Stepfamilies in adulthood Solidarity between parents and children

The relation between parents and children is both the first and the most permanent social relation over the human life-course. With a rapid increase in parental separation and repartnering starting in the second half of the 20^th century, a growing group of today’s adults has spent their youth with parents’ new partners, their stepparents. In stepfamilies, traditional markers of parenthood – like genetic relatedness, co-residence, and parental authority – are often disconnected, leading to a large diversity in parent-child relations. Using large-scale survey data, this dissertation sheds new light on the long-term consequences of these demographic changes for intergenerational solidarity. In five empirical studies, it considers the different dimensions of the adult (step)parent-child relation in light of the complex context and dynamics of the stepfamily.