Family formation processes: Assessing the need for a new nationally representative household panel survey in the United States
Issue title: Assessing the need for a new nationally representative household
panel survey in the United States
Subtitle:
Guest editors: Robert Moffitt, Robert F. Schoeni, Charles Brown, P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Mick P. Couper, Ana V. Diez-Roux, Erik Hurst and Judith A. Seltzer
Affiliations: Department of Sociology, Center for Family and Demographic Research, National Center for Family and Marriage Research, 233 Williams Hall, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403, USA. Tel.: +1 419 372 2850; Fax: +1 419 372 8306; E-mail: wmannin@bgsu.edu
Abstract: The American family has undergone rapid transformation. Careful measurement
attention to family formation is important because families are at the heart
of numerous decisions, roles, and responsibilities with implications for
understanding the well-being of families, adults and children. This paper
considers whether there is a need for a new household panel study that
addresses family formation. This paper consists of a review of the recent
body of population-based, American surveys and finds a considerable gap in
the ability to study the implications of families for the health and
well-being of Americans. Earlier panel surveys used to assess family life
anchored questions around marital events, but changes in family patterns
require attention to a more diverse set of family forms. The paper concludes
with recommendations for a multi-purpose panel study. The key challenge is
to keep to pace with complexity and changes in American family life while at
the same time maintaining a parsimonious set of survey questions.
Keywords: Family, household, measurement, panel data
