Speaker: Marie Cancian, UW-Madison La Folette School of Public Affairs
Abstract: We most often think of families with children as including a mother, father, and their children in common. However, 40 percent of children are now born to unmarried parents, and recent research suggests that more often than not, one or both of these parents will go on to have children with other partners. The complex families that result-- with siblings, half siblings and step siblings sharing parents and sometimes living quarters-- raise a host of challenges for research and policy. In this seminar I will draw on a series of papers, coauthored with Dan Meyer and other collaborators, to discuss the evolution of complex families and key related policy issues.