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Lack of robustness of findings characterizes the empirical studies about the effect of the transition to parenthood on partners’ labour division. In this analysis, the purpose of this paper is to solve these problems through the conjoint use of methodological instruments of regression analysis, allowing the authors to correct for the effects of omitted variables.

A correction method is here applied to a longitudinal simultaneous equation model. In particular, the authors impose specific constraints on the covariances of the error terms of the longitudinal simultaneous equations of the paid and domestic work of both partners. For the empirical analysis, use is made of the Italian National Institute of Statistics Multipurpose Panel Survey in the years 2003 and 2007 to select a survey sample of dual-earner Italian couples.

The authors found that the negative influence of motherhood on the Italian women’s paid work supply is stronger than the positive effect of wage. The authors found that having a child (whatever the order) decreases a woman’s paid work hours by 17 hours a week, while woman’s domestic work increases by 20 hours a week as the effect of the birth of the first child.

Compared to Fixed Effect or Change-Score models suggested for longitudinal studies the Seemingly Unrelated Regression Equations-Difference-in-Differences procedure let us obtain estimations also for the effect of time-invariant variables. In addition, the methodological approach allows us to correct estimates for the common effects that latent variables exert simultaneously (e.g. the bargaining process) on paid and unpaid work equations of both partners.

Throughout human history and around the world, co-sleeping was the context for human evolutionary development. Currently, most of the world’s peoples continue to practice co-sleeping with infants, but there is increasing pressure on families in the West not to co-sleep. Research from anthropology, family studies, medicine, pediatrics, psychology, and public health is reviewed through the lens of a developmental theory to place co-sleeping within a developmental, theoretical context for understanding it. Viewing co-sleeping as a family choice and a normative, human developmental context changes how experts may provide advice and support to families choosing co-sleeping, especially in families making the transition to parenthood. During this transition, many decisions are made by parents “intuitively” (Ball, Hooker, & Kelly, 1999), making understanding the developmental consequences of some of those choices even more important. In Western culture, families are making “intuitive” decisions that research has shown to be beneficial, but families are not receiving complete messages about benefits and risks of co-sleeping. Co-sleeping can be an important choice for families as they make the life-changing transition to parenthood, if individualized messages about safe infant sleep practices (directed toward their individual family circumstances) are shared with them.

Within the field of medical sociology, there is an extensive body of literature on notable family transitions and stages in the reproductive cycle, such as getting married or becoming a parent, as they relate to mental health and well-being. However, the transition to becoming a completed family, that is, the process of determining or recognizing that one’s family is complete, is notably absent. In response to this empirical gap, this chapter presents findings from 114 semi-structured interviews with participants who reported having at least one child and who considered their family to be complete. First, the concept of “family completion” is introduced and conceptualized based on the qualitative considerations of participants and the contextual medical sociology literature. Then, thematic considerations around the process of family completion, related emotional preparations, and factors associated with mental health and well-being are explored. Findings suggest that family completion can be an important transitional period for parents and can be associated with emotional hardship for some individuals. Participants described experiencing conflict with their partner if they disagreed on the completion decision, frustration and sadness related to infertility, and/or feelings of loss or depression when completion was regarded as the end of a personal or familial life phase. This chapter concludes that creating a cultural context in which family completion is a recognized family transition period may spur intentional consideration among parents and promote the design of intervention services for parents experiencing changes in mental health or well-being.

In this chapter, I investigated how challenges (life events) are negotiated within families according to gender roles and their effect on marriage quality, life satisfaction, and psychological resilience in a nonclinical sample of heterosexual couples (N=159), age 23–78 (M=45.4, SD=11.2), with children (n=127) or childfree (n=32). Specifically, I accounted for the individual’s ability to share “hurt feelings” and foster intimacy within the couple, thus strengthening resilience and improving life satisfaction and hypothesized that the impact of negative life events on both relationship quality and life satisfaction could depend on the resilience levels of each partner and their ratio according to gender roles. Results confirmed the hypothesis and showed significant gender differences in the impact of negative life events on relationship quality, life satisfaction, ability to share hurt feelings, fear of intimacy, and resilience levels. Moreover, the ratio of the partner’s individual resilience affected the dependent variables differently by gender, its level interacted with the age of the couple’s first child (range: 2–54, mean: 21.4, SD: 10.4) and strongly depended on the occupation of the parents.

The transition to motherhood has been studied extensively, but primarily among participants in homogenous race/ethnicity relationships. The aim of the current study was to explore the lived experiences of a diverse group of women in biracial and monoracial relationships experiencing the transition to motherhood (e.g., biracial or monoracial motherhood). Informed by the symbolic interaction framework, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted to investigate the expectations and experiences of first-time motherhood on a sample of 12 U.S. women. Their diverse stories contained multiple themes including an overarching theme of racial/ethnic differences in appropriate infant care, which surfaces during engagement in family and social support interactions. This analysis emphasizes the need for more diverse portrayals of motherhood. We discuss our findings in light of the literature and implications for future research and practice.

The aim of this paper is to draw together within an evaluative framework British research‐based material concerning the impact of children, or the absence of children, on the quality and stability of the marriage relationship. The focus, therefore, is quite specific, and there is no attempt to review the whole corpus of literature on childbearing and child‐rearing. The relevant material is limited, fragmentary, and scattered across the literature of several disciplines. For such reasons it has been necessary in parts to draw upon American research both to indicate where the gaps and possibilities in indigenous research may lie and to show how far British findings supplement and support the American. Despite its thinness and incohesiveness, however, British material is adequate to test some common ideas about the relationship between children and marriage and, as will be seen, some of the conclusions to which it leads are counter‐intuitive, or at least contrary to beliefs which are widely found amongst relevant professionals as well as amongst the general public.