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Adjusting Family Composition for the Presence of Stepparents, Unmarried parents
and Nonparent Partners
In order to indicate to TRIM that input data is available to identify
stepparents, unmarried parents, and nonparent partners, the variable list rules
ParentIDs and PartnerID must have appropriate variables
specified. If no variables are specified, TRIM will not perform any special
processing for these types of adults (i.e. stepparents will always be included
in the family, a nonparent partner will remain outside the family, and a family
with two unmarried parents will only include the parent who is the reference
person of the children's family). TRIM checks for consistency between the
settings of the variable list rules and the rules in the group Parent
Eligibility Group:
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If variables are specified for ParentIDs, variables must also be
specified for PartnerID, and vise-versa.
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If variables are specified for ParentIDs and PartnerID, then
for each state at least one of the rules in the group Parent Eligibility Group
must be set to something other than "not modelled", and vise-versa (i.e. if any
state has any of these rules set to something other than "not modelled", ParentIDs
and PartnerID
must be specified).
If ParentIDs and PartnerID are specified (and all consistency
checks passed) stepparents, unmarried parents and nonparent partners are
identified (and family composition adjusted) as follows:
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Parents (both married and unmarried) are identified as those
persons in the household who are heads or spouses of families and
are indicated (by the ParentIDs variables) to be the mother or father
of at least one child in the household. To be considered a child, a person can
not be the head or spouse of a family of their own. For example, a
multigenerational family may consist of three persons -- a mother (person #1),
her daughter (person #2), and her daughter's son (person #3). The ParentIDs
variables
would indicate that both persons #1 and #2 are parents. However, for our
purposes only person #2 would be considered a parent (since person #1's only
child -- the daughter -- is herself the head of a family). On the other hand,
if this household had included a fourth person -- the daughter's brother, who
has no spouse or children -- person #1 would be considered a
parent. Any person for whom the result variable FirstChildID
is non-zero is considered to be a parent under this definiton.
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A stepparent is identified as the head or spouse of a family
who is not a parent but is married to a parent. The result variable StepparentID
indicates whether a person is in a family that contains a step parent (i.e. StepparentID
> 0) and who the stepparent is (i.e. StepparentID = the PersonID
of the stepparent). This stepparent is then excluded from the stepchildren's
family if indicated by the rule StepParentEligibility. Note that this
definition does not include stepparents in families where both parents
are stepparents (i.e. both parents have children from previous marriages, and
neither have adopted the spouse's children). Because of the complexities
involved in processing such families, no adjustment to the family composition
is made (i.e. the stepparent is treated the same as the biological/adoptive
parent).
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Families with unmarried parents can appear on the input data in
one of two ways:
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One parent is listed as being in the same family (i.e. related to) the child,
and the other parent is listed as an "unrelated individual" (i.e. no one else
in the household is listed as related to him/her -- note that on the CPS a
parent is no necessarily considered "related" to his/her child).
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One parent is listed as being in the same family (i.e. related to) the child,
and the other parent is listed as being in a different family with relatives.
Because of the complexities involved with processing the second type, no
adjustment is made to the family composition (i.e. each parent is treated as if
the other parent was not in the household). Only the first type receives
special processing. In this case, the "other parent" is marked as an "unmarried
parent" by assigning to his/her result variable UnmarriedParentOfFamily,
the ID of the family to which the other parent and child belong. This unmarried
parent is then included in the child's family if indicated by the rule TreatmentOfUnmarriedParents.
Note that the parent who is already in the family containing the child,
although also an "unmarried parent", is not similiarly marked (i.e. only the
unmarried parent who is outside the child's family is actually identified by
the result variable UnmarriedParentOfFamily).
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Families with a nonparent partner can also appear on the input
data in one of two ways:
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The partner who is the nonparent is listed as an "unrelated individual" (i.e.
no one else in the household is listed as related to him/her).
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The partner who is the nonparent has relatives in the household.
Because of the complexities involved with processing the second type, no
adjustment is made to the family composition (i.e. each partner is treated as
if the other partner was not in the household). Only the first type receives
special processing. In this case, the nonparent partner is marked by assigning
to his/her result variable NonParentPartnerOfFamily, the ID of the
family to which the parent partner belongs. The nonparent partner is then
included in the partner's family if indicated by the rule NonParentPartnerEligibility.
One of the options allowed in the rules StepParentEligibility and NonParentPartnerEligibility
is for the stepparent or nonparent to choose whether or not to be included in
the family. While a variable list rule exists (NonParentChoice) which
can specify a variable that indicates what choice is made, usually such a
variable does not exist. Instead, an imputation is made as to which way the
family would be better off -- with the stepparent or nonparent included or
excluded.
In order to facilitate processing within TRIM, as well as for analysts working
from extracts, the result variable CohabitingFamilyID is created as
part of the family adjustment process. This family identifier is identical to
the FamilyID identifier except that persons identified as unmarried
parents and nonparent partners are included in the same family as their
children or partner.
The result variable CohabitingFamilyID is used as the basis for
determining the value of the result variable TypeOfParents. All
persons in the same family as defined by CohabitingFamilyID are given
the same value for TypeOfParents. This value is based on the presence
of parents, stepparents, unmarried parents and nonparent partners in the
cohabiting family. The presence of the types of stepparents, unmarried parents
and nonparent partners which were not identifed by the above procedures is not
reflected in the value of TypeOfParents (e.g. families where both
parents are stepparents are classified as having no stepparents).
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