Bengtson, Vern L., Biblarz, Timothy J., & Roberts, Robert E. L. How Families Still Matter: a Longitudinal Study of Youth in Two Generations

Adolescence, Spring, 2004

BENGTSON, Vern L., BIBLARZ, Timothy J., & ROBERTS, Robert E. L. How Families Still Matter: A Longitudinal Study of Youth in Two Generations. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. 238pp. $58.00 (h), $21.00 (p).

Are family influences on youth declining in importance? Are parents less important in shaping the life orientations and achievements of youth than they were a generation ago? What about the consequences of divorce? How Families Still Matter casts doubt on the conventional wisdom about family decline during the last decades of the twentieth century. The authors draw from the longest-running longitudinal study of families in the world--the Longitudinal Study of Generations, conducted at the University of Southern California--to discover whether parents are really less critical in shaping the life choices and achievements of their children than they were a generation ago. They compare the influence of parents on the Baby Boomer generation with that of Baby Boomer parents on their own Generation-X children. Chapters include: families, generations, and achievement orientations of youth; models and methods of intergenerational influences; the changing contexts of family life since the 1960s; educational and occupational aspirations of youth across generations; self-esteem--self-confidence and self-deprecation of youth; value orientations--youth's individualism and materialism across generations; continuity and change in family influences across generations; and why families still matter.