Family Complexity Among Children in Colombia: Patterns and Implications for Policy and Research

Background and Purpose: Latin American families have experienced significant changes over the past four decades. Although we understand some of these transformations, including the dramatic increase in cohabitation and the number of households headed by women (Esteve & Florez-Paredes, 2018), much less is known about patterns of family complexity, especially from the perspective of children. The extent to which children live in families that include stepparents and step and half- siblings and how these families differ from simple two-biological-parent families has important implications for scholars and policymakers. In this study, we help address this research gap by examining the patterns in family complexity among children in Colombia between 2010 and 2016. Specifically, we investigate the following research questions: 1) What is the incidence of family complexity among children? 2) How has the incidence of family complexity among children changed over time? And 3) How do children in complex families differ from children in simple two-biological-parent families? We discuss implications of these results for policy and research.

Methods: We use data from 3,053 children from the Colombian Longitudinal Survey who were observed in the 2010, 2013, and 2016 waves. We create two measures of family complexity from the perspective of children: parent complexity and sibling complexity. We consider children who lived in a married step, cohabiting step, or a single-parent family as experiencing family complexity because these children live apart from one biological parent. We consider sibling complexity as living with at least one half or stepsibling (Manning, Brown & Stykes, 2014; Sanner & Jensen, 2021). We use weighted descriptive statistics to calculate the incidence and evolution of parent and sibling complexity (research questions 1 and 2) and a series of descriptive statistics and multivariate analyses to examine individual and family characteristics associated with the experience of family complexity (research question 3).

Results: Approximately 2 out of 5 Colombian children were experiencing parent complexity in 2016. Moreover, the proportion of children experiencing parent complexity increased over time: 1 in 8 children who were living in a simple two-biological-parent family in 2010 were experiencing parent complexity by 2016. Children living in complex families were more socioeconomically disadvantaged than children living in simple two-biological-parent families. However, there was variation within parent-complex families, with children in stepparent families appearing more socioeconomically advantaged than children in single-parent families.

Conclusions and Implications: Our initial findings suggest that family complexity is a common and growing experience among Colombian children. Therefore, conventional measures of family structure may not accurately describe the living arrangements of Colombian children. Policies that are designed for simple two-biological-parent families may be excluding a significant population of Colombian children. For example, parents eligible for Familias en Accion—the country’s flagship antipoverty strategy—must provide legal proof of parent-child relationship to be able to enroll their children in the program. This means that all children in simple two-biological-parent families are considered in the estimation of benefits while stepchildren in complex families are excluded. Our study will add to global evidence documenting growing family complexity worldwide.