Manning Wendy D
Department of Sociology, Center for Family and Demographic Research, National Center for Family and Marriage Research.
J Econ Soc Meas. 2015;40(1-4):197-219. doi: 10.3233/JEM-150419.
The American family has undergone rapid transformation. Careful measurement attention to family formation is important because families are at the heart of numerous decisions, roles, and responsibilities with implications for understanding the well-being of families, adults and children. This paper considers whether there is a need for a new household panel study that addresses family formation. This paper consists of a review of the recent body of population-based, American surveys and finds a considerable gap in the ability to study the implications of families for the health and well-being of Americans. Earlier panel surveys used to assess family life anchored questions around marital events, but changes in family patterns require attention to a more diverse set of family forms. The paper concludes with recommendations for a multi-purpose panel study. The key challenge is to keep to pace with complexity and changes in American family life while at the same time maintaining a parsimonious set of survey questions.
美国家庭经历了迅速的转变。仔细衡量并关注家庭构成很重要，因为家庭处于众多决策、角色和责任的核心位置，这对于理解家庭、成年人和儿童的幸福有着重要意义。本文探讨是否需要一项针对家庭构成的新的家庭面板研究。本文包括对近期一系列基于美国人口的调查的综述，并发现研究家庭对美国人健康和幸福的影响的能力存在相当大的差距。早期的面板调查用于评估围绕婚姻事件展开的家庭生活相关问题，但家庭模式的变化需要关注更多样化的家庭形式。本文最后给出了关于一项多用途面板研究的建议。关键挑战在于既要跟上美国家庭生活的复杂性和变化，同时又要保持一套简洁的调查问题。
