Childhood living arrangements and adult children's relations with their parents.

We examine the relationship of childhood living arrangements to adult child-parent relations. Compared with adult children raised in intact families, adult children whose parents divorced have less frequent contact with their parents and report a lower-quality relationship with their parents. We observe these negative effects for both custodial and noncustodial parents, although the effects are larger for noncustodial parents. Remarriage of the custodial parent tends to offset the negative impacts of divorce on relations with the custodial parent and to amplify the negative impacts on relations with noncustodial parents. Further, the longer the adult child lived apart from the parent, the weaker the relations with noncustodial parents.

Determinants and effects of waiting time to coitus.

Nonuse of contraception at first intercourse among adolescents is well documented in the adolescent sexuality research literature. This study provides a formal test of the hypothesis that an increase in the courtship period (i.e., waiting time to intercourse) increases the likelihood that a couple will discuss contraception and use it at first intercourse. The data analyzed are from personal interviews with 1,314 women aged 20-29 in the 1983 National Survey of Unmarried Women. The results are mixed about the effect of waiting time on contraceptive behavior, providing weak support for the hypothesis, but also elucidating individual and relative characteristics of the couples, such as age and education of the respective partners, that affected contraceptive behavior at first intercourse. Support for the hypothesis may prove more robust in data with different characteristics from the survey used here.