“This paper provides a systematic characterization of family regimes in Latin America, trends in key indicators, divergence by educational status, and paradoxes of Latin American family change, analysing the rich collection of census and survey microdata available in the region. First, we describe family regimes in Latin America across four factors/dimensions and show their variation across 368 regions and 15 countries. Second, we document changes over time since the 1970s with reference to the key variables contributing to each of the four factors. Third, we explore for a selection of countries— Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil— divergence by education in women’s partnership status, extended coresidence, and household headship. And fourth, we unpack the lack of correspondence between the micro and macro dimensions of family change over time and across space. All in all, one finds a puzzle of rich interactions, regional trends and unexpected paradoxes that should, at least, stimulate social theorists to produce frameworks that encompass both individual level predictors and the ways in which they interact with the social context. The idea of a relatively homogenous society from which destinies start to diverge is not the case in Latin America. Destinies have been diverging for centuries”.