July 19, 1999
Contact: Teressa Tignor Gilbreth
Information Specialist
(573) 882-9144
[email protected]
"WHO'S RESPONSIBLE IN TODAY'S CHANGING FAMILIES?" MU RESEARCHERS ASK
COLUMBIA, Mo. - Mike and Mary are divorced. Mary has physical and legal custody of their two children, ages 5 and 12, and Mike pays child support. Two years after the divorce, Mike gets married again. His new wife has two young children from a prior marriage. Should Mike continue to pay the same amount of child support?
What would you answer? Study participants were asked tough questions like this in research recently published by a team from the University of Missouri-Columbia that has been studying families together for more than 20 years.
Lawrence Ganong, professor of nursing and human development and family studies, and Marilyn Coleman, professor of human development and family studies, know that the changing structures of today's families sometimes make it hard to decide who is responsible for taking care of family business - everything from wills to child support to elderly care giving. Policy makers, scholars, family counselors, family agencies and families nationwide now can find out how society's beliefs on these issues are changing - or staying the same - from the rare qualitative research Ganong and Coleman conducted and published in a new book, Changing Families, Changing Responsibilities: Family Obligations Following Divorce and Remarriage.
The book looks at public perceptions of financial and caretaking responsibilities in post divorce and stepfamilies. The researchers collected insightful, detailed data from participants by presenting them with vignettes about complex family issues like the one above and asking open-ended questions about their opinions. As the study moves on, the questions get tougher:
One year later, Mike and Mary's youngest child needs to have some dental work done that is not covered by health insurance. Mary asks Mike to increase what he is paying for child support. Should Mike increase it?
While Mike is still trying to decide whether to increase the amount of child support he pays, Mary gets remarried. The man she married has two children from an earlier marriage. Should Mike change what he is paying in child support?
Married with a stepfamily of their own, the seasoned researchers were surprised by some of the findings. "We found the saying, 'Blood is thicker' is not always true. Only 15 percent in every vignette said, 'If kin, then obligated.' That leaves 85 percent who don't think so," Ganong said.
Among their findings:
* Divorce: "We came up with what we call the commitment hypothesis: If a person makes a commitment to help, then they feel obligated even if they are no longer related because of divorce," Coleman said.
* Work/Family: "There is a real pull between work and family. The felt obligation to family is not as strong if it interferes with work," Coleman said.
* Child Support: People have little idea what it costs to raise a child; a large percentage chose an amount that was half of the state guidelines for child support as a fair amount. Many people thought the male head of household (the stepfather) should pay the children's expenses, not the biological father.
* Elderly Care: Due to cutbacks and downsizing, a trend in care for the elderly is to send them home from the hospital sooner, assuming family will be there to care of them. "The government expects families to pick up the slack, but there isn't a kin network like there used to be," Ganong said. "For one reason families are smaller, there are structural interruptions due to divorce, most adults are working and family members move away. Our policies need to reflect the realities of today's families."
* Male Care Giving: People are less positive about men's ability to parent than women's and consider women to be more obligated to care for children.
* Sandwich Generation: Baby boomers are the "sandwich generation" with responsibilities to their elderly parents and their young children. Ganong and Coleman found that when faced with these choices, boomers help their kids first.
"I'm interested in figuring out what successful stepfamilies are doing that works for them," said Ganong.
"Then we can provide practical advice to help other post-divorce families become successful," Coleman said.
The sample group for this study included more than 6,000 Missouri residents. Coleman and Ganong are currently working on a federal proposal to expand this study nationally. They expect a national sample to reveal even more diverse thinking about family definition.
-30-
RSS