The impact of family formation change on the cognitive, social, and emotional well-being of the next generation

Future of Children

Volumn 15, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 75-96

  Amato, Paul R ^a  

^a PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CHILD PARENT RELATION; COGNITION; EMOTION; FAMILY; REVIEW; SOCIAL ASPECT; SOCIAL PROBLEM; UNITED STATES; WELLBEING;

ADOLESCENT; ADULT; CHILD; DIVORCE; EMOTIONS; FAMILY; FEMALE; HUMANS; MALE; MARRIAGE; MENTAL HEALTH; NUCLEAR FAMILY; PARENTS; SINGLE-PARENT FAMILY; SOCIAL CLASS; SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT; UNITED STATES;

EID: 27944480100     PISSN: 10548289     EISSN: 15501558     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/foc.2005.0012     Document Type: Review

References (130)

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5. E. Mavis Hetherington, Martha Cox, and R. Cox, "Effects of Divorce on Parents and Children," in Nontraditional Families, edited by Michael Lamb (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1982), pp. 233-88.
6. pooled. For information on meta-analysis, see Harris M. Cooper and Larry V. Hedges, eds., The Handbook of Research Synthesis (New York: Russell Sage, 1994).
7. Paul R. Amato and Bruce Keith, "Consequences of Parental Divorce for Children's Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis," Psychological Bulletin 10 (1991): 26-46.
8. Paul R. Amato, "Children of Divorce in the 1990s: An Update of the Amato and Keith (1991) Meta-Analysis," Journal of Family Psychology 15 (2001): 355-70.
9. Paul R. Amato and Alan Booth, A Generation at Risk: Growing Up in an Era of Family Upheaval (Harvard University Press, 1997);
10. Paul R. Amato and Juliana M. Sobolewski, "The Effects of Divorce and Marital Discord on Adult Children's Psychological Well-Being," American Sociological Review 66 (2001): 900-21;
11. William S. Aquilino, "Impact of Childhood Family Disruption on Young Adults' Relationships with Parents," Journal of Marriage and the Family 56 (1994): 295-313;
12. Alan Booth and Paul R. Amato, "Parental Predivorce Relations and Offspring Postdivorce Well-Being," Journal of Marriage and the Family 63 (2001): 197-212;
13. Larry L. Bumpass, Theresa C. Martin, and James A. Sweet, "The Impact of Family Background and Early Marital Factors on Marital Disruption," Journal of Family Issues 12 (1991): 22-42;
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15. Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps (Harvard University Press, 1994);
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17. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see note 7);
18. Paul R. Amato, "Parental Absence during Childhood and Adult Depression," Sociological Quarterly 32 (1991): 543-56;
19. Paul R. Amato and Bruce Keith, "Separation from a Parent during Childhood and Adult Socioeconomic Attainment," Social Forces 70 (1991): 187-206;
20. William Aquilino, "The Life Course of Children Born to Unmarried Mothers: Childhood Living Arrangements and Young Adult Outcomes, "Journal of Marriage and the Family 58 (1996): 293-310;
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24. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see note 7).
25. Amato, "Parental Absence during Childhood and Adult Depression" (see note 8);
26. Amato and Keith "Separation from a Parent" (see note 8);
27. Teachman, "Childhood Living Arrangements" (see note 8).
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29. Sara McLanahan and others, "Unwed Parents or Fragile Families? Implications for Welfare and Child Support Policy," in Out of Wedlock: Causes and Consequences of Nonmarital Fertility, edited by Lawrence L. Wu and Barbara Wolfe (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001), pp. 202-28.
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33. Susan Brown, "Family Structure and Child Well-Being: The Significance of Parental Cohabitation," Journal of Marriage and the Family 66 (2004): 351-67.
34. For a general review of this literature, see Wendy Manning, "The Implications of Cohabitation for Children's Well-Being," in Just Living Together: Implications of Cohabitation for Families, Children, and Social Policy, edited by Alan Booth and Ann Crouter (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002), pp. 21-152.
35. Nancy S. Landale and Susan M. Hauan, "The Family Life Course of Puerto Rican Children," Journal of Marriage and the Family 54 (1992): 912-24;
36. Wendy Manning, Pamela Smock, and Debarun Majumdar, "The Relative Stability of Marital and Cohabiting Unions for Children," Population Research and Policy Review 23 (2004): 135-59.
37. M. Carlson, Sara McLanahan, and Paula England, "Union Formation and Dissolution in Fragile Families," Fragile Families Research Brief, no. 4 (Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, Princeton University, January 2003);
38. see also Sara McLanahan, "Diverging Destinies: How Children Are Faring under the Second Demographic Transition," Demography 41 (2004): 606-27.
39. Lawrence L. Wu, Larry L. Bumpass, and Kelly Musick, "Historical and Life Course Trajectories of Nonmarital Childbearing," in Out of Wedlock: Causes and Consequences of Nonmarital Fertility, edited by Lawrence L. Wu and Barbara Wolfe (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001), pp. 3-48.
40. Brown, "Family Structure and Child Well-Being" (see note 13).
41. The Add Health study was designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris and funded by grant R01-HD31921 from the NICHD, with cooperative funding from seventeen other agencies. Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle provided assistance in the original study design. The analysis was conducted for this paper.
42. Amato and Keith, "Consequences of Parental Divorce" (see note 5).
43. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see note 7).
44. Amato and Keith, "Separation from a Parent" (see note 8).
45. Amato, "Parental Absence" (see note 8).
46. David Mechanic and Stephen Hansell, "Divorce, Family Conflict, and Adolescents' Well-Being," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 30 (1989): 105-16;
47. James L. Peterson and Nichola Zill, "Marital Disruption, Parent-Child Relationships, and Behavior Problems in Children," Journal of Marriage and the Family 49 (1986): 295-307.
48. Amato and Booth, A Generation at Risk (see note 7);
49. Booth and Amato, "Parental Predivorce Relations" (see note 7);
50. Susan M. Jekielek, "Parental Conflict, Marital Disruption and Children's Emotional Well-Being," Social Forces 76 (1998): 905-35;
51. Thomas L. Hanson, "Does Parental Conflict Explain Why Divorce Is Negatively Associated with Child Welfare?" Social Forces 77 (1999):1283-316.
52. Amato and Booth, A Generation at Risk (see note 7);
53. Booth and Amato, "Parental Predivorce Relations" (see note 7);
54. Paul R. Amato, "Good Enough Marriages: Parental Discord, Divorce, and Children's Well-Being," Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the Law 9 (2002): 71-94.
55. Paul R. Amato, "The Implications of Research on Children in Stepfamilies," in Stepfamilies: Who Benefits? Who Does Not? edited by Alan Booth and Judy Dunn (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994);
56. E. Mavis Hetherington and W. Glenn Clingempeel, "Coping with Marital Transitions," Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, vol. 57, nos. 2-3 (University of Chicago Press, 1992);
57. E. Mavis Hetherington and K. M. Jodl, "Stepfamilies as Settings for Child Development," in Stepfamilies: Who Benefits? Who Does Not? edited by Alan Booth and Judy Dunn (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994), pp. 55-79.
58. For a discussion of how stepchildren view stepparents, see E. Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly, For Better or for Worse: Divorce Reconsidered (New York: Norton, 2002).
59. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, "Child Abuse and Other Risks of Not Living with Both Biological Parents," Ethology and Sociobiology 6 (1985): 197-220;
60. Leslie Margolin and John L. Craft, "Child Sexual Abuse by Caretakers," 38 (1989): 450-55.
61. Richard Gelles and John W. Harrop, "The Risk of Abusive Violence among Children with Nongenetic Caretakers," Family Relations 40 (1991): 78-83.
62. Phyllis Bronstein and others, "Fathering after Separation or Divorce: Factors Predicting Children's Adjustment," Family Relations 43 (1994): 469-79;
63. Margaret Crosbie-Burnett and Jean Giles-Sims, "Adolescent Adjustment and Stepparenting Styles," Family Relations 43 (1994): 394-99;
64. Lynn White and Joan G. Gilbreth, "When Children Have Two Fathers: Effects of Relationships with Stepfathers and Noncustodial Fathers on Adolescent Outcomes," Journal of Marriage and Family 63 (2001): 155-67.
65. Christine M. Buchanan, Eleanor E. Maccoby and Sanford M. Dornbusch, Adolescents after Divorce (Harvard University Press, 1996).
66. Mignon R. Moore and P. L. Chase-Lansdale, "Sexual Intercourse and Pregnancy among African-American Girls in High-Poverty Neighborhoods: The Role of Family and Perceived Community Environment," Journal of Marriage and the Family 63 (2001): 1146-57;
67. Sandi Nelson, Rebecca L. Clark, and Gregory Acs, Beyond the Two-Parent Family: How Teenagers Fare in Cohabiting Couple and Blended Families, series B, no. B-31 (Washington: Urban Institute, 2001).
68. Brown, "The Effect of Union Type" (see note 12).
69. Hetherington, Cox, and Cox, "Effects of Divorce" (see note 3).
70. Amato and Keith, "Consequences of Parental Divorce" (see note 5).
71. Amato, "Children of Divorce" (see note 6).
72. E. Mavis Hetherington, K. A. Camara, and David L. Featherman, "Achievement and Intellectual Functioning of Children in One-Parent Households," in Achievement and Achievement Motives, edited by J. T. Spence (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1983).
73. Amato and Keith, "Separation from a Parent" (see note 8).
74. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see note 7).
75. Amato, "Parental Absence" (see note 8).
76. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see note 7).
77. Moore and Chase-Lansdale, "Sexual Intercourse and Pregnancy" (see note 32).
78. Nelson, Clark, and Acs, Beyond the Two-Parent Family (see note 32).
79. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see note 7);
80. Robert H. Aseltine, "Pathways Linking Parental Divorce with Adolescent Depression," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 37 (1996): 133-48;
81. Donna R. Morrison and Andrew J. Cherlin, "The Divorce Process and Young Children's Well-Being: A Prospective Analysis," Journal of Marriage and the Family 57 (1995): 800-12;
82. Ronald L. Simons and Associates, Understanding Differences between Divorced and Intact Families (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage, 1996).
83. Valarie King, "Nonresident Father Involvement and Child Well-Being: Can Dads Make a Difference?" Journal of Family Issues 15 (1994): 78-96;
84. Sara McLanahan and others, "Child Support Enforcement and Child Well-Being: Greater Security or Greater Conflict?" in Child Support and Child Well-Being, edited by Irwin Garfinkel, Sara McLanahan, and Philip K. Robins (Washington: Urban Institute Press, 1996), pp. 239-56.
85. Hetherington and Clingempeel, "Coping with Marital Transitions" (see note 26);
86. Simons and Associates, Understanding Differences (see note 44);
87. Nan Astone and Sara S. McLanahan, "Family Structure, Parental Practices, and High School Completion," American Sociological Review 56 (1991): 309-20;
88. Elizabeth Thomson and others, "Family Structure, Gender, and Parental Socialization," Journal of Marriage and the Family 54 (1992): 368-78.
89. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see note 7);
90. Hetherington and Clingempeel, "Coping with Marital Transition" (see note 26);
91. Buchanan, Maccoby and Dornbusch, Adolescents after Divorce (see note 31);
92. Simons and Associates, Understanding Differences (see note 44).
93. Paul R. Amato and Joan Gilbreth, "Nonresident Fathers and Children's Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis," Journal of Marriage and the Family 61 (1999): 557-73.
94. Paul R. Amato and Juliana Sobolewski, "The Effects of Divorce on Fathers and Children: Nonresidential Fathers and Stepfathers," in The Role of the Father in Child Development, edited by Michael Lamb, 4th ed. (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 2003), pp. 341-67.
95. W. V. Fabricius, "Listening to Children of Divorce: New Findings that Diverge from Wallerstein, Lewis, and Blakeslee," Family Relations 52 (2003): 385-94.
96. Frank F. Furstenberg and Andrew Cherlin, Divided Families: What Happens to Children When Parents Part (Harvard University Press, 1991).
97. L. I. Pearlin and others, "The Stress Process," Journal of Health and Social Behavior 22 (1981): 337-56;
98. Peggy A. Thoits, "Stress, Coping, and Social Support Processes: Where Are We? What Next?" Journal of Health and Social Behavior, extra issue (1995): 53-79.
99. Buchanan, Maccoby and Dornbusch, Adolescents after Divorce (see note 31);
100. Jeanne M. Tschann and others, "Conflict, Loss, Change and Parent-Child Relationships: Predicting Children's Adjustment during Divorce, "Journal of Divorce and Remarriage 13 (1999): 1-22;
101. Elizabeth A. Vandewater and Jennifer E. Lansford, "Influences of Family Structure and Parental Conflict on Children's Well-Being," Family Relations 47 (1998): 323-30.
102. Buchanan, Maccoby, and Dornbusch, Adolescents after Divorce (see note 31).
103. Patrick T. Davies and E. Mark Cummings, "Marital Conflict and Child Adjustment: An Emotional Security Hypothesis," Psychological Bulletin 116 (1994): 387-411.
104. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see note 7);
105. Aseltine, "Pathways" (see note 44);
106. Simons and Associates, Understanding Differences (see note 44);
107. Buchanan, Maccoby, and Dornbusch, Adolescents after Divorce (see note 31);
108. Michael S. Ellwood and Arnold L. Stolberg, "The Effects of Family Composition, Family Health, Parenting Behavior and Environmental Stress on Children's Divorce Adjustment," Journal of Child and Family Studies 2 (1993): 23-36;
109. Irwin Sandler and others, "Stability and Quality of Life Events and Psychological Symptomatology in Children of Divorce," American Journal of Community Psychology 19 (1991): 501-20;
110. Jay D. Teachman, Kathleen Paasch, and Karen Carver, "Social Capital and Dropping Out of School Early," Journal of Marriage and the Family 58 (1996): 773-83.
111. Wu and Martinson, "Family Structure" (see note 7);
112. Paul R. Amato, "Reconciling Divergent Perspectives: Judith Wallerstein, Quantitative Family Research, and Children of Divorce," Family Relations 52 (2003): 332-39;
113. Bryan Rodgers and Jan Pryor, Divorce and Separation: The Outcomes for Children (York, England: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1998).
114. M. McGue and D. T. Lykken, "Genetic Influence on Risk of Divorce," Psychological Science 3 (1992): 368-73;
115. V. Jockin, M. McGue, and D. T. Lykken, "Personality and Divorce: A Genetic Analysis, "Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71 (1996): 288-99.
116. For a strong statement of this position, see Judith Harris, The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do (New York: Touchstone, 1999).
117. Simons and Associates, Understanding Differences (see note 44);
118. Amato, "Reconciling Divergent Perspectives" (see note 57).
119. See note 7. Cherlin and others used a fixed-effects model, which eliminates all unmeasured variables that do not change over time. McLanahan and Sandefur relied on biprobit analysis, a method that makes it possible to correlate error terms across equations, which is equivalent to adjusting for unmeasured variables that could affect family structure as well as children's outcomes.
120. David Brodzinsky, Jennifer C. Hitt, and Daniel Smith, "Impact of Parental Separation and Divorce on Adopted and Nonadopted Children," American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 63 (1993): 451-61;
121. Thomas G. O'Connor and others, "Are Associations between Parental Divorce and Children's Adjustment Genetically Mediated? An Adoption Study," Developmental Psychology 36 (2000): 429-37.
122. K. S. Kendler and others, "Childhood Parental Loss and Adult Psychopathology in Women," Archives of General Psychiatry 49 (1992): 109-16.
123. In this analysis, I considered adoptive parents to be the same as biological parents. The "one parent" category includes adolescents living with one biological parent and a stepparent (or a cohabiting partner of the parent). This category also includes a small percentage of children living with neither parent at the time of the interview. I used logistic regression analysis to adjust the percentages in table 1 for variables that could be associated with family structure as well as child outcomes: mother's education, father's education, child's race (white, black, Latino, or other), child's age, child's gender, and whether the child was born in the United States. All of the differences reported in table 1 were statistically significant at p < .01.
124. The margin of error for these estimates, based on a 95 percent confidence interval, is about 1 percent.
125. To estimate the percentage of adolescents between the ages of thirteen and eighteen living with two biological parents in 1980, 1970, and 1960, I relied on retrospective data from the 1988 wave of the National Survey of Families and Households. The resulting figures are 64 percent, 74 percent, and 77 percent, respectively. The margin of error for these estimates, based on a 95 percent confidence interval, is about 2 percent. For details on the National Survey of Families and Households, see James Sweet, Larry Bumpass, and Vaughn Call, "The Design and Content of the National Survey of Families and Households," NSFH Working Paper 1 (Center for Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1988). These estimates should not be equated with levels of program "effectiveness," because it is naive to assume that specific, short-term interventions could reverse family trends so strongly. It is possible, however, that a range of interventions, combined with a shift in the larger culture, could result in substantial changes in family structure over a decade or longer. Moreover, the figures used in table 1 are not completely unrealistic, because they correspond to levels of family stability that actually existed in recent U.S. history. Note also that these estimates are based only on changes in family structure and assume no changes in marital quality in two-parent families. If future policies also are capable of improving the quality of existing marriages, then the figures in tables 1 and 2 are underestimates of the total benefit to children.
126. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, High Blood Cholesterol: What You Need to Know, NIH Publication 01-3290 (May 2001).
127. See also F. B. Hu, J. E. Manson, and W. C. Willett, "Types of Dietary Fat and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease: A Critical Review," Journal of the American College of Nutrition 20 (2001): 5-19;
128. S. Lewington and S. MacMahon, "Blood Pressure, Cholesterol, and Common Causes of Death: A Review," American Journal of Hypertension 12 (1999): 96S-98S.
129. The estimates for ten-year risk of a heart attack vary with age and gender. The link between cholesterol and cardiovascular disease is stronger for men than for women, and stronger for older individuals than for younger individuals. The margin of error for these estimates, based on a 95 percent confidence interval, is about 1 percent.
130. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Government Printing Office, 2003), table 11.