MORE and more fathers are bringing up other men’s children while their own children grow up elsewhere, according to research showing that nearly a fifth of thirtysomething men are now stepfathers.
Government-funded research published today shows that the proportion of men becoming stepfathers has doubled over 12 years, with the step-family now the fastest growing family type. The rise in social, as opposed to biological, parenting is an important new phenomenon in family life, which could have profound effects on parent-child and sibling relationships, as well as on public policy.
The research, reported in a new Economic and Social Research Council publication, The Seven Ages of Man and Woman, shows that no fewer than 17 per cent of men born in 1970 are stepfathers, twice as many as among men born in 1958. For children this means that, on average, 10 per cent of the siblings of today’s six- to eight-year-olds are step-siblings or half-siblings. The average number of siblings of a child at this age is just 1.5. Forty years ago the average seven-year-old lived with 2.1 other children, only a tiny minority of whom would have been step-siblings.
The research, based on major cohort studies following the lives of thousands of people born in 1958, 1970, 1984-86 and 2001-02, also shows that the likelihood that a child will be living with both natural parents by the time he is in his teens is falling rapidly. Of people born in 1958, almost 90 per cent were still living with both parents at age 16. This fell to 82 per cent for people born in 1970 and to 65 per cent for children born in 1984-86.
Fifteen per cent of babies born in 2001-02 live just with their mothers. Of these nearly four in ten have no contact with their biological fathers at all.
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Mary MacLeod, chief executive of the National Family and Parenting Institute, said that it would be wrong to assume that social relationships in step-families were any less committed than blood relationships within traditional nuclear families. She pointed out that the step-family was common a century or more ago, when life expectancy was so much lower and it was common for bereaved spouses to remarry or repartner.
“For today’s families, though, it is new and we need to be thinking about the kinds of support that we can give to people in coping with being in a step-family. How difficult it can be to adapt can depend on the age of the children. For a teenager, for example, if they have a good relationship with their biological parents, they are less likely to want another parent and may be seeking a friend or an ‘aunt’ figure instead of a stepfather or mother,” she said.
Children needed to be given a lot of help in adapting to live with step-siblings and halfsiblings, Ms MacLeod added. “One major issue for children will be equality and fairness, and the way to cope with this is through very clear talking and openness,” she said.
The growth of the stepfamily also has far-reaching implications in terms of public policy, Ms MacLeod said. “At present a step-parent does not have parental responsibility for their stepchild unless they apply for it or adopt their partner’s child. Should that be changed? How would the biological parent feel if a step-parent did get automatic parental responsibility? There may be cases where it is appropriate, but others where it is not,” she said.