The increasing complexity of family relationships: Lifetime experience of lone motherhood and stepfamilies in Great Britain

We investigate the lifetime incidence and duration of lone motherhood and s tepfamilies in Great Britain using both retrospective and panel information contained in the British Household Panel Survey, 1991-1995. We find that a bout 40 per cent of mothers will spend some time as a lone-parent. The dura tion of lone parenthood is often short, one-half remaining lone-mothers for 4.6 years or less. About three-fourths of these lone-mothers will form a s tepfamily, with 80 per cent of these stepfamilies being started by cohabita tion and 85 percent following the dissolution of a union. Stepfamilies are not very stable: over one-quarter dissolve within one year. Thus, an increa sing proportion of today's young children in Britain are likely to experien ce the changes, tensions and strains which life in lone-parent families and stepfamilies often entails. The increasing complexity of inter-household r elationships between children and parents has important implications for th e relevance of theoretical views of the operation of the family put forward by social researchers.