Family structure and wellbeing of out-of-wedlock children

Abstract

This study examines the role of the relationship between the biological parents in determining child wellbeing using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS). We extend prior research by considering children born to unmarried parents in an investigation of the effect of the relationship structure between the biological parents on infant health and behavior. The main findings are that children born to cohabiting biological parents (i) realize better outcomes, on average, than those born to mothers who are less involved with the child's biological father, and (ii) whose parents marry within a year after childbirth do not display significantly better outcomes than children of parents who continue to cohabit. Furthermore, children born to cohabiting or visiting biological parents who end their relationship within the first year of the child's life are up to 9 percent more likely to have asthma compared to children whose biological parents remain (romantically) involved. The results are robust to a rich set of controls for socioeconomic status, health endowments, home investments, and relationship characteristics.

Family Trajectories and Well-being of Children Born to Lone Mothers in the UK

“…For example, several studies in the USA showed that children who were living with their mother and her cohabiting partner had outcomes that were similar to those of children who were growing up with a single mother only, and their outcomes were worse than those of children who were living with a stepfather (Sweeney 2010; Thomson and McLanahan 2012). The literature also shows that children who were born to unmarried mothers and experienced the dissolution of their parents’ relationship are more likely to have health problems (Heiland and Liu 2006). These US studies argue that each additional transition is associated with higher likelihood of behavioural, cognitive and health problems.…”

“…We analyse three key domains of child well-being: health (obesity), cognitive development (test scores on word recognition, number skills and pattern construction) and socio-emotional well-being to describe, for the first time outside the USA, the association between the family trajectories experienced by children born to lone mothers and their well-being (see Heiland and Liu 2006; Cavanagh and Huston 2006 and Craigie et al 2012 for similar studies that use data from the USA). We focus on outcomes measured at age seven, since family transitions and instability early in life may be particularly detrimental for children’s development at later ages (Cavanagh and Huston 2008) and because evidence suggests that these markers of child well-being are predictors of well-being later in life.…”

“…First, most of what we know about children born to lone mothers and the association between their subsequent family transitions and well-being comes from a handful of studies which rely on data sets from the USA. These data have specific features that make them representative of only a certain period1 (Stewart 2006) or of certain population subgroups2 (Sweeney 2010), complicating the issue of the transferability of findings to children currently living in other country contexts (Heiland and Liu 2006; Cavanagh and Huston 2006; Craigie et al 2012 which use the US data.). Few empirical studies focus on children born to lone mothers using representative data sets in Europe (e.g.…”

Better for Baby? The Retreat From Mid-Pregnancy Marriage and Implications for Parenting and Child Well-being

“…The positive relationship between marriage and child well-being does not, however, extend to all types of marriage. Evidence suggests that children whose biological parents married after they were born did not experience the same benefits as those whose biological parents married before they were born (Heiland and Liu 2006;Osborne and Palmo 2009). This prior research suggests something unique about marriage prior to childbirth, or that individual characteristics associated with selection into pre-pregnancy marriage are uniquely linked to child well-being.…”

Race/ethnic inequalities in early adolescent development in the United Kingdom and United States

“…Previous comparative studies are limited by aggregating race/ethnic groups into a catch-all children of immigrant group, which obscures heterogeneity in socioeconomic, migratory, and health profiles ( Modood 2003 ). Our conceptual model considers that observed racial/ethnic inequalities in outcomes may be due to the level and type of family resources to which adolescents are exposed; these resources span adolescent characteristics and family sociodemographic, cultural, and psychosocial domains that are known individual correlates of adolescent socioemotional well-being and cognitive development ( Bianchi 2000 ; Heiland and Liu 2006 ; Mollborn 2016 ).…”