Fragile families and child wellbeing

Future of Children

Volumn 20, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 87-112

  Waldfogel, Jane ^a   Craigie, Terry Ann ^b   Brooks Gunn, Jeanne ^a  

^a Och Spine at New York Presbyterian Hospitals

^b PRINCETON UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BEHAVIOR DISORDER; CHILD; CHILD ABUSE; CHILD CARE; CHILD PARENT RELATION; CHILD REARING; CHILD WELFARE; EARLY CHILDHOOD INTERVENTION; FEMALE; HUMAN; MALE; MOTHER CHILD RELATION; PRESCHOOL CHILD; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; REVIEW; SINGLE PARENT; SOCIAL WELFARE; UNITED STATES;

CHILD; CHILD ABUSE; CHILD BEHAVIOR DISORDERS; CHILD CARE; CHILD REARING; CHILD WELFARE; CHILD, PRESCHOOL; EARLY INTERVENTION (EDUCATION); FEMALE; HUMANS; MALE; MOTHER-CHILD RELATIONS; PARENT-CHILD RELATIONS; SINGLE PARENT; SINGLE-PARENT FAMILY; SOCIAL WELFARE; UNITED STATES;

EID: 77957373340     PISSN: 10548289     EISSN: 15501558     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/foc.2010.0002     Document Type: Article

References (106)

1. It is important to note that both types of families may spend at least some time as part of larger households that include other family members or friends.
2. Stephanie Ventura, ''Changing Patterns of Nonmarital Childbearing in the United States,'' NCHS Data Brief 18 (Hyattsville, Md.: National Center for Health Statistics, 2009) (www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db18.htm [accessed October 2, 2009]).
3. The share of children born to unwed parents is considerably higher among African Americans, and somewhat higher among Hispanics, than for non-Hispanic whites;
4. See Robert A. Hummer and Erin R. Hamilton, ''Race and Ethnicity in Fragile Families,'' in this volume.
5. See Sara McLanahan and Audrey Beck, ''Parental Relationships in Fragile Families,'' in this volume.
6. Wendy Sigle-Rushton and Sara McLanahan, ''Father Absence and Child Well-Being: A Critical Review,'' Working Paper 02-20-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, October 2002);
7. Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps? (Harvard University Press, 1994);
8. Sara McLanahan and others, ''Unwed Fathers and Fragile Families,'' Working Paper 98-12-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, March 1998).
9. See review in Amato, ''The Impact of Family Formation Change on the Well-Being of the Next Generation,'' Future of Children 15, no. 2 (2005): 75-96. Amato also provides a useful overview of mechanisms that might account for the benefits associated with marriage.
10. See Adam Thomas and Isabel Sawhill, ''For Love and Money? The Impact of Family Structure on Family Income,'' Future of Children 15, no. 2 (2005): 57-74. For evidence from FFCWS
11. See Sara McLanahan, Jean Knab, and Sara Meadows, ''Economic Trajectories in Non-Traditional Families with Children,'' Working Paper 09-10-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, September 2009).
12. Susan L. Brown, ''Family Structure and Child Well-Being: The Significance of Parental Cohabitation,'' Journal of Marriage and Family 66 (2004): 351-367;
13. Deborah R. Graefe and Daniel T. Lichter, ''Life Course Transitions of American Children: Parental Cohabitation, Marriage, and Single Motherhood,'' Demography 36 (1999): 205-217.
14. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see note 4).
15. Steven Friedlander, Daniel S. Weiss, and John Traylor, ''Assessing the Influence of Maternal Depression on the Validity of the Child Behavior Checklist,'' Journal of Abnormal Psychology 14 (1986): 123-133;
16. Cynthia Osborne, Sara McLanahan, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, ''Young Children's Behavioral Problems in Married and Cohabiting Families,'' Working Paper 03-09-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, September 2004).
17. Brown, ''Family Structure and Child Well-Being'' (see note 7).
18. Analyses from FFCWS suggest that exits from cohabitation or marriage between the year-one and year-three interviews are associated with deteriorating mental health for men, but not for women, whose mental health seems to be less sensitive to family structure changes (except that women who exit from cohabitation do have larger increases in anxiety than other groups).
19. See Claire Kamp Dush and Kate Adkins, ''The Mental Health of Mothers and Fathers before and after Cohabitation and Marital Dissolution,'' Working Paper 09-03-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, January 2009).
20. E. Mark Cummings and Patrick T. Davies, ''Effects of Marital Conflict on Children: Recent Advances and Emerging Themes in Process-Oriented Research,'' Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 43 (2002): 31-63;
21. James L. Peterson and Nicholas Zill, ''Marital Disruption, Parent-Child Relationship, and Behavioral Problems in Children,'' Journal of Marriage and the Family 48 (1986): 295-307;
22. Osborne, McLanahan, and Brooks-Gunn, ''Young Children's Behavioral Problems in Married and Cohabiting Families'' (see note 9).
23. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see note 4).
24. See discussion in Marcy Carlson and others, ''Couples as Partners and Parents over Children's Early Years,'' Working Paper 09-12-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, September 2009).
25. Osborne, McLanahan, and Brooks-Gunn, ''Young Children's Behavioral Problems'' (see note 9);
26. Susan Brown and Alan Booth, ''Cohabitation versus Marriage: A Comparison of Relationship Quality,'' Journal of Marriage and Family 58 (1996): 668-678.
27. Marcy Carlson and Frank Furstenberg, ''The Consequences of Multi-Partnered Fertility for Parental Involvement and Relationships,'' Working Paper 06-28-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, May 2007).
28. Marcia Carlson and Sara McLanahan, ''Fathers in Fragile Families,'' Working Paper 09-14-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, 2009).
29. Forthcoming in Michael E. Lamb, ed., The Role of the Father in Child Development, fifth edition (New York: Wiley and Sons).
30. Sharon Bzostek, ''Social Fathers and Child Wellbeing,'' Journal of Marriage and Family 70, no. 4 (2008): 950-961;
31. Maureen Black, Howard Dubowitz, and Raymond Starr Jr., ''African American Fathers in Low-Income, Urban Families: Development, Behavior, and Home Environment of Their Three Year Old Children,'' Child Development 70, no. 4 (1999): 967-978.
32. See also review by Carlson and McLanahan (note 17).
33. Black, Dubowitz, and Starr, ''African American Fathers in Low-Income, Urban Families'' (see note 18).
34. See also review by Carlson and McLanahan (note 17).
35. Frank Heiland and Shirley H. Liu, ''Family Structure and Wellbeing of Out-of-Wedlock Children: the Significance of the Biological Parents' Relationship,'' Demographic Research 15 (2005): 61-104.
36. See, for example, Eirik Evenhouse and Siobhan Reilly, ''A Sibling Study of Stepchild Well-Being,'' Journal of Human Resources 39, no. 1 (2004): 248-276;
37. Sigle-Rushton and McLanahan, ''Father Absence and Child Well-Being'' (see note 4);
38. Gary Sandefur and Thomas Wells, ''Using Siblings to Investigate the Effects of Family Structure on Educational Attainment,'' Discussion paper 1144-97 (Madison, Wis.: Institute for Research on Poverty, 1997);
39. Lawrence L. Wu, ''Effects of Family Instability, Income and Income Instability on the Risk of a Premarital Birth,'' American Sociological Review 61 (1996): 386-406.
40. For instance, some studies have used as an instrument an indicator for the gender of the oldest child, on the grounds that a family is more likely to stay intact if the oldest child is a boy.
41. See Kelly Bedard and Olivier Deschenes, ''Sex Preferences, Marital Dissolution, and the Economic Status of Women,'' Journal of Human Resources 40, no. 2 (2005): 411-434;
42. Elizabeth O. Ananat and Guy Michaels, ''The Effect of Marital Breakup on the Income Distribution of Women with Children,'' Journal of Human Resources 43, no. 3 (2008): 611-629.
43. See, for example, Paula Fomby and Andrew J. Cherlin, ''Family Instability and Child Wellbeing,'' American Sociological Review 72 (April 2007): 181-204;
44. Cynthia Osborne and Sara McLanahan, ''Partnership Instability and Child Well-Being,'' Journal of Marriage and Family 69 (November 2007): 1065-1083.
45. Shannon Cavanagh and Aletha C. Huston, ''Family Instability and Children's Early Problem Behavior,'' Social Forces 85, no. 1 (2006): 551-581;
46. Cynthia Osborne, Wendy D. Manning, and Pamela J. Smock, ''Married and Cohabiting Parents' Relationship Instability: A Focus on Race and Ethnicity,'' Journal of Marriage and Family 69, no. 5 (2007): 1345-1366;
47. Osborne and McLanahan, ''Partnership Instability and Child Well-Being'' (see note 23).
48. Terry-Ann Craigie, ''Effects of Paternal Presence and Family Instability on Child Cognitive Performance,'' Working Paper 08-03-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, November 2008).
49. Cavanagh and Huston, ''Family Instability and Children's Early Problem Behavior'' (see note 24);
50. Fomby and Cherlin, ''Family Instability and Child Wellbeing'' (see note 23).
51. Heiland and Liu, ''Family Structure and Wellbeing of Out-of-Wedlock Children'' (see note 20).
52. Marcy J. Carlson and Mary Corcoran, ''Family Structure and Children's Behavioral and Cognitive Outcomes,'' Journal of Marriage and Family 63 (2001): 779-792.
53. Cynthia Osborne, ''Maternal Stress and Mothering Behaviors in Stable and Unstable Families,'' Working Paper 03-08-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, May 2004);
54. Cavanagh and Huston, ''Family Instability and Children's Early Problem Behavior'' (see note 24).
55. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see note 4).
56. Differentials in income also accounted for nearly half the lower school performance of children in single-parent versus two-parent families, although they explained relatively little of the gap in behavior problems between the two groups. Other studies examining the mediating role of income include:
57. Elizabeth Thomson, Thomas L. Hanson, and Sara S. McLanahan, ''Family Structure and Child Well-Being: Economic Resources vs. Parental Behavior,'' Social Forces 73 (1994): 221-242;
58. Brown, ''Family Structure and Child Well-Being'' (see note 7);
59. Osborne, McLanahan and Brooks-Gunn, ''Young Children's Behavioral Problems in Married and Cohabiting Families'' (see note 9).
60. This research is reviewed by Sharon Bzostek and Audrey Beck, ''Family Structure and Child Health Outcomes in Fragile Families,'' Working Paper 08-11-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, 2008);
61. Robert Wood, Brian Goesling, and Sarah Avellar, ''The Effects of Marriage on Health: A Synthesis of Recent Research Evidence,'' report prepared by Mathematica Policy Research for U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, 2007 (http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/07/marriageonhealth/report.pdf [accessed October 4, 2009]).
62. Janet Currie and V. Joseph Hotz, ''Accidents Will Happen? Unintentional Injury, Maternal Employment, and Child Care Policy,'' Journal of Health Economics 23, no. 1 (2004): 25-59.
63. Anne Case and Christina Paxson, ''Mothers and Others: Who Invests in Children's Health?'' Journal of Health Economics 20 (2001): 301-328.
64. This literature is reviewed in Lawrence Berger, Christina Paxson, and Jane Waldfogel, ''Mothers, Men, and Child Protective Services Involvement,'' Child Maltreatment 14 (2009): 263-276.
65. See also Jane Waldfogel, The Future of Child Protection (Harvard University Press, 1998).
66. See also discussion in McLanahan, ''Fragile Families and the Reproduction of Poverty,'' Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science 62, no. 1 (2009): 111-131;
67. Sara McLanahan and Christine Percheski, ''Family Structure and the Reproduction of Inequality,'' Annual Review of Sociology 34 (2008): 257-276.
68. Nancy Reichman, Julien Teitler, and Sara McLanahan, ''Fragile Families: Sample and Design,'' Children and Youth Services Review 23, nos. 4/5 (2001): 303-326.
69. Osborne, McLanahan, and Brooks-Gunn, ''Young Children's Behavioral Problems in Married and Cohabiting Families'' (see note 9);
70. Carlson and Corcoran, ''Family Structure and Children's Behavioral and Cognitive Outcomes'' (see note 28).
71. Reichman, Teitler, and McLanahan, ''Fragile Families'' (see note 37).
72. Craigie, ''Effects of Paternal Presence and Family Instability on Child Cognitive Performance'' (see note 25).
73. Shirley Liu and Frank Heiland, ''Should We Get Married? The Effect of Parents' Marriage on Out-of Wedlock Children,'' Working Paper 07-02-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, 2008).
74. Craigie, ''Effects of Paternal Presence and Family Instability on Child Cognitive Performance'' (see note 25).
75. Carey Cooper and others, ''Partnership Instability and Child Wellbeing during the Transition to Elementary School,'' Working Paper 08-08-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, April 2010).
76. Osborne, McLanahan, and Brooks-Gunn, ''Young Children's Behavioral Problems in Married and Cohabiting Families'' (see note 9);
77. Cynthia Osborne, ''Is Marriage Protective for All Children? Cumulative Risks at Birth and Subsequent Child Behavior among Urban Families,'' Working Paper 07-09-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, April 2007).
78. Rebecca Ryan, Ariel Kalil, and Lindsey Leininger, ''Low-Income Mothers' Private Safety Nets and Children's Socioemotional Wellbeing,'' Journal of Marriage and the Family 71, no. 2 (2009): 278-298.
79. Marcy Carlson, Sara McLanahan, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, ''Do Good Partners Make Good Parents? Relationship Quality and Parenting in Two-Parent Families,'' Working Paper 06-34-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, November 2006);
80. Marcy Carlson and others, ''Couples as Partners and Parents over Children's Early Years'' (see note 14);
81. Paula Fomby and Cynthia Osborne, ''The Relative Effects of Family Instability and Mother/ Partner Conflict on Children's Externalizing Behavior,'' Working Paper 08-07-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, May 2008).
82. Cynthia Osborne and Sara McLanahan, ''Partnership Instability and Child Wellbeing,'' Journal of Marriage and Family 69 (2007): 1065-1083.
83. This result was also found in a study using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, which is important since that study included a measure of teacher-reported behavior problems (whereas the measure in FFCWS is mother-reported).
84. See Cavanagh and Huston, ''Family Instability and Children's Early Problem Behavior'' (see note 24).
85. Carey Cooper and others, ''Partnership Instability and Child Wellbeing during the Transition to Elementary School'' (see note 43).
86. Audrey Beck and others, ''Relationship Transitions and Maternal Parenting,'' Working Paper 08-12-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, January 2009).
87. Cynthia Osborne and Sara McLanahan, ''Partnership Instability and Child Wellbeing'' (see note 47).
88. Bzostek, ''Social Fathers and Child Wellbeing'' (see note 18).
89. Liu and Heiland, ''Should We Get Married?'' (see note 41).
90. Bzostek and Beck, ''Family Structure and Child Health Outcomes in Fragile Families'' (see note 32).
91. See also a FFCWS study that finds that instability is associated with mothers' obesity but not with children's obesity;
92. See Earle Chambers, Christiane Duarte, and Frances Yang, ''Household Instability, Area Poverty, and Obesity in Urban Mothers and Their Children,'' Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved 20, no. 1 (2009): 122-134.
93. They also examine the role of reverse causality and find some evidence that children who are in poorer health are less likely to have their parents cohabiting at the next survey wave.
94. Lisa Bates and Julien Teitler, ''Immigration and Low Birthweight in the US: The Role of Time and Timing,'' Working Paper 08-15-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, July 2008). In this study and others, low birth weight is typically defined as a birth weight of less than 2,500 grams.
95. Nancy Reichman and others, ''Infant Health Production Functions: What a Difference the Data Make,'' Health Economics 18, no. 7 (2009): 761-782.
96. Yolanda Padilla and Nancy Reichman, ''Low Birthweight: Do Unwed Fathers Help?'' Children and Youth Services Review 23, nos. 4/5 (2001): 505-530.
97. See also Julien Teitler, ''Father Involvement, Child Health, and Maternal Health Behavior,'' Children and Youth Services Review 23, nos. 4/5 (2001): 403-426.
98. Kristen Harknett, ''Why Are Children with Married Parents Healthier? The Case of Pediatric Asthma,'' Population Research and Policy Review 28, no. 3 (2009): 347-365;
99. Kristen Harknett, ''Children's Elevated Risk of Asthma in Unmarried Families: Underlying Structural and Behavioral Mechanisms,'' Working Paper 05-01-FF (Princeton: Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, July 2005).
100. Shirley Liu and Frank Heiland, ''New Estimates of the Effect of Parental Separation on Child Health,'' in Causal Analysis in Population Studies: Concepts, Methods, and Applications, edited by Henriette Engelhardt, Hans Peter Kohler, and Alexia Furnkranz-Prskawetz (Vienna: Springer, 2009), pp. 167-199.
101. Neil Guterman and others, ''Fathers and Maternal Risk for Physical Child Abuse,'' Child Maltreatment 14 (2009): 277-290.
102. Berger, Paxson, and Waldfogel, ''Mothers, Men, and Child Protective Services Involvement'' (see note 35).
103. The authors were not able to determine whether the increased risk was due to abuse or neglect on the part of the mother, the social father, or another caregiver.
104. See Terry-Ann Craigie, Jane Waldfogel, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, ''Family Structure, Stability, and Early Child Health and Development,'' Princeton University and Columbia University mimeo, 2010, for full results.
105. See, for example, Janet Currie, ''Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise: Socioeconomic Status, Poor Health in Childhood, and Human Capital Development,'' Journal of Economic Literature 47, no. 1 (2009): 87-122;
106. Janet Currie and others, ''Child Health and Young Adult Outcomes,'' Journal of Human Resources, forthcoming.