The family histories of Australian women

"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." (SUMMARY IN FRE)