Doubled up : shared households and the precarious lives of families / Hope Harvey.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Harvey, Hope, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Households.

Families.

Social history.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (294 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2025]

Summary:

How sharing a home with extended family or friends serves as a crucial, but imperfect, private safety net for families with childrenMore than fifteen percent of US children--over eleven million--live in doubled-up households, sharing space with extended family or friends. These households are even more common among low-income families, families of color, and single-parent families, functioning as a private safety net for many in a country with extremely limited public support for families. Yet despite their prevalence, we know little about how shared households form and how they shape family life. Doubled Up is an in-depth look at the experiences of families with children living in doubled-up households.Drawing on extensive interviews with sixty parents living in doubled-up households, Hope Harvey examines what circumstances and motivations lead families to form doubled-up households, how living in shared households affects daily routines, and how families fare after these arrangements dissolve.Harvey shows that although families rely on doubling up to get by in the face of rapidly rising housing costs, precarious labor markets, and unaffordable childcare, these private arrangements are rarely sufficient to overcome such structural barriers. And doubling up incurs its own costs for both host and guest families. For doubled-up families, negotiating household relationships and navigating shared space reshapes family life. Understanding the dynamics of doubled-up households extends scholarship on family life beyond the nuclear family and points the way toward better policies that will serve all families.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Introduction: The Rise of Doubled-Up Households

Part I: Becoming Doubled Up

1 Doubling Up as a Guest

2 Doubling Up as a Host

Part II: Living Doubled Up

3 Authority and Autonomy

4 Economic Exchange

5 Romantic Relationships

6 Raising Children

Part III: After Doubling Up

7 The Challenges of Doubled-Up Household Dissolutions

8 Getting By and Getting Ahead by Doubling Up

Conclusion: The Imperfect Private Safety Net

Acknowledgments

Methods Appendix

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780691247045

0691247048

OCLC:

1500761524