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Parental Money Help to Children and StepchildrenJohn C. Henretta,University of FloridaMatthew F. Van Voorhis, andUniversity of FloridaBeth J. SoldoUniversity of PennsylvaniaAbstractDivorce and remarriage have reshaped the American family giving rise to questions about theplace of stepchildren in remarried families. In this article, we examine money transfers from acouple to each of their children. We introduce characteristics of the family and estimate the role ofshared family membership affecting all children in the family as well as the difference thatstepchild status and other individual characteristics make in transfer flows. Data are from theHealth and Retirement Study. There are two central results in the analysis. Overall, provision offinancial help from parents to children is a family phenomenon. While help to a particular child isepisodic, differences between families in provision of help were much greater than the differencesin helping one child versus another within families. Second, stepchild status does differentiate onechild from another within a family. Stepchildren are disadvantaged, particularly stepchildren ofthe wife.Changing patterns of parenthood and domestic partnership have reshaped the Americanfamily (Cherlin, 2004; Thornton & Young-DeMarco, 2001). In the past decade, families inthe United States have experienced high levels of partnership turnover (Cherlin, 2009) withthree-quarters of men (78%) and two-thirds of women (69%) remarrying following divorce(Schoen & Standish, 2001). Remarriage is an “incomplete institution”, particularly whenone or both partners bring children from a previous marriage into the newly formed family(Cherlin, 1978). Blended families formed after a divorce or widowhood may include jointbiological children as well as stepchildren of one or the other spouse. Nearly one in fivechildren live with a stepparent at some point during childhood (Björklund, Ginther, &Sundström, 2007; McLanahan & Percheski, 2008). In blended families, remarried orcohabiting couples and their offspring must overcome ambiguities and uncertainties aboutrelationships (Ganong & Coleman, 2004), appropriate kinship terms (Koenig Kellis,LeClair-Underberg, & Lamb Normand, 2008), and family membership boundaries (Boss &Greenberg, 1984; Stewart, 2005).Corresponding author: John C. Henretta, Box 117330, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida 32611-7330 USA. henretta@ufl.edu.NIH Public AccessAuthor ManuscriptJ Fam Issues. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2015 July 01.Published in final edited form as:J Fam Issues. 2014 July 1; 35(9): 1131–1151. doi:10.1177/0192513X13485077.NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript