Table 2. Prevalence and Stability of Combinations of Nuclear and Extended Family Structures: Mexican Children in Mexico and the United States.
| Family structure | Mexico | United States | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Children with nonmigrant parents (N = 1,013) |
U.S. born children of immigrant parents (N = 650) |
U.S. born children of U.S. born parents (N = 550) |
|||||||
| Age 0–1 (%) |
Age 4–5 (%) |
Stable family structurea (%) |
Age 0–1 (%) |
Age 4–5 (%) |
Stable family structurea (%) |
Age 0–1 (%) |
Age 4–5 (%) |
Stable family structurea (%) |
|
| Two married parents | 66.9 | 68.3 | (90.9) | 58.6 | 62.6 | (95.5) | 52.6 | 55.3 | (88.7) |
| Nuclear | 48.1 | 50.6 | 89.6 | 43.5 | 49.1 | 84.8 | 42.7 | 47.4 | 84.7 |
| Vertically extended | 15.6 | 14.1 | 67.9 | 2.5 | 2.5 | 33.1 | 5.4 | 3.7 | 45.4 |
| Horizontally extended | 1.8 | 2.3 | 69.7 | 9.2 | 8.8 | 36.0 | 2.7 | 2.6 | 33.6 |
| Both types of extension | 1.5 | 1.4 | 76.5 | 3.4 | 2.2 | 13.6 | 1.8 | 1.6 | 9.3 |
| Two cohabiting parents | 17.3 | 16.3 | (61.1) | 29.0 | 23.7 | (68.7) | 20.0 | 14.1 | (49.2) |
| Nuclear | 11.7 | 11.1 | 63.0 | 17.8 | 18.4 | 68.5 | 15.1 | 11.2 | 45.8 |
| Vertically extended | 4.8 | 4.3 | 44.6 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 9.6 | 1.4 | 0.8 | 7.9 |
| Horizontally extended | 0.5 | 0.4 | 62.1 | 7.0 | 3.9 | 35.9 | 0.8 | 1.8 | 83.9 |
| Both types of extension | 0.3 | 0.5 | 19.9 | 2.8 | 0.9 | 6.9 | 2.6 | 0.3 | 8.0 |
| Single parent | 15.8 | 15.4 | (83.2) | 12.4 | 13.8 | (56.7) | 27.5 | 30.7 | (71.2) |
| Nuclear | 3.7 | 3.6 | 55.6 | 6.0 | 6.8 | 41.0 | 9.5 | 13.9 | 40.6 |
| Vertically extended | 10.4 | 8.9 | 76.7 | 1.3 | 2.6 | 63.4 | 6.5 | 9.5 | 55.9 |
| Horizontally extended | 0.9 | 1.5 | 76.8 | 2.4 | 1.6 | 20.1 | 1.1 | 1.6 | 5.5 |
| Both types of extension | 0.9 | 1.4 | 89.3 | 2.7 | 2.9 | 55.9 | 10.4 | 5.8 | 37.3 |
Note: The number of cases listed for each group is based on unweighted data. Numbers for children in the United States rounded to the nearest 50 to comply with requirements of the birth cohort of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-B). Data for children in Mexico come from the Mexican Family Life Study; data for children in the United States come from the ECLS-B. The percentages of children in each nuclear family type are highlighted in boldface type. The shaded columns show the percentages of individual children who were in the same family arrangement at both ages.
In this column, numbers in parentheses represent stability in the number of parents in the household and parental union type regardless of extended family arrangements. Numbers without parentheses represent stability in household structure taking family extension into account.