"Adolescent Well-Being in an Era of Family Instability and Complexity: Demographic Trends and Family Processes"

BCTR Talks at Twelve

The American family has undergone profound transformations since the mid-twentieth century, fueled by dramatic growth in cohabitation, divorce, and non-marital childbearing. Today, less than half of children will grow up solely in a traditional nuclear family. What are the consequences of growing up in unstable and complex families? In her talk Dr. Tach will describe trends and disparities in children’s exposure to family instability and complexity and document the consequences for adolescent educational and socio-emotional outcomes. She will conclude with a discussion of novel data collection strategies for monitoring family processes in complex households.

Dr. Laura Tach is an assistant professor in the Department of Policy Analysis and Management. She is a sociologist who studies urban poverty and family life. Her mixed-methods research examines how neighborhoods and families reproduce inequality and how public policy affects these processes. Her recent work examines how family structure shapes social mobility and how families utilize public and private safety nets to mitigate material hardship. Laura received her Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Policy at Harvard University. Prior to coming to Cornell, Laura was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.