Childhood Family Structure and Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States

Abstract

The declining prevalence of two-parent families helped increase income inequality over recent decades. Does family structure also condition how economic (dis)advantages pass from parents to children? If so, shifts in the organization of family life may contribute to enduring inequality between groups defined by childhood family structure. Using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data, I combine parametric and nonparametric methods to reveal how family structure moderates intergenerational income mobility in the United States. I find that individuals raised outside stable two-parent homes are much more mobile than individuals from stable two-parent families. Mobility increases with the number of family transitions but does not vary with children’s time spent coresiding with both parents or stepparents conditional on a transition. However, this mobility indicates insecurity, not opportunity. Difficulties maintaining middle-class incomes create downward mobility among people raised outside stable two-parent homes. Regardless of parental income, these people are relatively likely to become low-income adults, reflecting a new form of perverse equality. People raised outside stable two-parent families are also less likely to become high-income adults than people from stable two-parent homes. Mobility differences account for about one-quarter of family-structure inequalities in income at the bottom of the income distribution and more than one-third of these inequalities at the top.

Do Changes to Family Structure Affect Child and Family Outcomes? A Systematic Review of the Instability Hypothesis

“…They are associated with poorer socioemotional development (Lee & McLanahan, ), increased behavior problems (Magnuson & Berger, ), poorer academic achievement (Sun & Li, ), and worse physical health (Bzostek & Beck, ). Family transitions continue to have an impact on children across their life course, being associated with less income mobility, an increased risk of dropping out of high school, reduced likelihood of university completion, early family formation, and an increased likelihood of having multiple marriages (Bloome, ; Fomby & Bosick, ; Hampden‐Thompson & Galindo, ; Hofferth & Goldscheider, ). Each additional transition appears to cause cumulative stress and increase the negative effects on children's mental and physical well‐being (Bachman et al, ).…”

Contraceptive Initiation Among Women in the United States: Timing, Methods Used, and Pregnancy Outcomes

“…We present results stratified by household income, but a respondent's household income might have changed from the time of sexual debut to the time of interview. However, family income rank is generally stable across generations, 18 and our incomestratified results were robust to a #5year restriction on recall duration. Finally, we did not detect an association between contraceptive method type and unwanted pregnancy, perhaps because of early method discontinuation, incorrect use, or nonadherence not captured by the survey.…”

“…We used household income at the time of interview because household income at the time of sexual debut was not available and because household income is often stable across generations in the United States. 18 Additional covariates were selected on the basis of previous studies 1,8,9,19 or theoretical importance: age at sexual debut, birth country, diagnosis of ovulatory problems, religion raised, region of residence, urban or rural area, intact childhood family structure, ever lived in foster home, and mother's education level. We were unable to include region, sexual identity, and whether first sex was voluntary because these were only asked in the NSFG starting in 2011.…”

Family structure effects on U.S. children’s well-being? Re-examining the family instability hypothesis

“…It seems there is little room to assume that the destinies of children growing up in AFS, or exposed to changes in family structure, would diverge from those of children growing up in stable two-parent nuclear families. The claims of McLanahan (2004) and more recently Bloome (2017), regarding the effects of the second demographic transition on social inequality, seem therefore unwarranted by these results. My findings differ from the previous literature supporting the FIH in that a proper causal account of the dynamics of family life is explicitely considered.…”