Vicki Freedman discussed the strength of parent-adult child ties in biological and stepfamilies in Futurity. In their article for Demography, Freedman and coauthors found that the ties between biological families and stepfamilies were similar when parents share a child.

Why ties are similar in stepfamilies that include a joint child and biological families is puzzling. Stepfamilies with joint children are more likely to live together than biological families, but whether they live together because their ties are stronger or vice versa is not clear. We need to understand more about the implications of the complexities of America’s families especially in light of the aging of the population.