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Open research questions in Family Dynamics and Relationships

380 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 11,116 Family Dynamics and Relationships papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • Abstract Objectives Although prior literature documented the positive effect of adult children’s education on parental cognitive function, research investigating trajectories of Chinese parents’ cognitive function owing to adult children’s education remains sparse.

    Adult children’s education and trajectories of Chinese parents’ cognitive function: Gender differences and the underlying mechanisms · 2026 · DOI

  • 336 The breadth of the contested corpus subjects cohabitants to the same expansive financial discovery required of divorcing spouses, even if a court ultimately concludes that no or only minimal shifting of property in derogation of title is warranted.

    Properties of Intimacy · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should explore whether and how the influence of romantic partners contributes to broader macro-trends through simulations or agent-based models that quantify micro-macro linkages between individual-level convergence and societal-level shifts in beliefs.

    Adaptation of gender and marriage beliefs: Early relationship years and cohabitation drive partner influence · 2026 · DOI

  • Perspective of the RP (and partly of children aged 9-17) Parents of a focus child aged 0-14, who (1) resides at least 70% of the time with the RP and has contact with the NRP or (2) lives with the NRP 30-70% of the time Perspective of the RP; partly also of the NRP and target children aged 7- 14 years Parents aged 18-49 with at least one child living not "permanently" in the same household NRP on non-resident child Sociodemographics On NRP & RP (NRPs’ vital status, current activity status, educational credentials, occupation, migration background) On NRP & RP (NRPs’ vital status, current activity status, educational credentials) On NRP (limited on RP) (extensive information on NRP including household type, current partnership, activity status, etc.; minimal information on RP: living in a household with a partner) Residential distance between NRP & RP household (in categories; e.g., same neighborhood) Residential distance between NRP & RP household (in…

    Enhancing potentials for research on post-separation families using the Growing Up in Germany panel study · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should consider variation across housing markets and state social policy environments (Bruch et al. However, given the lack of consensus—even between different adults in the same doubled- up household—about how to share resources, there is no easy answer to the question of whose income should count.

    Economic Exchange and Relational Work in Doubled-Up Households · 2026 · DOI

  • To my knowledge, no data has been released by the Slovak government on whether the practice of combining employment with benefits has continued to decline after 2019 or rebounded after public scrutiny eased off.

    Involved Fatherhood in Slovakia? A Multi‐Dimensional Picture Painted Using Multiple Methods · 2026 · DOI

  • The series addresses three key questions: (i) how newly emerging and comparatively understudied dimensions of uncertainty influence the decisional process of childbearing, (ii) how the multilevel experiences of uncertainty relate to childbearing, and (iii) how uncertainty interacts with preexisting social inequalities in shaping fertility.

    Introduction to the Genus thematic series: The Inequality of uncertainty · 2026 · DOI

  • The references indicate research linking co-parenting quality to child adjustment and parental stress, but the specific predictive validity of the CARE scale for child outcomes (internalizing/externalizing problems, attachment security) in Chilean separated families has not been established; criterion-related validation studies linking ex-partner support to child psychological outcomes are needed.

    Support Received from Ex-Partners (CARE) in the Context of Separation and Divorce: Psychometric Properties in the Chilean Population · 2026 · DOI

  • While the paper establishes psychometric properties in separation and divorce contexts, longitudinal validation of the Support Received from Ex-Partners scale across time points (e.g., 6 months, 1 year, 2 years post-separation) is not addressed; temporal stability and sensitivity to changes in co-parenting support require prospective investigation.

    Support Received from Ex-Partners (CARE) in the Context of Separation and Divorce: Psychometric Properties in the Chilean Population · 2026 · DOI

  • The excerpt cites research on parental burnout and co-parenting quality but does not establish whether the CARE scale demonstrates differential measurement properties by gender of respondent (mother vs. father ex-partners); gender-stratified psychometric analyses and potential differential item functioning for the support scale require investigation.

    Support Received from Ex-Partners (CARE) in the Context of Separation and Divorce: Psychometric Properties in the Chilean Population · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper references coparenting interventions for fragile families but does not specify whether the CARE scale's psychometric properties have been tested across different socioeconomic strata or family income levels; validation of the instrument's performance in low-income versus high-income separated/divorced families requires targeted investigation.

    Support Received from Ex-Partners (CARE) in the Context of Separation and Divorce: Psychometric Properties in the Chilean Population · 2026 · DOI

  • The CARE scale psychometric validation was conducted exclusively in the Chilean population; cross-cultural validation of the Support Received from Ex-Partners scale in other Latin American contexts with different family structures and divorce legal frameworks is needed to establish measurement invariance across populations.

    Support Received from Ex-Partners (CARE) in the Context of Separation and Divorce: Psychometric Properties in the Chilean Population · 2026 · DOI

  • Given the complexity of the research topic and its involvement in interdisciplinary fields, there are still some limitations in the research process. First, regarding data sources, this study used focusing solely on 45,810 Weibo posts crawled by Octopus, one social media platform. This single-platform data collection approach may limit representativeness and thus constrain the generalizability of the reliance on the findings. Additionally, publicly available social media data means that certain types of user content, particularly private or restricted posts, were excluded. This exclusion may limit the comprehensiveness of the dataset, as the views of individuals who prefer to keep their posts private are not captured. Moreover, although the study employed several classical techniques and made innovations based on them, these methods themselves also have inherent limitations. Finally, the characteristics of social media users may differ from the general population in terms of fertility intentions, which further restricts the extent to which the results reflect broader public attitudes. Building on the findings of this study, future research may extend the analytical framework in several directions. First, expanding the temporal scope could help capture longer-term dynamics in public fertility attitudes. Second, developing higher-frequency or near real-time monitoring models may enable more precise tracking of public sentiment responses to policy changes or major social events. Third, incorporating more fine-grained or multimodal data could further deepen the understanding of heterogeneity in fertility intentions and their potential behavioral implications.

    Dynamic monitoring of public opinion on fertility intentions: based on the intersection of empirical and social media perspectives · 2026 · DOI

  • Xiaoning Wang*, Jinyuan Fu, Jingru Fan and Jianglin Zeng School of Data Science and Intelligent Media, Communication University of China, Beijing, China Introduction: In the context of China’s rapid economic development and profound social changes, adjusting fertility policies has become a key national strategy. However, the long-term effectiveness of fertility incentives such as the three-child policy remains uncertain due to the lack of comprehensive economic and social support measures. Methods: This study innovatively utilizes Large Language Models (LLMs) to assist social media analysis, including intelligent noise removal and weighted sentiment analysis. By combining empirical data and a social media perspective, we developed the Dynamic Monitoring of Public Opinion on Fertility Intentions (DMPOFI). The aim of this paper is to analyze the factors influencing fertility intentions among Chinese women, providing theoretical support for policy formulation. The study analyzes 45,810 Weibo posts, all in Chinese, focusing on the public’s views and sentiment toward fertility intentions. Through methods such as weighted sentiment analysis, LDA topic modeling, and TF-IDF, we gain insights into the changing public attitudes in recent years. Results: From the perspective of fertility intentions, the period of 2015– 2016 was the most positive, while from 2017 to 2019, public attitudes toward fertility gradually became more rational and neutral. From 2020 to 2023, fertility intentions significantly declined, with neutral and negative emotions gradually dominating. The core factors influencing fertility intentions identified in this study include policy changes, social perceptions, economic pressures, worklife balance, cultural shifts, fluctuations in birth rates, and discussions on family planning. Discussion: Based on these findings, we propose a series of policy recommendations, urging the government to provide more flexible maternity leave policies, workplace support, and childcare services.

    Dynamic monitoring of public opinion on fertility intentions: based on the intersection of empirical and social media perspectives · 2026 · DOI

  • Furthermore, when their direct authority is insufficient, mothers strategically leverage the traditional disciplinarian role of their OFW husbands, highlighting a critical, yet under-explored, reciprocal dynamic: non-migrant wives reinforce the OFW father's authority, while the OFW husband's involvement simultaneously empowers the mother's disciplinary actions.

    Negotiating motherhood and authority: the experience of non-migrant wives in parenting their adolescent children from Filipino transnational families · 2025 · DOI

  • Using long-running survey data from the German Socio-economic Panel Study (GSOEP, 1984–2020, N = 108,340) and estimating linear probability models with fixed-effects, we contribute substantially to previous research that has been limited by cross-sectional approaches with mixed or even contradictory results.

    From parenthood to planet care? The evolution of environmental and climate concerns during family formation · 2025 · DOI

  • Abstract The occurrence of stalls and reversals in age at first marriage despite ongoing education expansion is a salient and understudied demographic paradox of sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

    Prevalence and Drivers of Stalls and Reversals in Age at First Marriage in Sub-Saharan Africa · 2025 · DOI

  • The progress of women in education and their increased contribution to the family economy cast doubt on this assumption, but limited data availability has hindered research on children’s SSS.

    How Do Children Self-Locate Themselves in the Social Hierarchy? Educationally Homogamous Parents, Working Mothers, and Children’s Subjective Social Status · 2024 · DOI

  • To fill the gap in the literature, this paper draws data from the two most recent rounds of the National Survey on Fertility, Family Health, and Welfare ( N = 20,669), and adopted a competing risks framework to estimate the hazards of an intended first birth and unintended first birth relative to no birth.

    Educational Gradient in Unintended First Births in Korea · 2023 · DOI

  • CONTRIBUTION: This volume highlights the complexity and heterogeneity of contemporary East Asian families, inviting family and demography researchers to conduct more studies on under-researched family behaviors such as cohabitation and nonmarital births and to revisit the conventional perception that family ties are strong and family support is readily available in East Asia.

    Introduction to the special collection on family changes and inequality in East Asia · 2021 · DOI

  • The interplay between remarriage and fertility is among the most poorly documented subjects in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), despite remarriage being one of the fundamental aspects of marriage dynamics in this region.

    Fertility decline in sub-Saharan Africa: Does remarriage matter? · 2021 · DOI

  • Although there are well-established relationships between women's higher education, labour force participation (LFP), and occupation on the one hand and childlessness on the other hand in the US, the underlying reasons and the role that childlessness desires and expectations play remain unclear.

    Explaining the Associations of Education and Occupation with Childlessness: The Role of Desires and Expectations to Remain Childless · 2021 · DOI

  • Other types of communications between non-resident parents and their children might be under-researched because face-to-face contact is a condition for other types of contact (Schier 2016).

    Contact Between Non-Resident Parents and Their Children During the COVID-19 in Hungary · 2020 · DOI

  • Although the geographic perspectives of family formation and divorce risks have received considerable global attention, the spatial variations of divorce rates have not been examined across Arab countries or GCC communities.

    The Effects of Sociodemographic Characteristics on Divorce Rates in Oman: Spatial Modeling of Marital Separations · 2020 · DOI

  • The continuing popularity of astrology may at least partly be linked to an insufficient body of empirical research that has been able to test hypotheses formulated by astrological theory, both due to a lack of data beyond very small study populations as well as astrological predictions frequently being vague and thereby difficult to test.

    The validity of astrological predictions on marriage and divorce: a longitudinal analysis of Swedish register data · 2020 · DOI

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380 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 11,116 Family Dynamics and Relationships papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

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