The Increasing Complexity of Family Relationships: Lifetime Experience of Lone Motherhood and Stepfamilies in Great Britain

We investigate the lifetime incidence and duration of lone motherhood and stepfamilies in Great Britain using both retrospective and panel information contained in the British Household Panel Survey, 1991-1995. We find that about 40 per cent of mothers will spend some time as a lone-parent. The duration of lone parenthood is often short, one-half remaining lone-mothers for 4.6 years or less. About three-fourths of these lone-mothers will form a stepfamily, with 80 per cent of these stepfamilies being started by cohabitation and 85 per cent following the dissolution of a union. Stepfamilies are not very stable: over one-quarter dissolve within one year. Thus, an increasing proportion of today's young children in Britain are likely to experience the changes, tensions and strains which life in lone-parent families and stepfamilies often entails. The increasing complexity of inter-household relationships between children and parents has important implications for the relevance of theoretical views of the operation of the family put forward by social researchers.