has posited marital relationships as one of the most important relationships that define life context and in turn affect individuals’ well-being throughout adulthood ( Umberson & Montez, 2010 ). Being married, especially happily married, is associated with better mental and physical health ( Carr & Springer, 2010 ; Umberson, Williams, & Thomeer, 2013 ), and the strength of the marital effect on health is comparable to that of other traditional risk factors such as smoking and obesity ( Sbarra, 2009 ). Although some studies emphasize the possibility of selection effects, suggesting that individuals in better health are more likely to be married ( Lipowicz, 2014 ), most researchers emphasize two theoretical models to explain why marital relationships shape well-being: the marital resource model and the stress model ( Waite & Gallager, 2000 ; Williams & Umberson, 2004 ). The marital resource model suggests that marriage promotes well-being through increased access to economic, social, and health-promoting resources ( Rendall, Weden, Favreault, & Waldron, 2011 ; Umberson et al., 2013 ). The stress model suggests that negative aspects of marital relationships such as marital strain and marital dissolutions create stress and undermine well-being ( Williams & Umberson, 2004 ), whereas positive aspects of marital relationships may prompt social support, enhance self-esteem, and promote healthier behaviors in general and in coping with stress ( Reczek, Thomeer, et al., 2014 ; Symister & Friend, 2003 ; Waite & Gallager, 2000 ). Marital relationships also tend to become more salient with advancing age, as other social relationships such as those with family members, friends, and neighbors are often lost due to geographic relocation and death in the later part of the life course ( Liu & Waite, 2014 ).

Married people, on average, enjoy better mental health, physical health, and longer life expectancy than divorced/separated, widowed, and never-married people ( Hughes & Waite, 2009 ; Simon, 2002 ), although the health gap between the married and never married has decreased in the past few decades ( Liu & Umberson, 2008 ). Moreover, marital links to well-being depend on the quality of the relationship; those in distressed marriages are more likely to report depressive symptoms and poorer health than those in happy marriages ( Donoho, Crimmins, & Seeman, 2013 ; Liu & Waite, 2014 ; Umberson, Williams, Powers, Liu, & Needham, 2006 ), whereas a happy marriage may buffer the effects of stress via greater access to emotional support ( Williams, 2003 ). A number of studies suggest that the negative aspects of close relationships have a stronger impact on well-being than the positive aspects of relationships (e.g., Rook, 2014 ), and past research shows that the impact of marital strain on health increases with advancing age ( Liu & Waite, 2014 ; Umberson et al., 2006 ).

Prior studies suggest that marital transitions, either into or out of marriage, shape life context and affect well-being ( Williams & Umberson, 2004 ). National longitudinal studies provide evidence that past experiences of divorce and widowhood are associated with increased risk of heart disease in later life especially among women, irrespective of current marital status ( Zhang & Hayward, 2006 ), and longer duration of divorce or widowhood is associated with a greater number of chronic conditions and mobility limitations ( Hughes & Waite, 2009 ; Lorenz, Wickrama, Conger, & Elder, 2006 ) but only short-term declines in mental health ( Lee & Demaris, 2007 ). On the other hand, entry into marriages, especially first marriages, improves psychological well-being and decreases depression ( Frech & Williams, 2007 ; Musick & Bumpass, 2012 ), although the benefits of remarriage may not be as large as those that accompany a first marriage ( Hughes & Waite, 2009 ). Taken together, these studies show the importance of understanding the lifelong cumulative impact of marital status and marital transitions.

Gender Differences

Gender is a central focus of research on marital relationships and well-being and an important determinant of life course experiences ( Bernard, 1972 ; Liu & Waite, 2014 ; Zhang & Hayward, 2006 ). A long-observed pattern is that men receive more physical health benefits from marriage than women, and women are more psychologically and physiologically vulnerable to marital stress than men ( Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001 ; Revenson et al., 2016 ; Simon, 2002 ; Williams, 2004 ). Women tend to receive more financial benefits from their typically higher-earning male spouse than do men, but men generally receive more health promotion benefits such as emotional support and regulation of health behaviors from marriage than do women ( Liu & Umberson, 2008 ; Liu & Waite, 2014 ). This is because within a traditional marriage, women tend to take more responsibility for maintaining social connections to family and friends, and are more likely to provide emotional support to their husband, whereas men are more likely to receive emotional support and enjoy the benefit of expanded social networks—all factors that may promote husbands’ health and well-being ( Revenson et al., 2016 ).

However, there is mixed evidence regarding whether men’s or women’s well-being is more affected by marriage. On the one hand, a number of studies have documented that marital status differences in both mental and physical health are greater for men than women ( Liu & Umberson, 2008 ; Sbarra, 2009 ). For example, Williams and Umberson (2004) found that men’s health improves more than women’s from entering marriage. On the other hand, a number of studies reveal stronger effects of marital strain on women’s health than men’s including more depressive symptoms, increases in cardiovascular health risk, and changes in hormones ( Kiecolt-Glaser & Newton, 2001 ; Liu & Waite, 2014 ; Liu, Waite, & Shen, 2016 ). Yet, other studies found no gender differences in marriage and health links (e.g., Umberson et al., 2006 ). The mixed evidence regarding gender differences in the impact of marital relationships on well-being may be attributed to different study samples (e.g., with different age groups) and variations in measurements and methodologies. More research based on representative longitudinal samples is clearly warranted to contribute to this line of investigation.

Race-Ethnicity and SES Heterogeneity

Family scholars argue that marriage has different meanings and dynamics across socioeconomic status (SES) and racial-ethnic groups due to varying social, economic, historical, and cultural contexts. Therefore, marriage may be associated with well-being in different ways across these groups. For example, women who are black or lower SES may be less likely than their white, higher SES counterparts to increase their financial capital from relationship unions because eligible men in their social networks are more socioeconomically challenged ( Edin & Kefalas, 2005 ). Some studies also find that marital quality is lower among low SES and black couples than white couples with higher SES ( Broman, 2005 ). This may occur because the former groups face more stress in their daily lives throughout the life course and these higher levels of stress undermine marital quality ( Umberson, Williams, Thomas, Liu, & Thomeer, 2014 ). Other studies, however, suggest stronger effects of marriage on the well-being of black adults than white adults. For example, black older adults seem to benefit more from marriage than older whites in terms of chronic conditions and disability ( Pienta, Hayward, & Jenkins, 2000 ).

Directions for Future Research

The rapid aging of the U.S. population along with significant changes in marriage and families indicate that a growing number of older adults enter late life with both complex marital histories and great heterogeneity in their relationships. While most research to date focuses on different-sex marriages, a growing body of research has started to examine whether the marital advantage in health and well-being is extended to same-sex couples, which represents a growing segment of relationship types among older couples ( Denney, Gorman, & Barrera, 2013 ; Goldsen et al., 2017 ; Liu, Reczek, & Brown, 2013 ; Reczek, Liu, & Spiker, 2014 ). Evidence shows that same-sex cohabiting couples report worse health than different-sex married couples ( Denney et al., 2013 ; Liu et al., 2013 ), but same-sex married couples are often not significantly different from or are even better off than different-sex married couples in other outcomes such as alcohol use ( Reczek, Liu, et al., 2014 ) and care from their partner during periods of illness ( Umberson, Thomeer, Reczek, & Donnelly, 2016 ). These results suggest that marriage may promote the well-being of same-sex couples, perhaps even more so than for different-sex couples ( Umberson et al., 2016 ). Including same-sex couples in future work on marriage and well-being will garner unique insights into gender differences in marital dynamics that have long been taken for granted based on studies of different-sex couples ( Umberson, Thomeer, Kroeger, Lodge, & Xu, 2015 ). Moreover, future work on same-sex and different-sex couples should take into account the intersection of other statuses such as race-ethnicity and SES to better understand the impact of marital relationships on well-being.

Another avenue for future research involves investigating complexities of marital strain effects on well-being. Some recent studies among older adults suggest that relationship strain may actually benefit certain dimensions of well-being. These studies suggest that strain with a spouse may be protective for certain health outcomes including cognitive decline ( Xu, Thomas, & Umberson, 2016 ) and diabetes control ( Liu et al., 2016 ), while support may not be, especially for men ( Carr, Cornman, & Freedman, 2016 ). Explanations for these unexpected findings among older adults are not fully understood. Family and health scholars suggest that spouses may prod their significant others to engage in more health-promoting behaviors ( Umberson, Crosnoe, et al., 2010 ). These attempts may be a source of friction, creating strain in the relationship; however, this dynamic may still contribute to better health outcomes for older adults. Future research should explore the processes by which strain may have a positive influence on health and well-being, perhaps differently by gender.

Intergenerational Relationships

Children and parents tend to remain closely connected to each other across the life course, and it is well-established that the quality of intergenerational relationships is central to the well-being of both generations ( Merz, Schuengel, & Schulze, 2009 ; Polenick, DePasquale, Eggebeen, Zarit, & Fingerman, 2016 ). Recent research also points to the importance of relationships with grandchildren for aging adults ( Mahne & Huxhold, 2015 ). We focus here on the well-being of parents, adult children, and grandparents. Parents, grandparents, and children often provide care for each other at different points in the life course, which can contribute to social support, stress, and social control mechanisms that influence the health and well-being of each in important ways over the life course ( Nomaguchi & Milkie, 2003 ; Pinquart & Soerensen, 2007 ; Reczek, Thomeer, et al., 2014 ).

Family scholarship highlights the complexities of parent–child relationships, finding that parenthood generates both rewards and stressors, with important implications for well-being ( Nomaguchi & Milkie, 2003 ; Umberson, Pudrovska, & Reczek, 2010 ). Parenthood increases time constraints, producing stress and diminishing well-being, especially when children are younger ( Nomaguchi, Milkie, & Bianchi, 2005 ), but parenthood can also increase social integration, leading to greater emotional support and a sense of belonging and meaning ( Berkman, Glass, Brissette, & Seeman, 2000 ), with positive consequences for well-being. Studies show that adult children play a pivotal role in the social networks of their parents across the life course ( Umberson, Pudrovska, et al., 2010 ), and the effects of parenthood on health and well-being become increasingly important at older ages as adult children provide one of the major sources of care for aging adults ( Seltzer & Bianchi, 2013 ). Norms of filial obligation of adult children to care for parents may be a form of social capital to be accessed by parents when their needs arise ( Silverstein, Gans, & Yang, 2006 ).

Although the general pattern is that receiving support from adult children is beneficial for parents’ well-being ( Merz, Schulze, & Schuengel, 2010 ), there is also evidence showing that receiving social support from adult children is related to lower well-being among older adults, suggesting that challenges to an identity of independence and usefulness may offset some of the benefits of receiving support ( Merz et al., 2010 ; Thomas, 2010 ). Contrary to popular thought, older parents are also very likely to provide instrumental/financial support to their adult children, typically contributing more than they receive ( Grundy, 2005 ), and providing emotional support to their adult children is related to higher well-being for older adults ( Thomas, 2010 ). In addition, consistent with the tenets of stress process theory, most evidence points to poor quality relationships with adult children as detrimental to parents’ well-being ( Koropeckyj-Cox, 2002 ; Polenick et al., 2016 ); however, a recent study found that strain with adult children is related to better cognitive health among older parents, especially fathers ( Thomas & Umberson, 2017 ).

Adult Children

As children and parents age, the nature of the parent–child relationship often changes such that adult children may take on a caregiving role for their older parents ( Pinquart & Soerensen, 2007 ). Adult children often experience competing pressures of employment, taking care of their own children, and providing care for older parents ( Evans et al., 2016 ). Support and strain from intergenerational ties during this stressful time of balancing family roles and work obligations may be particularly important for the mental health of adults in midlife ( Thomas, 2016 ). Most evidence suggests that caregiving for parents is related to lower well-being for adult children, including more negative affect and greater stress response in terms of overall output of daily cortisol ( Bangerter et al., 2017 ); however, some studies suggest that caregiving may be beneficial or neutral for well-being ( Merz et al., 2010 ). Family scholars suggest that this discrepancy may be due to varying types of caregiving and relationship quality. For example, providing emotional support to parents can increase well-being, but providing instrumental support does not unless the caregiver is emotionally engaged ( Morelli, Lee, Arnn, & Zaki, 2015 ). Moreover, the quality of the adult child-parent relationship may matter more for the well-being of adult children than does the caregiving they provide ( Merz, Schuengel, et al., 2009 ).

Although caregiving is a critical issue, adult children generally experience many years with parents in good health ( Settersten, 2007 ), and relationship quality and support exchanges have important implications for well-being beyond caregiving roles. The preponderance of research suggests that most adults feel emotionally close to their parents, and emotional support such as encouragement, companionship, and serving as a confidant is commonly exchanged in both directions ( Swartz, 2009 ). Intergenerational support exchanges often flow across generations or towards adult children rather than towards parents. For example, adult children are more likely to receive financial support from parents than vice versa until parents are very old ( Grundy, 2005 ). Intergenerational support exchanges are integral to the lives of both parents and adult children, both in times of need and in daily life.

Grandparents

Over 65 million Americans are grandparents ( Ellis & Simmons, 2014 ), 10% of children lived with at least one grandparent in 2012 ( Dunifon, Ziol-Guest, & Kopko, 2014 ), and a growing number of American families rely on grandparents as a source of support ( Settersten, 2007 ), suggesting the importance of studying grandparenting. Grandparents’ relationships with their grandchildren are generally related to higher well-being for both grandparents and grandchildren, with some important exceptions such as when they involve more extensive childcare responsibilities ( Kim, Kang, & Johnson-Motoyama, 2017 ; Lee, Clarkson-Hendrix, & Lee, 2016 ). Most grandparents engage in activities with their grandchildren that they find meaningful, feel close to their grandchildren, consider the grandparent role important ( Swartz, 2009 ), and experience lower well-being if they lose contact with their grandchildren ( Drew & Silverstein, 2007 ). However, a growing proportion of children live in households maintained by grandparents ( Settersten, 2007 ), and grandparents who care for their grandchildren without the support of the children’s parents usually experience greater stress ( Lee et al., 2016 ) and more depressive symptoms ( Blustein, Chan, & Guanais, 2004 ), sometimes juggling grandparenting responsibilities with their own employment ( Harrington Meyer, 2014 ). Using professional help and community services reduced the detrimental effects of grandparent caregiving on well-being ( Gerard, Landry-Meyer, & Roe, 2006 ), suggesting that future policy could help mitigate the stress of grandparent parenting and enhance the rewarding aspects of grandparenting instead.

Substantial evidence suggests that the experience of intergenerational relationships varies for men and women. Women tend to be more involved with and affected by intergenerational relationships, with adult children feeling closer to mothers than fathers ( Swartz, 2009 ). Moreover, relationship quality with children is more strongly associated with mothers’ well-being than with fathers’ well-being ( Milkie et al., 2008 ). Motherhood may be particularly salient to women ( McQuillan, Greil, Shreffler, & Tichenor, 2008 ), and women carry a disproportionate share of the burden of parenting, including greater caregiving for young children and aging parents as well as time deficits from these obligations that lead to lower well-being ( Nomaguchi et al., 2005 ; Pinquart & Sorensen, 2006 ). Mothers often report greater parental pressures than fathers, such as more obligation to be there for their children ( Reczek, Thomeer, et al., 2014 ; Stone, 2007 ), and to actively work on family relationships ( Erickson, 2005 ). Mothers are also more likely to blame themselves for poor parent–child relationship quality ( Elliott, Powell, & Brenton, 2015 ), contributing to greater distress for women. It is important to take into account the different pressures and meanings surrounding intergenerational relationships for men and for women in future research.

Family scholars have noted important variations in family dynamics and constraints by race-ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Lower SES can produce and exacerbate family strains ( Conger, Conger, & Martin, 2010 ). Socioeconomically disadvantaged adult children may need more assistance from parents and grandparents who in turn have fewer resources to provide ( Seltzer & Bianchi, 2013 ). Higher SES and white families tend to provide more financial and emotional support, whereas lower SES, black, and Latino families are more likely to coreside and provide practical help, and these differences in support exchanges contribute to the intergenerational transmission of inequality through families ( Swartz, 2009 ). Moreover, scholars have found that a happiness penalty exists such that parents of young children have lower levels of well-being than nonparents; however, policies such as childcare subsidies and paid time off that help parents negotiate work and family responsibilities explain this disparity ( Glass, Simon, & Andersson, 2016 ). Fewer resources can also place strain on grandparent–grandchild relationships. For example, well-being derived from these relationships may be unequally distributed across grandparents’ education level such that those with less education bear the brunt of more stressful grandparenting experiences and lower well-being ( Mahne & Huxhold, 2015 ). Both the burden of parenting grandchildren and its effects on depressive symptoms disproportionately fall upon single grandmothers of color ( Blustein et al., 2004 ). These studies demonstrate the importance of understanding structural constraints that produce greater stress for less advantaged groups and their impact on family relationships and well-being.

Research on intergenerational relationships suggests the importance of understanding greater complexity in these relationships in future work. For example, future research should pay greater attention to diverse family structures and perspectives of multiple family members. There is an increasing trend of individuals delaying childbearing or choosing not to bear children ( Umberson, Pudrovska, et al., 2010 ). How might this influence marital quality and general well-being over the life course and across different social groups? Greater attention to the quality and context of intergenerational relationships from each family member’s perspective over time may prove fruitful by gaining both parents’ and each child’s perceptions. This work has already yielded important insights, such as the ways in which intergenerational ambivalence (simultaneous positive and negative feelings about intergenerational relationships) from the perspectives of parents and adult children may be detrimental to well-being for both parties ( Fingerman, Pitzer, Lefkowitz, Birditt, & Mroczek, 2008 ; Gilligan, Suitor, Feld, & Pillemer, 2015 ). Future work understanding the perspectives of each family member could also provide leverage in understanding the mixed findings regarding whether living in blended families with stepchildren influences well-being ( Gennetian, 2005 ; Harcourt, Adler-Baeder, Erath, & Pettit, 2013 ) and the long-term implications of these family structures when older adults need care ( Seltzer & Bianchi, 2013 ). Longitudinal data linking generations, paying greater attention to the context of these relationships, and collected from multiple family members can help untangle the ways in which family members influence each other across the life course and how multiple family members’ well-being may be intertwined in important ways.

Future studies should also consider the impact of intersecting structural locations that place unique constraints on family relationships, producing greater stress at some intersections while providing greater resources at other intersections. For example, same-sex couples are less likely to have children ( Carpenter & Gates, 2008 ) and are more likely to provide parental caregiving regardless of gender ( Reczek & Umberson, 2016 ), suggesting important implications for stress and burden in intergenerational caregiving for this group. Much of the work on gender, sexuality, race, and socioeconomic status differences in intergenerational relationships and well-being examine one or two of these statuses, but there may be unique effects at the intersection of these and other statuses such as disability, age, and nativity. Moreover, these effects may vary at different stages of the life course.

Sibling Relationships

Sibling relationships are understudied, and the research on adult siblings is more limited than for other family relationships. Yet, sibling relationships are often the longest lasting family relationship in an individual’s life due to concurrent life spans, and indeed, around 75% of 70-year olds have a living sibling ( Settersten, 2007 ). Some suggest that sibling relationships play a more meaningful role in well-being than is often recognized ( Cicirelli, 2004 ). The available evidence suggests that high quality relationships characterized by closeness with siblings are related to higher levels of well-being ( Bedford & Avioli, 2001 ), whereas sibling relationships characterized by conflict and lack of closeness have been linked to lower well-being in terms of major depression and greater drug use in adulthood ( Waldinger, Vaillant, & Orav, 2007 ). Parental favoritism and disfavoritism of children affects the closeness of siblings ( Gilligan, Suitor, & Nam, 2015 ) and depression ( Jensen, Whiteman, Fingerman, & Birditt, 2013 ). Similar to other family relationships, sibling relationships can be characterized by both positive and negative aspects that may affect elements of the stress process, providing both resources and stressors that influence well-being.

Siblings play important roles in support exchanges and caregiving, especially if their sibling experiences physical impairment and other close ties, such as a spouse or adult children, are not available ( Degeneffe & Burcham, 2008 ; Namkung, Greenberg, & Mailick, 2017 ). Although sibling caregivers report lower well-being than noncaregivers, sibling caregivers experience this lower well-being to a lesser extent than spousal caregivers ( Namkung et al., 2017 ). Most people believe that their siblings would be available to help them in a crisis ( Connidis, 1994 ; Van Volkom, 2006 ), and in general support exchanges, receiving emotional support from a sibling is related to higher levels of well-being among older adults ( Thomas, 2010 ). Relationship quality affects the experience of caregiving, with higher quality sibling relationships linked to greater provision of care ( Eriksen & Gerstel, 2002 ) and a lower likelihood of emotional strain from caregiving ( Mui & Morrow-Howell, 1993 ; Quinn, Clare, & Woods, 2009 ). Taken together, these studies suggest the importance of sibling relationships for well-being across the adult life course.

The gender of the sibling dyad may play a role in the relationship’s effect on well-being, with relationships with sisters perceived as higher quality and linked to higher well-being ( Van Volkom, 2006 ), though some argue that brothers do not show their affection in the same way but nevertheless have similar sentiments towards their siblings ( Bedford & Avioli, 2001 ). General social support exchanges with siblings may be influenced by gender and larger family context; sisters exchanged more support with their siblings when they had higher quality relationships with their parents, but brothers exhibited a more compensatory role, exchanging more emotional support with siblings when they had lower quality relationships with their parents ( Voorpostel & Blieszner, 2008 ). Caregiving for aging parents is also distributed differently by gender, falling disproportionately on female siblings ( Pinquart & Sorensen, 2006 ), and sons provide less care to their parents if they have a sister ( Grigoryeva, 2017 ). However, men in same-sex marriages were more likely than men in different-sex marriages to provide caregiving to parents and parents-in-law ( Reczek & Umberson, 2016 ), which may ease the stress and burden on their female siblings.

Although there is less research in this area, family scholars have noted variations in sibling relationships and their effects by race-ethnicity and socioeconomic status. Lower socioeconomic status has been associated with reports of feeling less attached to siblings and this influences several outcomes such as obesity, depression, and substance use ( Van Gundy et al., 2015 ). Fewer socioeconomic resources can also limit the amount of care siblings provide ( Eriksen & Gerstel, 2002 ). These studies suggest sibling relationship quality as an axis of further disadvantage for already disadvantaged individuals. Sibling relationships may influence caregiving experiences by race as well, with black caregivers more likely to have siblings who also provide care to their parents than white caregivers ( White-Means & Rubin, 2008 ) and sibling caregiving leading to lower well-being among white caregivers than minority caregivers ( Namkung et al., 2017 ).

Research on within-family differences has made great strides in our understanding of family relationships and remains a fruitful area of growth for future research (e.g., Suitor et al., 2017 ). Data gathered on multiple members within the same family can help researchers better investigate how families influence well-being in complex ways, including reciprocal influences between siblings. Siblings may have different perceptions of their relationships with each other, and this may vary by gender and other social statuses. This type of data might be especially useful in understanding family effects in diverse family structures, such as differences in treatment and outcomes of biological versus stepchildren, how characteristics of their relationships such as age differences may play a role, and the implications for caregiving for aging parents and for each other. Moreover, it is important to use longitudinal data to understand the consequences of these within-family differences over time as the life course unfolds. In addition, a greater focus on heterogeneity in sibling relationships and their consequences at the intersection of gender, race-ethnicity, SES, and other social statuses merit further investigation.

Relationships with family members are significant for well-being across the life course ( Merz, Consedine, et al., 2009 ; Umberson, Pudrovska, et al., 2010 ). As individuals age, family relationships often become more complex, with sometimes complicated marital histories, varying relationships with children, competing time pressures, and obligations for care. At the same time, family relationships become more important for well-being as individuals age and social networks diminish even as family caregiving needs increase. Stress process theory suggests that the positive and negative aspects of relationships can have a large impact on the well-being of individuals. Family relationships provide resources that can help an individual cope with stress, engage in healthier behaviors, and enhance self-esteem, leading to higher well-being. However, poor relationship quality, intense caregiving for family members, and marital dissolution are all stressors that can take a toll on an individual’s well-being. Moreover, family relationships also change over the life course, with the potential to share different levels of emotional support and closeness, to take care of us when needed, to add varying levels of stress to our lives, and to need caregiving at different points in the life course. The potential risks and rewards of these relationships have a cumulative impact on health and well-being over the life course. Additionally, structural constraints and disadvantage place greater pressures on some families than others based on structural location such as gender, race, and SES, producing further disadvantage and intergenerational transmission of inequality.

Future research should take into account greater complexity in family relationships, diverse family structures, and intersections of social statuses. The rapid aging of the U.S. population along with significant changes in marriage and families suggest more complex marital and family histories as adults enter late life, which will have a large impact on family dynamics and caregiving. Growing segments of family relationships among older adults include same-sex couples, those without children, and those experiencing marital transitions leading to diverse family structures, which all merit greater attention in future research. Moreover, there is some evidence that strain in relationships can be beneficial for certain health outcomes, and the processes by which this occurs merit further investigation. A greater use of longitudinal data that link generations and obtain information from multiple family members will help researchers better understand the ways in which these complex family relationships unfold across the life course and shape well-being. We also highlighted gender, race-ethnicity, and socioeconomic status differences in each of these family relationships and their impact on well-being; however, many studies only consider one status at a time. Future research should consider the impact of intersecting structural locations that place unique constraints on family relationships, producing greater stress or providing greater resources at the intersections of different statuses.

The changing landscape of families combined with population aging present unique challenges and pressures for families and health care systems. With more experiences of age-related disease in a growing population of older adults as well as more complex family histories as these adults enter late life, such as a growing proportion of diverse family structures without children or with stepchildren, caregiving obligations and availability may be less clear. It is important to address ways to ease caregiving or shift the burden away from families through a variety of policies, such as greater resources for in-home aid, creation of older adult residential communities that facilitate social interactions and social support structures, and patient advocates to help older adults navigate health care systems. Adults in midlife may experience competing family pressures from their young children and aging parents, and policies such as childcare subsidies and paid leave to care for family members could reduce burden during this often stressful time ( Glass et al., 2016 ). Professional help and community services can also reduce the burden for grandparents involved in childcare, enabling grandparents to focus on the more positive aspects of grandparent–grandchild relationships. It is important for future research and health promotion policies to take into account the contexts and complexities of family relationships as part of a multipronged approach to benefit health and well-being, especially as a growing proportion of older adults reach late life.

This work was supported in part by grant, 5 R24 HD042849, Population Research Center, awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Conflict of Interest

None reported.

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Article Contents

Evolving and persistent challenges facing today's families.

• Importance of Social Work Practice with Families

Challenges Facing Today's Families and Why Social Work Matters

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Tricia B. Bent-Goodley, Challenges Facing Today's Families and Why Social Work Matters, Social Work , Volume 62, Issue 3, July 2017, Pages 197–199, https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/swx031

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There are so many important events taking place in the nation and in the world at this time. Yet, in preparing for this issue of Social Work and reviewing the manuscripts, I was struck by the importance of families in addressing how individuals and communities process information and place meaning on the challenges around them. So often the first thought is to consider how to respond to the individual, the community, and the broader society. However, it is the family structure that is often left to negotiate these challenges and to help people navigate what is being experienced. Therefore, it is important to consider challenges facing contemporary families and the vital role that social workers play in responding to families in practice.

The definition of what constitutes a family has evolved. There is greater awareness that the family is no longer just a nuclear unit, but is inclusive of different models of families from the extended family to intergenerational families to families that are not restricted by sexual orientation ( Congress & Gonzalez, 2012; Van Hook, 2016). The fluid nature of how families organize themselves is something that has been helpful, particularly in diverse communities. Billingsley (1988) and Hill (1999) talked about the importance of the family unit in adapting to new norms, addressing cultural traditions, providing socialization, and helping to determine the meaning of challenges that are faced in communities and by individuals.

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10.2 Sociological Perspectives on the Family

Learning objective.

• Summarize understandings of the family as presented by functional, conflict, and social interactionist theories.

Sociological views on today’s families and their problems generally fall into the functional, conflict, and social interactionist approaches introduced in Chapter 1 “Understanding Social Problems” . Let’s review these views, which are summarized in Table 10.1 “Theory Snapshot” .

Table 10.1 Theory Snapshot

Social Functions of the Family

Recall that the functional perspective emphasizes that social institutions perform several important functions to help preserve social stability and otherwise keep a society working. A functional understanding of the family thus stresses the ways in which the family as a social institution helps make society possible. As such, the family performs several important functions.

First, the family is the primary unit for socializing children . No society is possible without adequate socialization of its young. In most societies, the family is the major unit in which socialization happens. Parents, siblings, and, if the family is extended rather than nuclear, other relatives all help socialize children from the time they are born.

One of the most important functions of the family is the socialization of children. In most societies the family is the major unit through which socialization occurs.

Colleen Kelly – Kids Playing Monopoly Chicago – CC BY 2.0.

Second, the family is ideally a major source of practical and emotional support for its members. It provides them food, clothing, shelter, and other essentials, and it also provides them love, comfort, and help in times of emotional distress, and other types of support.

Third, the family helps regulate sexual activity and sexual reproduction . All societies have norms governing with whom and how often a person should have sex. The family is the major unit for teaching these norms and the major unit through which sexual reproduction occurs. One reason for this is to ensure that infants have adequate emotional and practical care when they are born.

Fourth, the family provides its members with a social identity . Children are born into their parents’ social class, race and ethnicity, religion, and so forth. Some children have advantages throughout life because of the social identity they acquire from their parents, while others face many obstacles because the social class or race/ethnicity into which they are born is at the bottom of the social hierarchy.

Beyond discussing the family’s functions, the functional perspective on the family maintains that sudden or far-reaching changes in conventional family structure and processes threaten the family’s stability and thus that of society. For example, most sociology and marriage-and-family textbooks during the 1950s maintained that the male breadwinner–female homemaker nuclear family was the best arrangement for children, as it provided for a family’s economic and child-rearing needs. Any shift in this arrangement, they warned, would harm children and, by extension, the family as a social institution and even society itself. Textbooks no longer contain this warning, but many conservative observers continue to worry about the impact on children of working mothers and one-parent families. We return to their concerns shortly.

The Family and Conflict

Conflict theorists agree that the family serves the important functions just listed, but they also point to problems within the family that the functional perspective minimizes or overlooks altogether.

First, the family as a social institution contributes to social inequality. Because families pass along their wealth to their children, and because families differ greatly in the amount of wealth they have, the family helps reinforce existing inequality. As it developed through the centuries, and especially during industrialization, the family also became more and more of a patriarchal unit (since men made money working in factories while women stayed home), helping to reinforce men’s status at the top of the social hierarchy.

Second, the family can also be a source of conflict for its own members. Although the functional perspective assumes the family provides its members emotional comfort and support, many families do just the opposite and are far from the harmonious, happy groups depicted in the 1950s television shows. Instead, they argue, shout, and use emotional cruelty and physical violence. We return to family violence later in this chapter.

The conflict perspective emphasizes that many of the problems we see in today’s families stem from economic inequality and from patriarchy. The problems that many families experience reflect the fact that they live in poverty or near poverty. Money does not always bring happiness, but a dire lack of money produces stress and other difficulties that impair a family’s functioning and relationships. The Note 10.9 “Applying Social Research” box discusses other ways in which social class influences the family.

Conflict within a family also stems from patriarchy. Husbands usually earn more money than wives, and many men continue to feel that they are the head of their families. When women resist this old-fashioned notion, spousal conflict occurs.

Applying Social Research

Social Class and the Family

A growing amount of social science research documents social class differences in how well a family functions: the quality of its relationships and the cognitive, psychological, and social development of its children. This focus reflects the fact that what happens during the first months and years of life may have profound effects on how well a newborn prospers during childhood, adolescence, and beyond. To the extent this is true, the social class differences that have been found have troublesome implications.

According to sociologist Frank E. Furstenberg Jr., “steep differences exist across social classes” in mothers’ prenatal experiences, such as the quality of their diet and health care, as well as in the health care that their infants receive. As a result, he says, “children enter the world endowed unequally.” This inequality worsens after they are born for several reasons.

First, low-income families are much more likely to experience negative events , such as death, poor health, unemployment, divorce, and criminal victimization. When these negative events do occur, says Furstenberg, “social class affects a family’s ability to cushion their blow…Life is simply harder and more brutish at the bottom.” These negative events produce great amounts of stress; as Chapter 2 “Poverty” discussed, this stress in turn causes children to experience various developmental problems.

Second, low-income parents are much less likely to read and speak regularly to their infants and young children, who thus are slower to develop cognitive and reading skills; this problem in turn impairs their school performance when they enter elementary school.

Third, low-income parents are also less able to expose their children to cultural experiences (e.g., museum visits) outside the home, to develop their talents in the arts and other areas, and to otherwise be involved in the many nonschool activities that are important for a child’s development. In contrast, wealthier parents keep their children very busy in these activities in a pattern that sociologist Annette Lareau calls concerted cultivation . These children’s involvement in these activities provides them various life skills that help enhance their performance in school and later in the workplace.

Fourth, low-income children grow up in low-income neighborhoods, which often have inadequate schools and many other problems, including toxins such as lead paint, that impair a child’s development. In contrast, says Furstenberg, children from wealthier families “are very likely to attend better schools and live in better neighborhoods. It is as if the playing field for families is tilted in ways that are barely visible to the naked eye.”

Fifth, low-income families are less able to afford to send a child to college, and they are more likely to lack the social contacts that wealthier parents can use to help their child get a good job after college.

For all these reasons, social class profoundly shapes how children fare from conception through early adulthood and beyond. Because this body of research documents many negative consequences of living in a low-income family, it reinforces the need for wide-ranging efforts to help such families.

Sources: Bandy, Andrews, & Moore, 2012; Furstenberg, 2010; Lareau, 2010

Families and Social Interaction

Social interactionist perspectives on the family examine how family members and intimate couples interact on a daily basis and arrive at shared understandings of their situations. Studies grounded in social interactionism give us a keen understanding of how and why families operate the way they do.

Some studies, for example, focus on how husbands and wives communicate and the degree to which they communicate successfully (Tannen, 2001). A classic study by Mirra Komarovsky (1964) found that wives in blue-collar marriages liked to talk with their husbands about problems they were having, while husbands tended to be quiet when problems occurred. Such gender differences are less common in middle-class families, where men are better educated and more emotionally expressive than their working-class counterparts, but gender differences in communication still exist in these families. Another classic study by Lillian Rubin (1976) found that wives in middle-class families say that ideal husbands are ones who communicate well and share their feelings, while wives in working-class families are more apt to say that ideal husbands are ones who do not drink too much and who go to work every day.

According to the symbolic interactionist perspective, family problems often stem from the different understandings, perceptions, and expectations that spouses have of their marriage and of their family. When these differences become too extreme and the spouses cannot reconcile their disagreements, spousal conflict and possibly divorce may occur (Kaufman & Taniguchi, 2006).

Key Takeaways

• The family ideally serves several functions for society. It socializes children, provides practical and emotional support for its members, regulates sexual reproduction, and provides its members with a social identity.
• Reflecting conflict theory’s emphases, the family may also produce several problems. In particular, it may contribute for several reasons to social inequality, and it may subject its members to violence, arguments, and other forms of conflict.
• Social interactionist understandings of the family emphasize how family members interact on a daily basis. In this regard, several studies find that husbands and wives communicate differently in certain ways that sometimes impede effective communication.

For Your Review

• As you think how best to understand the family, do you favor the views and assumptions of functional theory, conflict theory, or social interactionist theory? Explain your answer.
• Do you think the family continues to serve the function of regulating sexual behavior and sexual reproduction? Why or why not?

Bandy, T., Andrews, K.M., & Moore, K.A. (2012). Disadvantaged families and child outcomes: The importance of emotional support for mothers . Washington, DC: Child Trends.

Furstenberg, F. E., Jr. (2010). Diverging development: The not-so-invisible hand of social class in the United States. In B. J. Risman (Ed.), Families as they really are (pp. 276–294). New York, NY: W. W. Norton.

Kaufman, G., & Taniguchi, H. (2006). Gender and marital happiness in later life. Journal of Family Issues, 27 (6), 735–757.

Komarovsky, M. (1964). Blue-collar marriage . New York, NY: Random House.

Lareau, A. (2010). Unequal childhoods: Inequalities in the rhythms of daily life. In B. J. Risman (Ed.), Families as they really are (pp. 295–298). New York: W. W. Norton.

Rubin, L. B. (1976). Worlds of pain: Life in the working-class family . New York, NY: Basic Books.

Tannen, D. (2001). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation . New York, NY: Quill.

Social Problems Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• Published: 20 October 2021

Evolution of family systems and resultant socio-economic structures

• Kenji Itao   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2215-1120 1 &
• Kunihiko Kaneko 1 , 2  

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume  8 , Article number:  243 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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• Social anthropology

Families form the basis of society, and anthropologists have observed and characterised a wide range of family systems. This study developed a multi-level evolutionary model of pre-industrial agricultural societies to simulate the evolution of family systems and determine how each of them adapts to environmental conditions and forms a characteristic socio-economic structure. In the model, competing societies evolve, which themselves comprise multiple evolving families that grow through family labour. Each family has two strategy parameters: the time children leave the parental home and the distribution of inheritance among siblings. The evolution of these parameters demonstrates that four basic family systems emerge; families can become either nuclear or extended, and have either an equal or strongly biased inheritance distribution. Nuclear families in which children leave the parental home upon marriage emerge where land resources are sufficient, whereas extended families in which children staying at the parental home emerge where land resources are limited. Equal inheritance emerges where the amount of wealth required for a family to survive is large, whereas strongly biased inheritance emerges where the required wealth is small. Furthermore, the frequency of polygyny is low in the present model of agricultural societies, whereas it increases for the model of labour-extensive subsistence patterns other than agricultural societies. Analyses on the wealth distribution of families demonstrate a higher level of poverty among people in extended families, and that the accumulation of wealth is accelerated in families with strongly biased inheritance. By comparing wealth distributions in the model with historical data, family systems are associated with characteristic economic structures and then, modern social ideologies. Empirical data analyses using the cross-cultural ethnographic database verify the theoretical relationship between the environmental conditions, family systems, and socio-economic structures discussed in the model. The theoretical studies made possible by this simple constructive model, as presented here, will integrate the understandings of family systems in evolutionary anthropology, demography, and socioeconomic histories.

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Introduction

Families are basic components of society. Studies of family and kinship lay at the core of anthropology (Fox, 1983 ; Harrell, 1997 ; Lévi-Strauss, 1958 ; Shenk and Mattison, 2011 ). Families comprise people who are connected by three basic relationships, i.e. husband–wife, parent–child, and inter-sibling relationships (White, 1963 ), and a variety of rules (or patterns) are observed concerning them (Harrell, 1997 ; Laslett, 1988 ; Todd, 1999 ). Cultural traits pertaining to family relationships are slow to change, because they tend to be inherited vertically from parent to child, and are regulated by social norms (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman, 1981 ). Indeed, empirical studies have revealed such slow changes based on population history (Guglielmino et al., 1995 ; Minocher et al., 2019 ; Mulder et al., 2001 ). Family traits have also attracted significant attention as relatively stable basic factors of social characteristics in the study of history (Braudel, 1992a , b , c ) and historical demography (Macfarlane, 2002 ), among others.

The appearance of these traits was previously explained by cultural transmission or adaptation to social and ecological conditions (Goldschmidt and Kunkel, 1971 ; Laslett, 2015 ; Todd, 2011 ). Social studies unveiled a correlation between the period of exposure to the Western Church and the emergence of nuclear families (Schulz et al., 2019 ). In evolutionary anthropology, relationships between family members are explained based on parental investment theory and intra-family competition for reproductive resources (Ji et al., 2014 ; Trivers, 1974 ). Subsistence patterns and other socio-ecological conditions that affect family traits have recently been revealed quantitatively (Colleran, 2014 ; Gibson and Gurmu, 2011 ; Macfarlan et al., 2019 ; Ross et al., 2018 ). Phylogenetic comparative analyses have been performed to infer the origin and historical change of family traits by controlling the statistical non-independence due to the shared ancestry (Fortunato and Jordan, 2010 ; Fortunato et al., 2006 ; Holden and Mace, 2003 ; Minocher et al., 2019 ; Mulder et al., 2001 ). In particular, they revealed that the presence of heritable resources that are typically observed in agricultural/ pastoralist society leads to sibling competition over inheritance (Gibson and Gurmu, 2011 ) and to patriliny (Holden and Mace, 2003 ). Differentiation of very rich elite from the majority in agricultural society leads to a lower frequency of polygyny (Ross et al., 2018 ).

Indeed, correlations have been observed between family traits and several socio-ecological conditions. However, it is unclear whether social factors determine family traits or vice versa (Mace and Jordan, 2011 ). The reverse effect from family traits to social conditions is also reported in historical demography (Macfarlane, 2002 ).

As two characteristics in the family system, we consider parent–child and inter-sibling relationships. Although a variety of characteristics can represent these relationships, we focus on residence and inheritance patterns. The residence pattern can refer to nuclear families that comprise a pair of parents and their unmarried children, or to extended families that can involve parents and their married children. The inheritance pattern can refer to either the equal or strongly biased distribution of inheritance among siblings. On this basis, we can suppose four ideal types. (1) Absolute nuclear families, which are nuclear families with unequal inheritance. (2) Egalitarian nuclear families, which are nuclear families with equal inheritance. (3) Stem families, which are extended families with unequal inheritance. (4) Community families, which are extended families with equal inheritance. Indeed, other characteristics of family systems, such as marriage patterns, would be necessary to classify family systems comprehensively, which needs future works. Nevertheless, there is notable variation in the residence and inheritance patterns in pre-industrial agricultural societies in Europe, Northern Africa, and Asia, among others (Harrell, 1997 ). The influence of agricultural societies on political systems in the modernising era has been described (Rösener, 1993 ; Wallerstein, 2011 ). The link between the above four family systems and modern social ideologies has been discussed (Laslett, 1988 ); Liberalism, liberal egalitarianism, social democracy, and communism are dominant in regions with absolute nuclear, egalitarian nuclear, stem, and community families, respectively (Todd, 1990 , 1999 ). However, the discussion regarding the relationship between family systems and ideologies remains largely psychoanalytical. Hence, theoretical studies to unveil the conditions of the evolution of each family system and to connect family systems with socio-economic structures need to be conducted.

To consider the interaction of ecological conditions, family systems, and social structures, a constructive approach to reveal the relationships between them is required. In addition, given that family traits are inherited from parents with slight changes over generations, it is appropriate to model their long-term evolution through the accumulation of small variations, as represented by mutations. By modelling the evolution of family systems to adapt to socio-ecological conditions, which in turn form the society-level economic structure, we aim to integrate the understandings in evolutionary anthropology, demography, and socioeconomic histories. To model the economic consequence of family behaviour, we focus on agricultural society, where family systems determine residence and inheritance patterns in land usage (Todd, 1990 , 2011 ). Children may cultivate lands of their own or work together on their parents’ land. One heir may inherit the land and most of the property exclusively, or the land and property may be divided equally among family members (Berkner, 1976 ; Kaser, 2002 ). Characteristics of the pre-industrial agricultural society include the importance of human labour, land and property in production (Colleran, 2014 ), a positive correlation of wealth and the number of offspring (Gibson and Gurmu, 2011 ), and the diminishing returns to labour input (Evenson and Mwabu, 2001 ; Ricardo, 1891 ). Hereby, we build the minimal model that is appropriate as long as these conditions are satisfied.

Notably, families constitute society, whereas society, as well as ecology, provides the environment for families. Hence, our model adopts a framework involving multi-level evolution for a hierarchical system. The multi-level evolution was originally introduced to explain the evolution of cooperative behaviour among eusocial insects by examining the conflict between the fitness of an individual and that of a group (Wilson, 1997 ; Wilson and Wilson, 2007 ). This framework is generally applied to the evolution of group-level structure in hierarchical systems (Spencer and Redmond, 2001 ; Takeuchi et al., 2017 ; Traulsen and Nowak, 2006 ; Turchin and Gavrilets, 2009 ). In the previous study, the framework was applied to construct a mathematical model for the evolution of kinship structures in clan societies, which revealed the environmental dependencies of diverse kinship structures (Itao and Kaneko, 2020 , 2021a ). The variety of family traits regarding cousin marriage preferences and clan exogamy, as well as descent systems, were investigated in detail therein. Here, in contrast, we mainly focus on parent–child residence patterns and inter-sibling inheritance patterns, and briefly mention the conditions for polygyny.

In this study, we investigate the evolution of family systems and social structures by introducing an agent-based multi-level evolutionary model of pre-industrial agricultural societies. Competition is considered at two levels: that of family, which is an individual agent of the model, and society, which is a group of families. Families produce wealth through family labour and reproduce their population. They possess two strategy parameters concerning the time children leave their parents’ home and the distribution of inheritance among them. These parameters are transmitted with slight mutations in each generation. Evolutionary simulations show that four family systems emerge depending on environmental parameters that characterise the land scarcity and perturbations that damage society. Then, the model is extended by adding the marriage process. We show that this extension affects the above result only minimally, whereas it facilitates the discussion of conditions for son-biased investment and polygyny. We then describe the characteristics of social structure in terms of the distribution of wealth in society and relate them to family systems.

Finally, the theoretical results are verified through a data analysis using the standard cross-cultural sample (SCCS), a global ethnographic database of premodern societies (Kirby et al., 2016 ; Murdock and White, 1969 ). SCCS contains data from 186 societies, which are thought to be culturally and linguistically independent of each other. In the discussion section, we show the relationships between family systems, socioeconomic structures, and the development of political ideology in the modernising era, by referring to socioeconomic histories.

Overview of the model

The model is described below in general terms in this subsection (see the following subsection for the mathematical formulation). A schematic of the model is shown in Fig. 1 a, b. Society consists of families. In each family, individual members live and work together. Children build families of their own by inheriting their parents’ wealth. Wealth w is accumulated through production, which in turn increases the level of production and the population, as empirically reported (Gibson and Gurmu, 2011 ; Macfarlane, 2002 ). Each society splits into two when the number of families therein doubles its initial value N f , and each family is randomly assigned to one of the two daughter societies. At this time, another society is removed at random so that the number of societies in the entire system remains fixed to N s . This process can be interpreted as invasion, imitation, or the coarse-grained description of a growing system. Therefore, societies that grow faster replace others, resulting in society-level evolution. This multi-level evolution of families and societies follows the hierarchical Moran process (Itao and Kaneko, 2020 ; Takeuchi et al., 2017 ; Traulsen and Nowak, 2006 ).

a The multi-level evolutionary process. Societies (green) comprise families (blue) in which family members (black) live together. The grey frame represents a single generation. When the population of a society reaches twice the initial population, a society splits and another society is removed from the system at random to keep the number of societies fixed—i.e. we adopt the hierarchical Moran process. b The life cycle of families. The black squares, circles, and triangles represent members of different generations. The size of the blue circle reflects the amount of wealth that each family possesses. The dashed arrows show the separation of siblings, and the arrows show the production of wealth through family labour. Each family has a strategy parameter s . With the probability of 1− s , siblings are separated before production, and then they produce independently and reproduce the next generation, as in a nuclear family. On the other hand, with the probability of s , siblings produce together, after which they build their own home and reproduce the next generation, as in an extended family. When we extend the model to consider marriage, its process is added just before production.

In each simulation, the environmental parameters are given. Of particular importance are the following two: the capacity c  ×  N f , which represents the amount of available land resources in society (hereafter called land capacity), and ϵ , which is wealth required for a family to survive the perturbations that damage society (hereafter called wealth required for survival). Agricultural production depends on the amount of available land resources, whereas insufficient capacity limits land resources per family. In this model, when the number of families in a society exceeds the capacity, the land resources and the production rate for each family decrease inversely with the number of families at that time. As for the wealth required for survival, ϵ must be paid by a family at the moment of its building. If wealth w is less than ϵ , its members die without reproducing.

Families have population and wealth, as well as the two strategy parameters, i.e. λ , which represents the inequality in the inheritance of wealth among siblings, and s , which represents the probability of children staying at their parents’ home to produce together. The m th child’s share of the inheritance is proportional to \(\exp (-\lambda m)\) . Therefore, λ  = 0 represents an equal division of inheritance, whereas a larger λ represents the eldest child inheriting more. In some societies, the youngest child inherits the most instead of the eldest (Todd, 2011 ). If necessary, the order of children could be arranged in reverse to include such a case. Each family forms an extended family with probability s or otherwise forms a nuclear family (explained in detail below). These parameters may be determined by intra-family competition among parents and siblings (Ji et al., 2014 ; Trivers, 1974 ). Here, we do not model the competition explicitly but do so implicitly by tracing the evolution of λ and s .

The life cycle of the families depends on the strategy s . With the probability of 1− s , siblings are separated before agricultural production, i.e. they inherit some property determined by λ , lose ϵ of wealth, and build families of their own to produce independently. In contrast, with a probability of s , siblings remain in their parents’ family to produce together, after which they are separated. According to the law of diminishing returns, productivity increases sub-linearly with labour force input (Bacci, 2017 ; Malthus, 1798 ; Ricardo, 1891 ). Following a study on pre-industrial farming (Evenson and Mwabu, 2001 ), we assume that production increases in proportion to the logarithm of labour input, and is perturbed by Gaussian noise with a mean of 0 and a variance of σ 2 , resulting from internal and environmental fluctuations.

Then, as long as the law of diminishing returns is satisfied, the total output of siblings is always higher when each sibling produces independently to form a nuclear family than when they concentrate their labour in an extended family. In this model, the productivities of N members are \(N{{\mathrm{log}}}\,2\) and \({{\mathrm{log}}}\,(N+1)\) for nuclear and extended families, respectively. However, under a limited capacity of available land resources, the total output of the society consisting of nuclear families will be lower than that of extended families, as a result of inefficient land usage (the productivities are \(\frac{1}{N}N{{\mathrm{log}}}\,2\) and \({{\mathrm{log}}}\,(N+1)\) for nuclear and extended families, respectively). In other words, there is a conflict between family- and society-level preferences for nuclear versus extended families under the conditions of limited capacity. As long as one considers pre-industrial farming, it is expected that family members work together on their land, and the law of diminishing returns is satisfied. However, this formulation will be inappropriate for modern farming or other subsistence patterns, which is beyond the scope of this model. The results for different formulations of labour-extensive subsistence patterns are briefly discussed.

After sibling separation and the production of wealth, each family reproduces. The number of children in families is positively correlated with their wealth in pre-industrial societies (Gibson and Gurmu, 2011 ). Here, we assume that it follows the Poisson distribution with a mean of b  +  f w , where b and f represent the minimal birth rate and the increment of birth rate by wealth w , respectively. Children culturally inherit s and λ from their parents, with a slight variation through ‘mutation’ at the rate of μ , according to previous studies on cultural evolution (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman, 1981 ; Creanza et al., 2017 ). At the time of altering generations, families lose d w of wealth, where d represents the decay rate of wealth due to ageing equipment, disaster, or taxation, for example. Additionally, each society splits if the number of families reaches 2 N f at that time. The parameters are summarised in Table 1 .

The above is a minimal model to discuss the diversification of family systems concerning parent–child and inter-sibling relationships. To consider husband–wife relationships, we extend the model by assigning each family male and female populations, and the strategy for inheritance distribution for sons and daughters. In the extended model, one can have multiple spouses by paying sufficient bridewealth. Polygyny increases both production and reproduction. This model is explained in the Supplementary Text in detail.

Algorithm of the model

In this subsection, we show the mathematical formulation of our model. We adopted the following algorithm for changes in the wealth and population of families. For the parent family i and its j th child’s family i ,  j , the population N and the amount of wealth w at time t are expressed as follows:

With probability \(1-{s}_{i}^{t}\) ,

In each simulation step (generation), families lose a proportion d of their wealth (Eq. ( 1 )). With probability 1− s , siblings leave their parents’ home (Eq. ( 2 )), distribute the inheritance with a wealth loss of ϵ (Eq. ( 3 )), and produce independently (Eq. ( 4 )). Otherwise (with probability s ), siblings produce together at their parents’ home (Eq. ( 6 )) and build their own families after production (Eq. ( 5 )) instead of Eqs. ( 2 )–( 4 ). Here, the production of wealth is inversely proportional to the number of families in society if the capacity is exceeded (Eq. ( 9 )), is proportional to the logarithm of labour and increases with linear feedback from wealth, and is perturbed by noise resulting from internal and environmental fluctuations following a normal distribution (Eq. ( 10 )). Finally, families produce offspring (Eq. ( 7 )) and strategy parameters are transmitted with slight mutation (Eq. ( 8 )). The birth rate increases linearly with wealth. Here, families reproduce without considering marriage explicitly. The extended model with the marriage process is explained in Supplementary Text .

In the simulation, the initial values of strategies are s  = 0.5 and \(\lambda ={{\mathrm{log}}}\,2\) for all families. Hence, at the initial state, families can form nuclear or extended families with equal probability, and the inheritance is moderately biased so that the share of the inheritance received by subsequent children is half of that received by the preceding children. In other words, the families are not differentiated as nuclear or extended, or as equal or strongly biased inheritance providers. However, no qualitative changes are observed under other initial conditions. The source code has been made publicly available in the Dataverse repository (Itao and Kaneko, 2021b ), https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/3ZGCQI .

Evolution of family systems

The simulations are performed for 2000 time steps. The time series of the evolution of family strategy parameters are shown in Fig. 2 . Family strategies do not diverge within each society, but are concentrated around a specific value adapted to each given environmental condition. The probability to form extended families s (plotted in red) and the inequality in inheritance λ (plotted in blue) evolve depending on the values of land capacity c and wealth required for survival ϵ , respectively. The evolution of the strategy converges within ~1000 steps in every parameter region.

The temporal evolution of the values of the probability to form extended families s (red) and the inequality in inheritance λ (blue) of families in a society are plotted, for environmental conditions with c  = 0.7, 3 and ϵ  = 0.0001, 0.01.

We conducted multi-level evolutionary simulation 100 times for each condition and averaged the strategy parameters of families in the last 1000 steps. Figure 3 a, b show the dependence of s and λ on c and ϵ . Increasing land capacity c makes nuclear family strategies more preferable at both the family- and society-levels. Then, the probability of forming an extended family s decreases, implying the evolution of nuclear families. Increasing ϵ , the wealth required for survival, increases the demand for inheritance by younger siblings. This results in a smaller inequality in inheritance λ , indicating the evolution of the equal inheritance. Figure 3 c shows the phase diagram of family systems. Here, we classify the family systems as extended if s  ≥ 0.5, and as nuclear if s  < 0.5. Similarly, we classify them as unequal inheritance sharers if \(\lambda \ge {{\mathrm{log}}}\,2\) and as equal if \(\lambda < {{\mathrm{log}}}\,2\) . This criterion is determined according to whether the share of the inheritance awarded to the subsequent children is smaller (or larger) than half of that awarded to the preceding children. Therefore, the four basic family systems evolve depending on the two environmental parameters c and ϵ . A stem family (plotted in green) evolves if c and ϵ are small. A community family (plotted in orange) evolves if c is small and ϵ is large. An absolute nuclear family (plotted in blue) evolves if c is large and ϵ is small, and an egalitarian nuclear family (plotted in yellow) evolves if both c and ϵ are large.

The graphs show the average values of family strategies ( a , the probability to form extended families s and b the inequality in inheritance λ ) in the last 1000 steps of simulation. c Phase diagram of family systems. The environmental dependencies of stem (green), community (orange), absolute nuclear (blue), and egalitarian nuclear (yellow) families are shown. Parent–child relationship for residence is classified as that of an extended family if s  ≥ 0.5 and as that of a nuclear family if s  < 0.5. Inter-sibling relationship for inheritance is classified as unequal if \(\lambda \ \ge \ {{\mathrm{log}}}\,2\) and as equal if \(\lambda \ < \ {{\mathrm{log}}}\,2\) .

We show the dependence of the phase diagrams of family systems upon other parameters in Figs. 4 and S 1 . The phase diagrams plotted against c and ϵ are qualitatively robust and independent of the other parameter values. However, quantitative trends exist. Generally, N s and N f determine the strength of selection pressures at the family- and society-levels (Takeuchi et al., 2017 ; Traulsen and Nowak, 2006 ). For a large N f or small N s (ultimately, if N s  = 1), family-level competition becomes dominant rather than society-level competition, which leads to the evolution of selfish behaviour. Conversely, when society-level competition is dominant because of small N f or large N s , cooperative behaviour evolves. Figure 4 a, b show that, if N f is large or N s is small, nuclear families evolve even when c is small. Recall that the total production of siblings increases if they work independently, but that of society decreases because of the inefficiency in land usage if the capacity is limited. Therefore, choosing a nuclear family under small c is a selfish strategy that evolves for small N s and large N f . As wealth w accumulates, ϵ would become relatively small for the wealth, and accumulation would be accelerated. However, when the minimal birth rate b is high, the number of offspring increases, and each share decreases. Therefore, less wealth is accumulated, and equal distribution evolves in larger parameter regions because of the relatively large ϵ , as shown in Fig. 4 c. The dependence of the phase diagram on the parameters mutation rate μ , decay of wealth d , and increment of birth rate by wealth f are shown in Fig. S 1 .

The graphs show the dependence on parameters with * in Table 1 ( a the number of societies Ns, b the number of families Nf, c birth rate b ). Unless the value is shown on the axis, the parameter values are fixed to those in Table 1 .

Evolution of husband–wife relationships in the extended model

The simulation results are shown in Fig. S 2 for the extended model considering the marriage process. Parental investment is biased for sons almost four times as much as daughters for most of the parameter regions. Investment for sons is advantageous because wealthy men can have many wives and increase their fitness. Evolutionary anthropologists have reported that daughter-biased investment evolves under paternity uncertainty (Holden et al., 2003 ), which is beyond the scope of our model. Hence, it is reasonable that only son-biased investment evolves in our model.

Results also show that the frequency of polygyny is <20%. The bias of parental investment and the frequency of polygyny are almost independent of land capacity c or wealth required for survival ϵ . Furthermore, consideration of the marriage process only minimally affects the results for parent–child and inter-sibling relationships. Hence, we will analyse the economic structures of evolved societies by using the previous minimal model in the following section.

Additionally, we studied a model in which the diminishing returns of family labour in production are relaxed, to consider labour-extensive subsistence patterns other than agriculture. Figure S 3 shows that if production increases linearly to the number of family labourers, the frequency of polygyny increases to more than 20% almost independently of c and ϵ , even though the parental investment bias is almost the same as the above model. In this model, the increase in polygyny results from a larger fraction of relatively wealthy people. This scenario is consistent with empirical reports for foraging, horticultural and agropastoral societies (Ross et al., 2018 ). Extended families are dominant even when land capacity c is sufficient because they are no less preferable than nuclear families even at the family-level in this model. However, both nuclear and extended families are observed in most of the subsistence patterns (Murdock and White, 1969 ). It suggests that nuclear families can evolve owing to some reasons not covered by our model. To discuss the variation of family systems depending on subsistence patterns, it will be necessary to consider the difference in productivity and lifestyle.

Wealth distribution and evolution of social structure

Subsequently, we investigated the wealth distribution of families for each society after evolution. Note that data from the wealth distribution in modern society suggest an exponential-type tail for the rich side (Chakrabarti et al., 2013 ; Tao et al., 2019 ) (say a log-normal (Gibrat, 1931 ) or gamma distribution (Chakraborti and Patriarca, 2008 )), and a power distribution for the poor side (Reed, 2003 ) (say a gamma distribution (Chakraborti and Patriarca, 2008 )). The gamma distribution is obtained by assuming the wealth growth with positive feedback and nonlinear saturation, as well as a multiplicative stochastic process, which are included in our model (see Supplementary Text ).

Figure 5 a shows the frequency distribution of the wealth of families within each society. In every parameter region, the distribution approximately follows a power-law on the poor side and has an exponential tail on the rich side, which is consistent with the above data. Because inherited wealth depends on birth order, we also plotted the distributions of wealth by distinguishing the eldest siblings from the others in Fig. 5 b. With decreasing wealth required for survival ϵ , and consequently increasing inheritance inequality, the distributions of the wealth of siblings separate further. As a result, the accumulation of wealth by heirs is accelerated. Decreasing land capacity c and the evolution of extended families result in poorer younger siblings, whereas greater land capacity c and the evolution of nuclear families give rise to wealthier younger siblings.

a The graphs show the frequency distribution of family wealth in the last 1000 steps for environmental conditions with c  = 0.7, 3 and ϵ  = 0.0001, 0.01. The orange line shows the power-law fitting, and the purple line shows the exponential distribution fitting. The insets show the log–log plot of the frequency distribution. b The wealth distribution of the eldest (red) and younger siblings (blue).

Although the wealth distribution follows the power-law w α on the poor side and the exponential distribution \(\exp (-\beta w)\) on the rich side universally, the heaviness of tails depends on the environmental parameters. We fitted values for the lightness of the poor tail α and those for the rich tail β and averaged them over 100 trials for each environmental parameter c and ϵ in Fig. 6 a, b, respectively. Smaller c results in smaller α , i.e. the heavier tail is on the poor side, while smaller ϵ results in smaller β , i.e. the heavier tail is on the rich side. These results suggest the characteristics of the wealth distribution in the four corresponding family systems. However, it remains unclear whether they result from environmental conditions or family systems. To confirm the relevance of family systems, we computed the dependence of wealth distributions on family systems by sampling each family system using fixed environmental parameters near the boundary of the four phases of family systems, where the values of s and λ are distributed to cover all four family systems.

a Lightness of the poor tail α given by the power-law fitting w α . b Lightness of the rich tail β given by the exponential fitting \(\exp (-\beta w)\) . Smaller α and β show heavier tails for the poor and rich sides, respectively. c , d Averaged value of α ( c ) and β ( d ) classified by the dominant family system (stem, community, absolute nuclear, and egalitarian nuclear families) in each society, with error bars. Values for the environmental parameters fixed to ϵ  = 0.0003 and c  = 1.5 are plotted in black, whereas those averaged over ϵ  = 0.0001, 0.0003, 0.001, 0.003 and c  = 1.0, 1.2, 1.5, 2.0 are plotted in red.

The average values of α and β for each family system, which were sampled for the fixed environmental parameters (plotted in black), are shown in Fig. 6 c, d. They demonstrate the trend that the poor tail is heavier for extended families with poor younger siblings, whereas the rich tail is heavier for unequal inheritance with rich heirs. By comparing these results with the results averaged over several environmental parameters around the phase boundary (plotted in red), it is shown that the above trend depends on each family system, and is further intensified by environmental parameter values.

Empirical data analyses

Next, we verify our results on the relationship between environmental conditions, family systems, and economic structures. Using the global ethnographic database of 186 premodern societies, called SCCS (Kirby et al., 2016 ; Murdock and White, 1969 ), empirical data analyses were conducted.

First, we classified family systems of pre-industrial agricultural societies. We then identified pre-industrial agricultural societies by using the Subsistence economy: dominant activity variables (5–7 correspond to agriculture). Then, we identified the family systems by using Domestic organisation (1–5 correspond to nuclear families and 6–8 correspond to extended families) and Inheritance distribution for movable property (1 corresponds to equal and 2–4 correspond to strongly biased inheritance) (see Supplementary Tables for a detailed explanation of these variables). Out of 186 societies in SCCS, 91 societies conducted agriculture and inheritance of movable properties. Among them, 14 societies were classified as stem families, 30 as community families, 17 as absolute nuclear families, and 30 as egalitarian nuclear families. Figure S 4 shows their geographic distribution. Here, we used the data on the inheritance of movable properties to identify inter-sibling relationships. However, similar trends on the following variables were achieved, even when we used those pertaining to the inheritance of real property, as shown in Table S 2 .

Next, we conducted Spearman’s rank correlation analyses and calculated the correlation between SCCS variables and parent–child (nuclear or extended) or inter-sibling (strongly biased or equal) relationships. The database contains various variables of socio-ecological factors. By calculating the correlation for each variable and listing the variables in descending order in the absolute value of the correlation, we found those variables related to the parameters in our model in the top of the list. The variables that are highly correlated with parent–child and inter-sibling relationships are listed in Table S 1 and Table S 2 , respectively. Among them, we show the variables that can be related to the model parameters in Table 2 .

Table 2 shows the dependence of family systems on environmental conditions. Communality of land and Land Shortage , suggesting larger and smaller land capacity c , respectively, are correlated with extended families (Corr. −0.31 ( P  = 0.03) and Corr. 0.26 ( P  = 0.09), respectively). This is consistent with the theoretical results showing the evolution of extended families for smaller c . On the other hand, Frequency of internal warfare and Acceptability of violence within society suggest that violent conflict is more frequently observed in societies with equal inheritance (Corr. 0.36 ( P  = 0.08) and Corr. 0.27 ( P  = 0.13), respectively). Such violence will damage goods and require families to have more wealth to survive; as a result, the wealth required for survival ϵ increases in our model. Accordingly, equal inheritance is more frequent for larger ϵ , as is consistent with our results.

Furthermore, the data suggest the correlation between family systems and economic structures. Number of poor implying smaller α is positively correlated with extended families (Corr. 0.29 ( P  = 0.06)), whereas Number of rich people implying smaller β is negatively correlated with equal inheritance (Corr. −0.37 ( P  = 0.01)). Thus, the empirical data are consistent with our simulation results, concerning the relationship between environmental conditions, family systems, and society-level economic structures. See Supplementary Tables for the explanation on values of SCCS variables.

By simulating the multi-level evolution model of family systems, we demonstrated the evolution of family systems depending on the environmental parameters for the capacity of available land resources c and the amount of wealth required for a family to survive ϵ . As for parent–child relationships, if there is sufficient land capacity, nuclear families evolve, whereas extended families evolve under a land shortage. As for inter-sibling relationships, if the wealth required for survival is large, equal inheritance evolves, whereas strongly biased inheritance evolves when that is small. Therefore, the four basic family systems characterised by both relationships above are represented as ‘phases’ depending on c and ϵ . By considering marriage, we then confirmed son-biased investment and infrequent polygyny. Additionally, we clarified the characteristics of wealth distribution determined by the dominant family systems within societies. The tail of the poor side is heavier (that is, many poor people) for extended families, and that of the rich side is heavier (that is, many rich people) for families with unequal inheritance. Empirical data analyses of premodern societies in SCCS supported our results.

Now, we refer to demographics and socioeconomic histories in the premodern and modernising era, especially in Western Europe and East Asia. The land capacity c in our model can be measured approximately by the period since the onset of agriculture. In the areas where agriculture started early, population growth resulted in the exhaustion of available land, and labour-intensive farming developed, as observed in China (Pomeranz, 2000 ; Wallerstein, 2011 ), Russia (Hizen, 1994 ), and Japan (Hayami, 2015 ). In Western Europe, especially Holland, the Paris Basin, Southern England, and Central Spain, the capacity was large until industrialisation, and labour-saving farming was developed (Pomeranz, 2000 ) as a result of the following reasons: agricultural progress in medieval times enabled virgin land cultivation by gathering the children not inheriting the parental lands (Bacci, 2017 ; Cameron et al., 1993 ; Grigg, 1980 ; Pirenne, 1956 ); the population stagnated in premodern times because of religious wars and plagues (Bacci, 2017 ); and colonies were established early on (Wallerstein, 2011 ). Accordingly, the model result concerning c implies that extended families evolve in the areas where agriculture started early. Table 2 also suggests that the exhaustion of land leads to the evolution of extended families.

As for wealth required for survival ϵ , demographics report that the frequency of violent conflict decreased in the following order in Eurasia: the centre of the continent, peripheral, and island regions (Khazanov and Wink, 2012 ; Macfarlane, 2002 ; Umesao, 2003 ). The regions close to the pole of civilisation and/or those frequently attacked by foreign people would have a large ϵ . Hence, the model result concerning ϵ implies that equal inheritance is dominant in the centre of the Eurasia continent and other regions that are vulnerable to warfare (see Fig. S 4 ). The results of the empirical data analysis in Table 2 also support the correlation between such violent conflict with the evolution of equal inheritance.

From geohistorical reports discussed above, the family systems in each region can be explained: absolute nuclear families (nuclear family, unequal inheritance) in England and the Netherlands, where available land resources were sufficient and wealth required for survival was small; egalitarian nuclear families (nuclear family, equal inheritance) in France, Spain, and Italy, where both land capacity and necessity of wealth were large; stem families (extended family, unequal inheritance) in Japan, Germany and many parts of rural Western Europe, where both of them were small; and community families (extended family, equal inheritance) in China, Russia, and Northern India, where land capacity was small and necessity of wealth was large (Berkner, 1972 ; Todd, 2011 ).

Apart from these environmental conditions, the number of families within a society N f , the number of competing societies N s , and birth rate b are also relevant parameters for determining the family system. N f is large for large-scale land management as seen in England, the Netherlands, France, and Spain, whereas N f is small and N s is large in family farm management as observed in China, Russia, Japan, and Germany (Bacci, 2017 ; Cameron et al., 1993 ; Hizen, 1994 ; Pomeranz, 2000 ; Wallerstein, 2011 ). The trends in Fig. 4 a, b are consistent with the observation of nuclear families in the former regions and extended families in the latter. The birth rates were low in Japan and Western Europe, especially in England (Macfarlane, 2002 ), and higher in Russia (Hizen, 1994 ). The observation of unequal inheritance in the former regions and equal inheritance in the latter demonstrates a similar tendency to Fig. 4 c.

Next, we examine the validity of our results regarding the relationships between family systems, socio-economic structures, and modern social ideologies. Figure 6 suggests that, in England and the Netherlands involving absolute nuclear families, the tail of wealth distribution is heavy on the rich side and light on the poor side. Indeed, wealthy farmers prospered and employed a majority as labourers who had better living standards than those in poorer regions (Laslett, 2015 ; Macfarlane, 2002 ; Shaw-Taylor, 2012 ; Tawney, 1912 ; Todd, 1990 ; Wallerstein, 2011 ). The accumulation of capital and independent labour forces explains the development of individual liberty and capitalism in England (Braudel, 1992a , b , c ; Todd, 1990 ; Wallerstein, 2011 ). Wealth distribution in France and Spain, involving egalitarian nuclear families, was suggested to have light tails on both the rich and poor sides. That is, agricultural societies were less differentiated and weakly stratified (Dupeux, 1972 ; Rösener, 1993 ; Wallerstein, 2011 ), which forms the basis of the values of freedom and equality. Our results suggest that wealth distribution in Germany, Sweden, and Japan, involving stem families, had heavy tails on both rich and poor sides. Wealthy farmers prospered by exploiting others and the stratification of society advanced in accordance with the order and class distinctions (Hayami, 2015 ; Hayami and Kurosu, 2001 ; Kastner, 1978 ; Mager, 1981 ; Rösener, 1993 ; Todd, 1990 ). Wealth distribution in Russia and China, involving community families, was suggested to have a light rich tail and a heavy poor tail. Indeed, the middle class was significantly sparse, and people were uniformly poor (Rösener, 1993 ), which led to the adoption of communism (Thaxton, 1997 ; Weber, 1995 ). In this manner, the wealth distribution obtained in our model connects family systems with society-level characteristics observed in socio-economic history. A study of political ideology showed that people supported authoritarianism in the presence of many individuals being exposed to threats, and egalitarianism in the absence of strong inequality or power imbalance (Claessens et al., 2020 ). Our results are consistent with this, because the heavier poor and rich tails imply the presence of vulnerable and privileged people, respectively.

Note that our results regarding the family systems and the socio-economic structures are expected to be rather general. The conclusion here is independent of the details of the present model, as long as the production increases sub-linearly with labour input, and multi-level selection of families and societies is considered.

One can also discuss long-term changes in land capacity c and wealth required for survival ϵ , and their influence on family systems. At times of cultivation, a nuclear family evolves because of sufficient capacity. As the population increases and capacity becomes limited, an extended family would replace it. Additionally, because of the dense population, the risks of invasion from surrounding areas and conflict within societies increase, and accordingly, owing to the loss of wealth by violence, ϵ would increase gradually. This scenario explains the historical change of family systems from a nuclear family to a stem family, and then to a community family (Todd, 2011 ).

Environmental factors change gradually owing to the interaction between society and the environment. However, the change in environmental factors, in turn, will alter family systems and social structures. Such historical dynamics have been discussed as the interaction of factors on different time scales (Braudel, 1992a , b , c ). To discuss such interaction of factors at different levels, the present constructive model will give a basic explanation.

The present model has some limitations. First, the differentiation of people between the elite and the majority was not considered. As society becomes stratified, people start to rent land from the elite. This results in the divergence of environmental factors and family systems between them (Todd, 2011 ). A model is needed for handling social stratification and the interaction of classes to discuss broader issues. Second, we did not model intra-family competition for resources explicitly and the relationships between family systems and such competition remain unsolved. Intra-family competition has attracted attention in evolutionary anthropology (Ji et al., 2014 ; Trivers, 1974 ). In fact, the previous studies have revealed the high status of the elderly in extended families (Lee and Kezis, 1979 ), and sibling competition over the land inheritance (Gibson and Gurmu, 2011 ). The model, then, needs to have three levels, i.e. individual, family, and society. Finally, the current model focuses only on pre-industrial agricultural societies. Models focusing on other subsistence patterns are needed to discuss the diversity of family systems widely. For example, Fig. S 3 shows that if the diminishing returns of family labour are relaxed, the frequency of polygyny increases. Furthermore, in the modern world, agricultural societies should no longer be regarded as isolated systems, but constitute components of a world-system (Wallerstein, 2011 ). A new model needs to be developed to consider the interaction between towns and agricultural societies, as well as international, political, and commercial networks.

Furthermore, the present empirical data analyses have some limitations. First, we could only analyse the correlation between cultural variables and family systems. Although it is desirable to conduct better analyses (such as classification learning) to reveal features relevant to family systems, it was infeasible due to data insufficiency. In this study, we used SCCS in which the data for a variety of socio-ecological factors are available. SCCS enabled us to test the correlation between model parameters and family systems empirically, although the sample size was limited. Future works should make use of other databases that include more societies (but fewer variables per society), such as the Ethnographic Atlas (Murdock, 1967 ). Second, we could not analyse causal relationships owing to a lack of chronological data. Our correlation analyses are insufficient to examine whether history progresses as our model predicted.

Here, the collaboration of field studies, historical analyses, and theoretical modelling is necessary to further elucidate the historical dynamics of societies. Field studies describe the individual- or family-level behaviour and society-level structures synchronically. Historical or phylogenetic analyses unveil the diachronic change of such factors. In addition, Leach has emphasised the importance of generalising ethnographic findings by using mathematical formulation to unveil universal structural patterns that may appear in any type of society (Leach, 1961 ). The constructive model, as presented here, provides a simplified mathematical expression of family behaviours, gives a general framework that allows comparison of various societies, explains the universal patterns between family- and society-level factors, and reveals their historical evolution.

To summarise, we presented a multi-level evolution model to account for the emergence of the four basic family systems and the resultant socio-economic structures depending on environmental conditions, as is consistent with family-level anthropological studies and society-level economic histories. Here, the microscopic characteristics of families determine the macroscopic economic structures, which forms the basis for the development of societies. This study allows an explanation of the universal evolutionary constraint that human societies satisfy.

Data availability

The source code has been made publicly available in the Dataverse repository (Itao and Kaneko, 2021b ), https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/3ZGCQI , or https://github.com/KenjiItao/family_system.git .

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank Tetsuhiro S. Hatakeyama, Yuma Fujimoto, and Kenji Okubo for a stimulating discussion, and Yasuo Ihara for illuminating comments. This study was partially supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas (17H06386) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) of Japan.

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Itao, K., Kaneko, K. Evolution of family systems and resultant socio-economic structures. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 8 , 243 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-021-00919-2

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Various Issues in Modern Family Essay

Introduction, sexual relationships, delayed marriages, reproductive patterns, generational discrepancies, works cited.

The family today is faced by major challenges owing to factors emerging every now and then ranging from globalization, increased social integration across the world as well as technological advancement. These and other factors have brought about a multitude of new changes that has brought challenges, completely altering family values.

What are the major issues facing the family today?

The age of initial sexual encounter is getting lower; this has led to unupsurge of teenage pregnancies and abortions in the short term and terminal illnesses in the long term. Religion teaches morals and sex is a taboo, this resulted to a negative attitude toward matters relating to sex, like sex education and information on contraceptives, very little sex education is acquired even to adulthood. With the proliferation of explicit information due to advanced technology on a wide range of sexual matters, young people are left to pick choices for themselves. Pundits attribute increase of same sex relationships due to influence channeled through electronic and print media.

One big phenomenon is an increased delay in marriages occasioned by educational and career pursuits; this has resulted to an increase in single person’s households, a large portion of adults are still living with parents, while others are cohabiting. In Europe 65% of males aged between 25-29 years are still living with their parents while it was at 44% for women. (Cliquet 1) There are also instances of living apart arrangement where intimate relationships are maintained in completely different households. Nupitiality is on the decline, weddings are fewer, and so are the remarriages. Remarriages occur between those who have divorced.

Today’s most married couples especially in Europe are opting for less number of children despite high fertility rates subdued by contraception. The is increased use of contraceptives has lead to lower birth rates, as well as delayed first birth. In some southern Europe countries, one out of two first births occurs outside wedlock, while in the US a third of all births in 2001 were out of wedlock. (Council of Europe 1). This has led to a decrease in young population.

Instances of divorce have also escalated reducing birth rates, in Western Europe, 30% of couples will end up in a divorce (Council of Europe 2002 1). However the figures are higher if we were to consider data on separations, and cohabiting. This has led to an increase to single mothers house holds, and if coupled with single mothers by choice or accident, figures are higher. The instances of single by choice are on the increase especially amongst better educated, working older women. (Miller 1). 75% of men get into a new relationship after divorce while 80% of women do the same. This also happens when death occurs, though the number of those who remarry is lower especially amongst older people.

Due to decreased fertility occasioned by increased access to contraception, there has been a steady decrease in the population below 25 years, and a marked increase in population of 65 years and above. This is due to easy access to healthier life marking an increase in longevity. This has brought about a family dilemma as the old have to be catered for, this is a challenge to loosely knit family units which lack capacity to effectively provide. Increased female participation in paid labor is also driving the woman away from the homemaker role, leaving the aged helpless, there is a strain in such a setup, calling for forces outside family to assist. The strain is less for families with extended close ties.

How do we address these issues?

With all the above dynamics, there are some instances that need extra efforts to in order to avert or alleviate some of resultant conditions. There is need for increased surveillance and parental guidance for teenagers, since they are the most vulnerable to technological influence. Sex education is required at an early age to help the youth make informed decisions. There should be proper structures to cater for the elderly outside the family network so as to provide for quality care, as well as ease the burden for the kin.

Divorce is one feature that is predominant in today’s family; there is need for marital counseling, to prevent it. Since it is not avoidable, children and couples affected should also get counseling to alleviate suffering occasioned by divorce. Children born outside the wed lock or from divorced families might end up themselves going through the same process of divorce as the parents and hence there is need of active participation of the available parent to make up for the absent one, so as to give the child a normal feel.

Violence in the family is also a major issue that needs urgent attention and this calls for counseling of the perpetrators as well as the victims. Substance and alcohol abuse are some of the causing factors of domestic violence, this may come in form of sexual, physical or psychological abuse. Governments all over the world have programs that foster for such affected children. Despite liberalism in family setup, the community at large has an obligation to participate in activities a kin to fighting issues affecting the family since everyone is in a family and is prone to these issues.

Cliquet, Richard. ‘Major trends affecting families in the new millennium’ . Journal of Family Issues. 2001. Web.

Council of Europe. ‘Recent Demographic Developments in Europe 2001’ Strasbourg. 2002. Web.

Miller, Nancy. ‘Single Parents by Choice. A Growing Trend in Family Life’. New York: Plenum Press. 1992. Web.

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• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, November 21). Various Issues in Modern Family. https://ivypanda.com/essays/various-issues-in-modern-family/

"Various Issues in Modern Family." IvyPanda , 21 Nov. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/various-issues-in-modern-family/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Various Issues in Modern Family'. 21 November.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Various Issues in Modern Family." November 21, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/various-issues-in-modern-family/.

1. IvyPanda . "Various Issues in Modern Family." November 21, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/various-issues-in-modern-family/.

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IvyPanda . "Various Issues in Modern Family." November 21, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/various-issues-in-modern-family/.

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Gag Order Against Trump Is Expanded to Bar Attacks on Judge’s Family

Donald Trump had in recent days targeted the daughter of Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing his criminal trial in Manhattan, in blistering social media posts.

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By Jesse McKinley ,  Ben Protess and William K. Rashbaum

The New York judge overseeing Donald J. Trump’s criminal trial later this month expanded a gag order on Monday to bar the former president from attacking the judge’s family members, who in recent days have become the target of Mr. Trump’s abuse.

Justice Juan M. Merchan last week issued an order prohibiting Mr. Trump from attacking witnesses, prosecutors, jurors and court staff, as well as their relatives. That order, however, did not cover Justice Merchan himself or the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, who brought the criminal case against the former president.

And although the ruling issued on Monday still does not apply to the judge or the district attorney, Justice Merchan, granting a request from Mr. Bragg’s office, amended the gag order so that it does now cover their families.

In his ruling, the judge cited recent attacks against his daughter, and rejected Mr. Trump’s argument that his statements were “core political speech.”

“This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose,” Justice Merchan wrote. “It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game’ for defendant’s vitriol.”

Mr. Bragg’s office had asked the judge to clarify that their relatives were included, calling such protection “amply warranted.” Noting Mr. Trump’s track record of issuing “threatening and alarming remarks,” Mr. Bragg’s office warned of “the harms that those family members have suffered.”

The personal connection to the gag order complicated Justice Merchan’s decision. Shortly after last week’s initial gag order, Mr. Trump issued a series of blistering attacks on Mr. Merchan and his daughter, Loren, a political consultant who has worked with Democratic candidates.

Specifically, Mr. Trump had accused Ms. Merchan — falsely — of having posted a photo of him behind bars on an account on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Court officials said the account cited by Mr. Trump had been taken over last year by someone other than Ms. Merchan.

On Thursday, Mr. Trump intensified his attacks , identifying Justice Merchan’s daughter by name and accusing her of being “a Rabid Trump Hater, who has admitted to having conversations with her father about me, and yet he gagged me.” The former president then renewed his demands that the judge recuse himself from the case, calling Justice Merchan “totally compromised.”

And on Saturday, in an ominous escalation, Mr. Trump posted a news article to Truth Social that displayed two pictures of Ms. Merchan.

Then, on Tuesday morning, after Justice Merchan’s decision, Mr. Trump called him “corrupt” in a social media post demanding that he be recused and the case dismissed.

“Juan Merchan, GAGGED me so that I can not talk about the corruption and conflicts taking place in his courtroom with respect to a case that everyone, including the D.A., felt should never have been brought,” Mr. Trump wrote . “They can talk about me, but I can’t talk about them??? That sounds fair, doesn’t it?”

Mr. Trump, the first former American president to face criminal prosecution, is scheduled to go on trial on April 15. Mr. Bragg charged him with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to the reimbursement of a hush-money payment to hide a sexual encounter with a porn star, Stormy Daniels.

Mr. Trump, once again the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has denied the affair and the charges, which he claims are politically motivated. Mr. Trump and his campaign have also lashed out at the gag order, calling it “unconstitutional.” And his lawyers argued against expanding the gag order to include Justice Merchan and Mr. Bragg’s family, noting that the original order did not cover the judge or the district attorney.

Todd Blanche, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, declined to comment on Monday.

Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s campaign, called the judge’s amended gag order “unconstitutional,” because, he said, it prevents Mr. Trump from engaging in political speech, “which is entitled to the highest level of protection under the First Amendment.” He added, “The voters of America have a fundamental right to hear the uncensored voice of the leading candidate for the highest office in the land.”

Justice Merchan is just the latest judge to impose a gag order on the former president. A federal appeals court upheld a gag order in Mr. Trump’s federal criminal case in Washington, where he is accused of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.

And in his civil fraud case in New York, Mr. Trump was ordered not to comment on court staff members after he attacked the judge’s principal law clerk. The judge, Arthur F. Engoron, imposed $15,000 in fines on the former president when he ran afoul of that order.

If Mr. Trump violates the order, the judge could impose fines, and in extraordinary circumstances, throw him behind bars.

In a court filing on Monday, Mr. Bragg’s office asked the judge to warn Mr. Trump that he will be punished if he ignores the order, using stark language that underscored the state’s concern about the former president’s words.

“Defendant’s dangerous, violent and reprehensible rhetoric fundamentally threatens the integrity of these proceedings and is intended to intimidate witnesses and trial participants alike — including this court,” Mr. Bragg’s office wrote.

In his five-page ruling, Justice Merchan noted that Mr. Trump had a right “to speak to the American voters freely and to defend himself publicly.” But he sought to balance those rights with the impact of Mr. Trump’s statements on the trial.

“It is no longer just a mere possibility or a reasonable likelihood that there exists a threat to the integrity of the judicial proceedings,” the judge wrote. “The threat is very real.”

Kate Christobek contributed reporting.

Jesse McKinley is a Times reporter covering upstate New York, courts and politics. More about Jesse McKinley

Ben Protess is an investigative reporter at The Times, writing about public corruption. He has been covering the various criminal investigations into former President Trump and his allies. More about Ben Protess

William K. Rashbaum is a senior writer on the Metro desk, where he covers political and municipal corruption, courts, terrorism and law enforcement. He was a part of the team awarded the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Breaking News. More about William K. Rashbaum

Our Coverage of the Trump Hush-Money Case

The manhattan district attorney has filed charges against former president donald trump over a hush-money payment to a porn star on the eve of the 2016 election..

Taking the Case to Trial: Trump is all but certain to become the first former U.S. president to stand trial on criminal charges after a judge denied his effort to delay the proceeding and confirmed it will begin on April 15 .

Implications for Trump: As the case goes to trial, the former president’s inner circle sees a silver lining in the timing. But Trump wouldn’t be able to pardon himself  should he become president again as he could if found guilty in the federal cases against him.

Michael Cohen: Trump’s former fixer was not an essential witness in the former president’s civil fraud trial in New York  that concluded in January. But he will be when he takes the stand in the hush-money case .

Stormy Daniels: The chain of events flowing from a 2006 encounter that the adult film star said she had with Trump has led to the brink of a historic trial. Here's a look inside the hush-money payout .

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Judge expands Trump’s gag order after ex-president’s social media posts about judge’s daughter

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at 40 Wall Street after a pre-trial hearing at Manhattan criminal court, Monday, March 25, 2024, in New York. A New York judge has scheduled an April 15 trial date in former President Donald Trump’s hush money case. Judge Juan M. Merchan made the ruling Monday.(AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

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NEW YORK (AP) — The judge in Donald Trump’s April 15 hush-money criminal trial declared his family off-limits to the former president’s rancor on Monday, expanding a gag order days after Trump assailed his daughter and made false claims about her on social media.

Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan amended a week-old ban on Trump making public statements about witnesses, jurors and others connected with the case after the presumptive Republican nominee lashed out at Loren Merchan, a Democratic political consultant in several posts on his Truth Social platform.

Trump is still free to criticize Merchan and another key figure in the case, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat who’s leading the hush-money prosecution. But under the revised gag order, the D.A.'s family is now off-limits from his rhetoric, too.

“This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose,” Merchan wrote. “It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game,’ for Defendant’s vitriol.”

A violation could result in Trump being held in contempt of court, fined or even jailed.

Trump’s lawyer, Susan Necheles, declined comment. A spokesperson for the district attorney’s office also declined comment.

Trump’s hush-money case, one of four criminal cases against him , centers on allegations that he falsely logged payments to his former lawyer Michael Cohen as legal fees when they were for Cohen’s work covering up negative stories about Trump during the 2016 campaign. That included $130,000 Cohen paid porn actor Stormy Daniels on Trump’s behalf so she wouldn’t publicize her claim of a sexual encounter with him years earlier.

Trump pleaded not guilty last April to 34 counts of falsifying business records , a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee that a conviction would result in jail time. He denies having sex with Daniels and his lawyers have said that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses, not part of any coverup.

Trump touched off a firestorm last Wednesday — the day after the original gag order was issued — when he suggested on Truth Social, without evidence, that Merchan’s rulings were swayed by his daughter’s political consulting interests and wrongly claimed that she had posted a photo on social media showing him behind bars.

Trump complained that the judge was “wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement” by Democratic rivals and that Loren Merchan “makes money by working to ‘Get Trump.’”

Trump’s posts put Merchan in an extraordinary position as a judge and a father. Just two weeks before jury selection in the historic first-ever criminal trial of a former president, Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors wrangled in a series of court filings over the bounds of the original gag order and whether Trump had overstepped them.

“It is no longer just a mere possibility or a reasonable likelihood that there exists a threat to the integrity of the judicial proceedings,” Merchan concluded Monday. “The threat is very real. Admonitions are not enough, nor is reliance on self-restraint.”

Merchan responded after prosecutors asked him Friday to “clarify or confirm” the scope of the gag order and to direct Trump to “immediately desist from attacks on family members.”

Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass implored Merchan to “make abundantly clear” to Trump that the gag order protects the judge’s family, Bragg’s family and the family members of all other individuals it covers. He urged Merchan to warn Trump “that his recent conduct is contumacious and direct him to immediately desist.”

Trump’s lawyers fought the gag order and its expansion, citing constitutional concerns about restricting Trump’s speech further while he’s campaigning for president and fighting criminal charges.

On Monday, they said they would soon ask again for Merchan to step aside from the case — promising a court filing in the coming days seeking his recusal based on what they said were “changed circumstances and newly discovered evidence.”

Merchan refused the defense’s demands to exit the case last year when they first made an issue of his daughter’s consulting work and questioned $35 worth of donations he’d made to Democratic causes during the 2020 campaign, including $15 to Biden.

Merchan said then that a state court ethics panel found Loren Merchan’s work had no bearing on his impartiality. He ruled last September that he was certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial” and that Trump’s lawyers had “failed to demonstrate that there exists concrete, or even realistic” reasons for recusal.

Trump’s original gag order, issued last Tuesday, had barred him from either making or directing other people to make public statements on his behalf about jurors or potential witnesses in the hush-money trial, such as his lawyer-turned-nemesis Michael Cohen and porn star Stormy Daniels.

The order, echoing one in Trump’s Washington, D.C., election interference criminal case, also prohibits any statements meant to interfere with or harass the court’s staff, prosecution team or their families. Those prohibitions still apply, along with the newly minted ban on comments about Merchan’s and Bragg’s families.

Merchan, in expanding the gag order, also warned Trump he’ll forfeit his right to see the names of jurors — which are otherwise being kept from the public — if he engages in conduct that threatens their safety or integrity.

“Again, all citizens called upon to participate in these proceedings, whether as a juror, a witness or in some other capacity, must now concern themselves not only with their own personal safety, but with the safety and the potential for personal attacks upon their loved ones,” Merchan wrote. “That reality cannot be overstated.”