Tim B. Heaton

TIM B. HEATON is a professor in the Department of Sociology at Brigham Young University and associate director of the Family Studies Center. For the last 20 years, he has studied trends in U.S. and LDS family demographics. He is also doing research on family interaction and children's well-being in Latin America.

Contraceptive Use Among Mormons, 1965-75

Articles/Essays – Volume 16, No. 3

Dialogue 16.3 (Fall 1984): 108–113
For some families, delaying birth control until after the arrival of the first or second child is undoubtedly consistent with a desire to begin a family soon after marriage. In other cases, however, failure to practice birth control during the first and/or second birth intervals may be based on a belief that to do so would be contrary to Church teachings.

Four Characteristics of the Mormon Family: Contemporary Research on Chastity, Conjugality, Children, and Chauvinism

Articles/Essays – Volume 20, No. 2

From its inception, Mormonism has been characterized by a blend of traditional American culture mixed with unique, sometimes even radical, elements. The nineteenth-century Mormon family combined aspects of Puritan family morality with a unique theology…

Demographics of the Contemporary Mormon Family

Articles/Essays – Volume 25, No. 3

Certain characteristics of Mormon families are consistent with the social and theological emphasis the LDS Church places on family life. For example, in 1987 I wrote about the four C’s of the Mormon family: Chastity…

Familial, Socioeconomic, and Religious Behavior: A Comparison of LDS and Non-LDS Women

Articles/Essays – Volume 27, No. 2

Social Forces that Imperil the Family

Articles/Essays – Volume 32, No. 4

Since mid-century, dramatic changes in family demographics have characterized patterns of parenthood and sexual partnerships in America. As age at marriage has increased, the age at initiation of sexual inter course has decreased so that adolescents and young adults are spending several years sexually experienced but not married. Cohabitation is becoming a common experience during this stage of their lives. The age at which people start having children has not changed as much as has age at marriage so that an increasing proportion of children are born to single parents. At the same time, marriages have become much less stable so that adults are spending more time single after marriage, and children are more likely to live at least part of their lives with a single parent.