Chinese childbearing decision-making in mainland China in the post-one-child-policy era.

In 2016, China enacted its two-child policy, further lifted to a three-child policy in 2021, in response to low birth rates and imbalanced sex ratios resulting from the almost 40-year one-child policy. Despite this, China's birthrate is at a historic low as fewer parents are having children. Now more than ever, inductive explorations are needed to understand what motivates Chinese parents to have first and second children in the post-one-child policy era, particularly explorations that situate individual decision-making within the larger social context.

Stepparents' Attachment Orientation, Parental Gatekeeping, and Stepparents' Affinity-Seeking with Stepchildren.

Remarried stepfamilies are a sizable portion of American families; in a 2011 Pew Center survey, 42% of respondents reported at least one stepfamily member. Family clinicians and researchers suggest that stepparents' ability to develop close bonds with stepchildren may be critical to the well-being of couple and family relationships. Using actor-partner interdependence models to analyze dyadic data from 291 heterosexual remarried stepfamily couples, we explored factors related to stepparents' efforts to befriend their stepchildren.

Stepfathers' affinity-seeking with stepchildren, stepfather-stepchild relationship quality, marital quality, and stepfamily cohesion among stepfathers and mothers.

Because of the potential stepparent-stepchild relationships have for tension and conflict, clinicians have identified the development of a positive stepparent-stepchild connection as one of the major tasks of stepfamily life. Stepparents often are advised to focus initially on developing friendships with stepchildren, or seeking affinity with them, particularly early in the life of the relationship. Both family systems theory and evolutionary theory suggest that stepparents' affinity-seeking behaviors are related to the quality and functioning of other stepfamily dyads, such as couple relationships, and the whole stepfamily.

A comparison of stepgrandchildren's perceptions of long-term and later-life stepgrandparents.

Background: Multi-generational steprelationships are relatively common, and yet little is known about stepgrandparent-stepgrandchild relationships. The quality of steprelationships is relevant to understanding intergenerational support for older divorced and remarried adults.

Objectives: The purpose of this study is to examine and compare stepgrandchildren's perceptions of two types of intergenerational step-relationships - long-term stepgrandparents who joined the stepfamily before stepgrandchildren were born and later-life stepgrandparents who joined stepfamilies when they were older.

Relationships with former stepgrandparents after remarriage dissolution.

Increases in stepfamily formation and longevity suggest that more children have stepgrandparent relationships than ever before. Because remarriages end in divorce more often than first marriages, many children experience the involuntary dissolution of stepgrandparent ties. Little is known about stepgrandparent relationships in general, and even less is known about how these relationships are affected by remarriage dissolution.

Negotiating a Place in the Family-A Grounded Theory Exploration of Stepgrandmothers' Enactment of Roles.

Purpose: Stepgrandparents are becoming more common, and they can, and often do, provide affective and instrumental support to families. Little is known, however, about how they negotiate and enact their roles within families, especially with stepgrandchildren. Stepgrandmothers warrant special attention because researchers have found that women experience more challenges than men in stepfamilies.