No abstract

No abstract

When compared with their higher-income counterparts, on average, parents in low-income Maryland families (that is, those with incomes that are less than twice the official poverty threshold) 1 have less advantageous environments for raising children, and both the parents and their children experience fewer positive outcomes. Similarly, when compared with their counterparts in families headed by two biological or adoptive parents, families headed by single mothers are associated with less advantageous environments for raising children and fewer positive outcomes for both parents and children. When family structure and income are jointly taken into account, family circumstances and child outcomes are often dramatically different. BACKGROUND Research studies based on statistics for the United States as a whole have documented differences in child and family well-being between children in low-income families and children in more affluent families 2 and between children in single-parent families and children in two-parent families. 3 However, researchers have not explored differences in well-being in these families at the state level because of a lack of state-level data. The National Survey of Children's Health (NSCH) provides representative data at both the national and state levels on several important areas (or domains) of parental and family functioning and well-being. Child Trends drew on these data for 2003 to analyze differences in well-being by family income and family structure in Maryland, thus illustrating the richness of this new source of statistical information. This Research Brief presents our findings.