Financial contributions to stepchildren: The role of gender and postdivorce family structure

Objective: This study describes patterns in stepparents' financial contributions and investigates their correlates in diverse stepfamily types. Background: Most research has studied contributions at the household level, rarely focusing on stepparents' direct contributions. Including variou...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Family relations 2024-04, Vol.73 (2), p.1362-1378
Main Authors: Arat, Ece, Poortman, Anne‐Rigt
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult children
Child Development
Children
Coresidence
Divorce
Donations
Expenditures
Families & family life
Family Income
Family structure
Fathers
Females
Gender
Households
Marital separation
Marriage
Natural parents
Parent Child Relationship
Parents & parenting
Savings accounts
Stepfamilies
Tics
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Summary:Objective: This study describes patterns in stepparents' financial contributions and investigates their correlates in diverse stepfamily types. Background: Most research has studied contributions at the household level, rarely focusing on stepparents' direct contributions. Including various stepfamily structures (e.g., stepfamilies with joint physical custody), we examine the role of gender and postdivorce family structure for stepparents' contributions. Method: Ordinal logistic regression analyses were conducted using the New Families in the Netherlands (NFN) survey, large-scale data collected among divorced and separated parents with minor children (2015/2016). Reports of respondents with a new partner about this stepparent's financial contributions to a specific focal child were analyzed (N = 1,439). Results: Stepparents' contributions were infrequent, but a sizable minority contributed very often. Stepparents contributed more often when married, when the focal child was coresident, and when the other biological parent of the focal child was repartnered with new biological children, but less often when stepparents had children from a prior relationship. Conclusion: Contributions depend on the strength of ties within stepfamilies-as with coresidence and marriage- and to what extent existing biological tics compete with stepparent-child relationships. Implications: To better understand the dynamics of contributions, we should also consider the composition of biological ties surrounding stepparent-child relationships.
ISSN:0197-6664
1741-3729
0197-6664
DOI:10.1111/fare.12922