REMARRIAGE, STEPCHILDREN, AND MARITAL CONFLICT - CHALLENGES TO THE INCOMPLETE INSTITUTIONALIZATION HYPOTHESIS

The present study examines the hypothesis that marital conflict is mor e frequent in stepfamilies than in biological families. Using national ly representative data on 2,655 Black and White married couples with c hildren, we test this hypothesis by measuring the impact of remarriage and stepchildren on the frequency of marital conflict. Contrary to ou r expectations, our findings suggest that remarriage and stepchildren are not necessarily associated with more frequent marital conflict, an d in some cases are associated with less frequent conflict. Morover, o ur results show that the impact of stepchildren varies depending on le ngth of marriage.