This study explores how cohabitation differs for older and younger adults, drawing on data from 966 cohabitors in each of the first 2 waves of the National Survey of Families and Households. Older cohabitors report significantly higher levels of relationship quality and stability than younger cohabitors, although they are less likely to have plans to marry their partners. Few differences were found in the reasons to cohabit, although assessing compatibility is a more important reason for younger cohabitors. Findings suggest that older cohabitors are more likely to view their relationship as an alternative to marriage, whereas younger cohabitors are more likely to view their relationship as a prelude to it.

We examined the long-term direct and indirect links between coparenting (conflict, communication, and shared decision-making) and preschoolers' school readiness (math, literacy, and social skills). The study sample consisted of 5,650 children and their biological mothers and fathers who participated in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort. Using structural equation modeling and controlling for background characteristics, we found that our conceptual model of the pathways from coparenting to child outcomes is structurally the same for cohabiting and married families. Controlling for a host of background characteristics, we found that coparenting conflict and shared decision-making were negatively and positively, respectively, linked to children's academic and social skills and co-parental communication was indirectly linked to academic and social skills through maternal supportiveness. Coparenting conflict was also indirectly linked to children's social skills through maternal depressive symptoms. The overall findings suggest that for both cohabiting and married families, the context of conflicted coparenting may interfere with the development of children's social competencies and academic skills, whereas collaborative coparenting promotes children's school readiness because mothers are more responsive to their children's needs. These findings have implications for programs aimed at promoting positive family processes in cohabiting and married families.

Teenagers' sexual behaviors have both short-term and long-term consequences, and interventions that focus on multiple domains of risk may be the most effective in helping to promote broad reproductive health among young adults.

This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to examine combinations of father residence and closeness which have received minimal examination but involve significant numbers of children. Our findings lead to a number of conclusions. First, adolescents who are close to their nonresident fathers report higher self-esteem, less delinquency, and fewer depressive symptoms than adolescents who live with a father with whom they are not close. Second, adolescents living with a father with whom they are not close have better grades, less violence and less substance use than those having a nonresident father who is not close. At the same time, however, not being close to a resident father is associated with lower self-esteem compared to having a nonresident father who is not close. Third, adolescents do best of all when they have close ties to resident fathers. A central conclusion of this study is that it is important to consider the quality of father-child relations among those who have a resident father when assessing the impact of nonresident fathers on their children.Researchers and policy makers often target parent co-residence as the key to healthy families. But co-residence is not the only indicator that matters for child wellbeing, especially given the frequency of parental union formation and the heterogeneous structure of intact families. We suggest that adding father-child closeness to studies of residential status adds to our understanding of the link between these variables and adolescent problem behavior. Closeness is protective and beneficial to children and can be cultivated regardless to residential status. We regard it as a timely and important direction for family research.Approximately 50% of all children live in a home without their biological father at some point during their youth (Bianchi, 1990;Bumpass, 1984). Research consistently suggests that compared to children living with two biological parents, those with nonresident fathers are at greater risk of poor performance in school, delinquency, substance abuse, depression, and low self-esteem among other factors (Amato, 2000;Antecol & Bedard, 2007). The loss of income associated with changing from a two-parent to a one-parent family explains a portion of the NIH Public Access -being (McLanahan & Sandefur 1994;Thomson, Hanson, & McLanahan, 1994), as do family processes such as mothers' involvement in their children's lives (Hetherington, 1993). More recent research also suggests that the amount of father closeness accounts for differences in the well-being of children in one and two parent households (Carlson, 2006). That is, closeness of the father-child bond is associated with better outcomes for children (Amato & Gilbreth, 1999), and children are closer to their fathers, on average, in father resident families, which helps to account for some of the differences in child outcomes between one and two parent households.But are children always better off in two parent families than they are in nonresident ...

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