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Our Paper In Thomson, Hanson and McLanahan (1994), we investigated the relative importance of two types of parental resources--time and money--for explaining the association between family structure and children's academic [...]

This article examines the prevalence, predictors and outcomes of unmarried mothers' repartnering patterns following a nonmarital birth. Results indicate that, within five years after a birth, approximately two-thirds of unmarried mothers end their relationship with the focal child's biological father, and more than half of these mothers enter new partnerships. Among those who repartnered, 60 percent of mothers formed unions with men who had higher economic capabilities than their former partners, 20 percent formed unions with men of similar capabilities, and 20 percent formed unions with men who had lower capabilities. This pattern holds for both nonresidential and coresidential unions. Our findings are consistent with marriage market, learning and evolutionary biology theories about union formation, and they provide support for qualitative evidence that unmarried mothers have high standards for new partners. While many mothers find new partners who seem to offer a higher level of economic security, many other mothers remain unpartnered, likely due (at least in part) to the limited pool of potential partners with relatively high levels of economic promise., Introduction The dramatic increase in nonmarital childbearing over the past four decades represents an important change in family demography. Rather than signaling a decline in the importance of marriage, however, [...]

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the association between coparenting quality and nonresident fathers' involvement with children over the first five years after a nonmarital birth. We find that about one year after a nonmarital birth, 48% of fathers are living away from their child, rising to 56% and then to 63% at three and five years, respectively. Using structural equation models to estimate cross-lagged effects, we find that positive coparenting is a strong predictor of nonresident fathers 'future involvement, whereas fathers 'involvement is only a weak (but significant) predictor of future coparenting quality. The positive effect of coparenting quality on fathers' involvement is robust across several techniques designed to address unobserved heterogeneity and across different strategies for handling missing data. We conclude that parents' ability to work together in rearing their common child across households helps keep nonresident fathers connected to their children and that programs aimed at improving parents 'ability to communicate may have benefits for children irrespective of whether the parents 'romantic relationship remains intact.

Recent increases in births to unmarried parents, and the instability surrounding these relationships, have raised concerns about the possible health effects associated with changes in family structure. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (N = 2,448), this article examines trajectories of maternal mental and physical health. We specifically focus on mothers 'transitions into and out of residential relationships with a child's biological father during the first five years after birth. We find that continuously married mothers are in better mental and physical health than unmarried mothers one year after birth, but the disparity does not increase over time. This finding provides little support for the resource model. Consistent with the crisis model, exiting a marital or cohabiting union increases mental health problems and decreases self-rated health. These effects appear to be relatively short-lived, though, and they are stronger for mental health than for self-rated health. The results also suggest that union dissolution may be selective of less healthy mothers, whereas union formation does not appear to be selective of healthier mothers.

The association between relationship quality and parenting is examined by using data from a longitudinal survey of both married and unmarried couples that gave birth in large U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000. A positive association is observed between parents' relationship quality at the time of a baby's birth and parenting about 1 year later for both mothers and fathers and the association between relationship quality and parenting is not affected by marital status.

In response to increases in cohabitation in the United States, researchers have recently focused on differences between cohabiting and marital unions. One consistent finding is a higher rate of domestic violence among cohabiting couples as compared with married couples. A prominent explanation for this finding is that cohabitation is governed by a different set of institutionalized controls than marriage. This article explores an alternative explanation, namely, that differences in selection out of cohabitation and marriage, including selection of the least-violent cohabiting couples into marriage and the most-violent married couples into divorce, lead to higher observed rates of violence among cohabiting couples in cross-sectional samples. Our results suggest that researchers should be cautious when making comparisons between married and cohabiting couples in which the dependent variable of interest is related to selection into and out of relationship status.

This article uses new data from the Fragile families and Child Wellbeing study to examine the reasons why white, Mexican American, and other Hispanic parents are approximately 2.5 times more likely than African American parents to marry within the 30 months after a nonmarital birth. Combining Fragile Families microdata with 2000 U.S. Census data shows that marriage market conditions exert a large influence on marriage decisions, even among couples that already have formed a romantic relationship and had a child together. The findings also show that an undersupply of employed African American men can explain a large portion of the racial and ethnic differences in marriage after a nonmarital birth. The current findings support the theory that marriage markets are influential not only during the search for romantic partners but also in determining whether romantic relationships, once formed, will lead to marriage.

Stricter child support enforcement may reduce unwed childbearing by raising the costs of fatherhood. The authors investigate this hypothesis using a sample of young women from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, to which they add information on state child support enforcement. Models of the probability of a teenage premarital birth and of teenage premarital pregnancy and pregnancy resolution provide tentative evidence that during the early 1980s, teens living in states with higher rates of paternity establishment were less likely to become unwed mothers. This relationship is stronger for non-Hispanic Whites than for non-Hispanic Blacks. The findings suggest that policies that shift more costs of premarital childbearing to men may reduce this behavior, at least among non-Hispanic Whites. Keywords: child support,' paternity; premarital childbearing; teenage childbearing

We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine trends in the receipt of child support (and the determinants of trends) between 1968 and 1997. The findings suggest that political, demographic, and economic forces all exerted downward pressure on child-support payments during this 30-year period, with inflation, the shift to unilateral divorce, and declines in fertility and men's earnings being more important during the earlier years and decreases in men's earnings being more important during the later years. These negative forces were offset by the passage of new child-support legislation in the 1980s and 1990s, including numeric guidelines, universal withholding, and genetic testing.

This article examines the combined effects of welfare policies, child support enforcement, and labor market characteristics on the well-being and living arrangement of families. Findings indicate that limited welfare benefits, strict enforcement of child support policies, and good labor markets support cohabitation and marriage.

This article examines attitudes among parents regarding the child support requirements and parenting rights of nonresident fathers. Findings indicate that most respondents supported child support obligations, the right to make parenting decisions, and visitation privileges for nonresident fathers while many single mothers were opposed to nonresident fathers making parenting decisions.

Issues concerning welfare reform legislation under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 are examined, focusing on implications for the most vulnerable familes. Topics include important social questions, regarding financial and emotional resources of vulnerable parents, and an overview of recent research.

Research was conducted to investigate the relationship between parental divorce to three significant kinds of family resources, namely, parental resources, economic resources and community resources. Data were taken from samples obtained by the National Survey of Families and Households in the 1987-1988 and 1992-1994 waves. Results provide evidence that there were significant declines in family resources prior to and after a divorce and returned to normal only after the regrouping of the divorcing family has been achieved.

The downward trends in child support award rates during the 1980s is mainly due to an increase in nonmarital fertility. Child support awards demonstrated a reduction by 12% during the 1980s and average award amounts declined by about 20%. The reduction in fathers' incomes during this period explains the decline in award amounts, award rates and receipts. Increase in the number of black or Hispanic mothers has also influenced award rates.

Parental conflict is not the reason for the lower well-being standards of children brought up in stepfather households, as all household conflicts have identical negative effects on the children. Children in stepfather households have a lower well-being status than the children in original two-parent households or single-mother households. Generally children in stepfather households experience more parental conflict than those in other households. Children in stepfather households with low conflict do as well as children in two-parent households.

A research conducted on 10,434 people selected from the 1980 High School and Beyond Study on their family types, social ties and academic performance revealed a major school dropout rate in children living with single-parents or step-parents due to frequent change in their residences. People undergoing divorce or remarriage can ensure an atmosphere conducive for their children's education by refraining from frequent shifting of homes.

Abstract We used data from the National Survey of Families and Households to investigate economic resources and parental behavior explanations for family structure effects on children. The economic explanation received considerable support in terms of single-mother disadvantage and accounted for a smaller proportion of disadvantage associated with mother-partner families. Parental behaviors, particularly maternal and paternal support, accounted for much smaller proportions of disadvantages found in mother-stepfather as well as mother-partner families. Parental behaviors did not appear to mediate any of the economic resource effects on children., During the past decade, a considerable body of research has shown that (1) children raised by both original parents are advantaged in several domains of well-being compared to children whose [...]

We examine gender differences in the relative poverty of men and women in eight industrialized countries. The analyses are based on data from the Luxembourg Income Study, which includes data from the United States, Canada, Australia, the United Kingdom, West Germany, Sweden, Italy, and the Netherlands. We examine the importance of the gender-specific demographic compositions of marriage, parenthood, and employment in accounting for differences in men's and women's poverty rates, both within and across countries. The cross-national comparisons suggest that the relative importance of demographic characteristics differs by country and that factors such as religion, culture, and government policies also help determine the gap between women's and men's poverty rates.

A study by the Department of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the Office of Population Research, Princeton University, used 1987-88 data of the National Survey of Families and Households, concerning 5,686 residential parents having young children, to reveal that friends are involved more than kin in social support relationships of non-traditional families, and that mothers give and get more support than fathers, while single parents are more connected to their own parents for support.

Analyses of data from the 1987-88 National Survey of Families and Households demonstrated that parents' gender did not account for family structure variations in parental socialization. Among parents (n = 3,738) of children aged 15 to 18, male and female single parents reported less restrictive rules than did married parents, while stepmothers, stepfathers, and cohabiting male partners reported significantly less frequent activities with and positive responses to children than did original parents. Some evidence was found for the primary alternative explanations for these differences - that two adults are more effective than one, and that stepparents are relative strangers to children.

Integrating ideas from child development with sociological models of educational attainment, we examine the relationship between family structure -- whether both parents are present in the household -- and children's achievement in high school. Using data from the High School and Beyond study, sophomore cohort, 1986, we ask whether differences in achievement are accounted for by difference in parents' educational aspirations and parenting styles. Children who live with single parents or stepparents during adolescence receive less encouragement and less help with school work than children who live with both natural parents, and parental involvement has positive effects on children's school achievement. Differences in parental behavior, however, account for little of the difference in educational attainment between children f om intact and nonintact families.

In recent decades, the number of families headed by women has increased dramatically. In this article, we use U.S. census data from 1950 to 1980 to consider the extent to which population growth, fertility change, decreased marriage, increased divorce, and increased household headship have contributed to the growth of female-headed families. For white women, the major sources of growth during the 1960s and 1970s was an increase in the number of formerly married mothers due to increased divorce and decreased remarriage. There is a similar pattern for black women for the 1960-1970 period. During the 1970-1980 decade, however, the major source of growth for black women was an increase in the number of never-married mothers due to decreased marriage and increased fertility among nonmarried women.

The effect of welfare and child support programs and child support enforcement policy on nonmarital childbearing is discussed.