Separations exert a detrimental impact on different areas of life in both adults and children. Having already experienced family instability, stepfamily members are at risk of experiencing even multiple family separations across the life course. To better understand stepfamily (in)stability in Europe, we study stability risks and facilitators between stepfamilies in Germany. We pursue Cherlin’s perspective of stepfamilies’ destabilizing lack of institutionalization. Specifically, we assess the impact of social control in terms of social and legislative conditions, (step)parents’ social roles in terms of gender roles, and customs and conventions of family life in terms of union status.

We apply event history analysis to a sample of 2,166 stepfamilies, 543 of which end up separated, from the German National Educational Panel Study (NEPS). For example, we find that social and legislative liberalization might destabilize stepfamilies if it eases leaving unhappy relationships, and might stabilize stepfamilies if it alleviates stepfamilies’ financial or caregiving burdens through de-familiarization. In contrast to stepfather families, stepmother families’ stability appears to profit from stepmothers’ and biological fathers’ investment in stepfamily relationships to make up for noncomplying with gendered social roles. Overall, stepfamily stability appears to benefit from individual as well as societal pursuits of re-institutionalization.