Abstract
This paper exploits retrospective life-history data to examine changing age-specific patterns of co-residence of Australian women between the ages of 20 and 59 years at interview in 1986. Overlaying histories of leaving home, marital unions and childbearing, we identify cohort changes in the time spent before leaving the parental home, in transition between leaving home and forming a conjugal union, in times spent in union and times spent with children. Our analyses show that, despite massive recent declines in fertility and nuptiality, and a greater diversity in living arrangements, the nuclear family of couple and children remains the most common household unit and is unlikely to lose its pre-eminence in the near future.
Résumé
Cet article utilise des données biographiques rétrospectives, pour examiner les changements dans les conduites résidentielles de femmes australiennes selon l'âge. Ces femmes interviewées en 1986 avaient entre 20 et 59 ans. Recoupant les biographies migratoires et familiales, nous identifions des changements selon les cohortes dans la durée passée chez les parents, dans la transition entre la décohabitation et la formation d'une union conjugale, dans les durées passées en union et les durées passées avec les enfants. Nos analyses montrent que la famille nucléaire avec un couple et des enfants reste le type de ménage le plus répandu qui a peu de chances de perdre sa prééminence dans le proche avenir, cela en dépit de la récente et importante baisse de la fécondite et de la nuptialité.
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Bracher, M., Santow, G. The family histories of australian women. Eur J Population 6, 227–256 (1990). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01796620
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01796620