Scholars have long looked to family composition to understand child well-being. Family instability, or the experience of repeated changes in parents' union status during childhood, represents a recent advance in this field that takes into account the dynamic nature of contemporary family organization and considers its implications for children's adjustment and development. We review some of the structural and cultural factors that have contributed to rising levels of family instability and highlight the emergence of national data to measure it. We then review the perspective that guides much of the scholarship on family instability and critically assess the contributions of this work to the understanding of child well-being. We close by suggesting new directions for research, with a call for work that broadens the conceptualization and measurement of contemporary children's family systems and home environments as well as the mechanisms that explain why-or whether-instability matters.

中文翻译：

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美国儿童生活中的家庭不稳定。


长期以来，学者们一直通过家庭构成来了解儿童的福祉。家庭不稳定，或者说童年时期父母结合状况反复变化的经历，代表了这一领域的最新进展，它考虑了当代家庭组织的动态性质，并考虑了其对儿童调整和发展的影响。我们回顾了一些导致家庭不稳定程度上升的结构和文化因素，并强调了衡量家庭不稳定程度的国家数据的出现。然后，我们回顾了指导家庭不稳定大部分学术研究的观点，并批判性地评估了这项工作对理解儿童福祉的贡献。最后，我们提出了新的研究方向，呼吁开展工作，扩大当代儿童家庭系统和家庭环境的概念化和衡量，以及解释不稳定因素为何或是否重要的​​机制。