This life-course analysis of family development focuses on the social dynamics among family members. It features parent-child relationships in a larger context, by examining the help exchange between kin and nonkin and the intergenerational transmission of family characteristics.

This life-course analysis of family development focuses on the social dynamics among family members. It features parent-child relationships in a larger context, by examining the help exchange between kin and nonkin and the intergenerational transmission of family characteristics.

How does sexual behavior change over one's life-span? How does sexual satisfaction affect the quality and stability of marriage? How has the AIDS epidemic affected sexual attitudes in America over the past three decades?
In this wide-reaching volume, distinguished sociologist Alice S. Rossi addresses these questions and others through fourteen diverse essays on sexual behavior, covering adolescence through old age and studying such groups as singles, married couples, and homosexuals. This extensive study also explores the effects of chronic disease and medication on sexual functioning, recent developments in psychotherapy for sexual problems, and sexual abuse of children, incest, and rape.
"The interdisciplinary nature of the project has resulted in a text that is accessible to anyone with a behavioral science background. Well written, well edited, and well received by this reviewer."--Joan C. Chrisler, "Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy"
"This is a book that needs to be on the bookshelf of any AIDS researcher."--"AIDS Book Review Journal"

"Here are, as Alice Rossi claims in her well-written preface, 'the essential works of feminism, ' published over a period of 200 years. Her introductions to each section are informative and written with nonpolemical grace." -- Doris Grumbach, New Republic

From all sides we hear that Americans are becoming increasingly self-absorbed and disconnected, and that their social and civic responsibility is on the decline. A more encouraging profile emerges in this study, which emphasizes the domains of life in which we spend most of our time-work, family, kin, friends, and home care. The book is based on a national, representative survey of more than 3,000 Americans aged 25 to 74, supplemented by intensive interviews with Blacks, Puerto Ricans, and Dominicans in New York City, an eight-day time budget study of daily experiences of contact and giving to others, and in-depth interviews on what social responsibility means in their lives.
The book explores in detail the extent to which adults contribute time to caregiving and social support, and the extent of their financial assistance to members of their families; the time given to volunteer work; and financial contributions to a variety of causes, charities, and organizations. The authors also examine how these contributions are affected by the time and effort required by job obligations, and they find that to the extent they are able, adults do provide emotional and social support, and even hands-on caregiving and financial help, to family and friends.
A major focus of the study is on age and gender differences, and midlife proves to be a watershed time of transition when civic activities increase as family obligations decline. For example, felt obligations to family members and to jobs decrease with age, while volunteer service increases with age. Less-educated adults give more of their time; better-educated adults give more money. Also, women give more time, and men more money when thesexes are compared. Between generations, social and emotional support is reciprocal, but reflecting the greatly improved finances of today's elderly, money flows largely from the elderly to the younger members of a family.
Americans work longer hours with shorter vacations than adults in any other Western society, and their labor combined with the taxes they pay are critical contributions to the larger society. And although Americans may have more fragile marriages and bear fewer children than ever, the ties between grandparents, parents, and children remain strong across our expanded life spans. All told, this important study adds a hopeful new voice to the overwhelmingly negative debate about the current state of our civic and social lives.