Parenthood, Childlessness, and Well-Being: A Life Course Perspective

By Debra J Umberson, Tetyana Pudrovska, Corinne Reczek. Journal of Marriage and Family, 2010

605 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article reviews recent research (1999 – 2009) on the effects of parenthood on wellbeing. We use a life course framework to consider how parenting and childlessness influence well-being throughout the adult life course. We place particular emphasis on social contexts and how the impact of parenthood on well-being depends on marital status, gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. We also consider how recent demographic shifts lead to new family arrangements that have implications for parenthood and well-being. These include stepparenting, parenting of grandchildren, and childlessness across the life course.

Subfields: Demography, Health, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/49605677723204afb8b80c720561f2a4b6eb7892

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Citations in the corpus

How Do Parents React When Their Children Leave Home? An Integrative Review (2014, background): “In contrast to accounts of the popular press, gender differences were, however, mostly favorable to women, in line with the role strain relief perspective (Erickson et al. 2010; Umberson et al. 2005; Umberson et al. 2010; White and Edwards 1990).”
Parenthood and Well-Being: A Decade in Review. (2020, background): “Research in earlier decades emphasized that adult children bring more resources than strains to parents and thus foster better well-being of parents (Umberson et al., 2010).”
Choosing to be Childfree: Research on the Decision Not to Parent (2012, background): “Though several recent studies of how race may influences choices or perceptions exist (Koropeckyj-Cox et al. 2007; Umberson et al. 2010; Vinson et al. 2010), greater racial and ethnic diversity within study samples should also be a goal of future research in this area.”
Happiness and Childbearing Across Europe (2012, result): “As posited by Umberson et al. (2010) , although some studies reveal that parenting stress is greater for some groups than others, a solid understanding of the various mechanisms through which parenting affects well-being is still missing.”
Does grandparenting pay off? The effect of child care on grandparents' cognitive functioning (2014, background): “As Umberson et al. (2010) have pointed out, more research that better controls for selection effects is needed.”