Young adults are moving back into their family homes and are now living with their parents. Common terms for the adult children include "previously launched adult" and "incompletely launched adult." I used data from Wave 3 (2001 to 2003) of the National Survey of Families and Households to analyze the relationship between different life course and family development variables and the launching status of young adults. This dissertation specifically uses the dependent variable "launching status" of either previously launched or failure to launch. I undertake two multinomial logistic regression models with the dependent variable "launching status." I then proceed to a replication of the original analysis with two other multinomial logistic regression models, using the dependent variable "launching status" and the data gathered from Wave 2 of the National Survey of Families and Households (1992 to 1994). I conclude with a descriptive analysis of the 2009 American Community Survey to describe current trends of adult child and parent co-residence. The first analysis uses various life course variables as independent variables and then introduces control variables into the models. The second analysis uses various family development and family structure variables and then introduces control variables into the models. After running the two models using the Wave 3 data, I determined that the life course variables had a significant relationship with launching status, and the family development variables did not prove to be very significantly related to launching status. The replication of the Wave 3 analysis with the Wave 2 data showed similar results. Like the original analysis, the life course variables were significantly related to launching status, whereas the family development variables were not significantly related to launching status. The descriptive results using the American Community Survey data show that a majority of young adults who are living at home are between the ages of 18 and 24, are male, are White and non-Hispanic, and have a high school education or less. The major contribution of this research is that it differentiates between those who have never left the family home and those who left and then returned. This is the first study, to my knowledge, to do so.

<p>Over the past three decades, the phenomenon of children's health in China has been marked by a co-existence of overweight and underweight. As the primary institution for a child, family is an opportune place for child malnutrition intervention. By advancing a framework that addresses the contextual factors which shape the heterogeneity of socioeconomic gradients of child overweight/obesity, this dissertation has sought to understand the channels through which access to family resources influences child overweight/obesity in China. Based on these developed understandings, I identified the mechanisms by which having any younger siblings and three generation living together or proximately affect child malnutrition in China. Using data drawn from China Health and Nutrition Survey, this dissertation uncovered remarkable differences in multiple levels of contextual factors that shape a child's risk of overweight/obesity and underweight in China as compared to Western society. China's stage of economic development together with the drastically increasing income inequality has created an ever-increasing socioeconomic gap in child overweight/obesity, especially after 1997. This finding confirmed the position of the Ecological System framework that access to obesogenic environment is much more important than willpower based on knowledge in shaping one's obesity-related risk behavior. Although the fertility level has been lowered by One Child Policy, resource dilution effect still affects girls' nutrition status, especially for those exposed to poverty and food insecurity. Children in the care of grandparents are healthier, probably due to the generally low degree of access to obesogenic foods and a closer intergenerational relationship that facilitates effective communication and promotes healthy lifestyle formation.</p> / Dissertation