A Typology of Family Cohesion

The problems associated with proxy reporting are well documented (e.g., Tanur, 1990). However, for household surveys, it is neither reasonable to expect, nor practical to seek, individual reports from each family member in every household. Some members can not be contacted, others would refuse, and all of these individual reports would require a much greater expenditure of resources. Instead, it might be possible to find some method for estimating the accuracy of proxy responses from specific households. Interviews with every family member would only be attempted in those households with a very low probability of accurate proxy knowledge. Even if this information were not used to screen families, it would provide a means of evaluating the quality of survey estimates. In order to explore the possibility of collecting such information, BLS contracted with Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to conduct an experimental study of the level of proxy knowledge and the communication pattems within selected households conceming the employment history and expenditures of individual members (the Intrahousehold Communications Study (IHCS). We believe that certain family demographic and situational characteristics may be useful for predicting the level of proxy knowledge within households. Specifically, we believe that certain demographic and situational characteristics are related to different levels of family cohesion, which are reflected in the amount of knowledge family members share. In this paper, some of the data collected in the IHCS are used to classify families according to their extent of cohesion. The associations between cohesion and various household characteristics are examined. A Typology of Family Cohesion As early as the 1930's, the family sociologist Angell (1936) identified cohesion as an important dimension for trying to understand interactions among family members (or "family integration.") More recently, in their examination of the research on families, Olson, Sprenkle, and Russell (1979) found cohesion to be one of the two concepts most often used in describing family behavior. In fact, they use cohesion in developing a "family systems" model for clinical application. They identify two components of family cohesion: "the emotional bonding members have with one another and the degree of individual autonomy a person experiences in the family system. " (1979, p.5, italics are theirs). From our perspective, family cohesion is a group-level concept, but it must be measured in terms of specific interactions among family members. We believe the family exists to meet three types of needs of the individuals in it -social, emotional, and material. The interactions between family members are designed to accomplish this goal, and a particular interaction can be classified according to which one of the three needs it primarily addresses. Thus, the level of family cohesion, or the particular balance achieved between the two opposing forces identified by Olson, Sprenkle and Russell (1979), is determined by the ways in which a family goes about meeting the social, emotional, and material needs of its members. We measured the amount of cohesion demonstrated in the performance of one family activity, the purchase of goods and services. To do this, we developed three indicators of the interactions surrounding this activity