National, longitudinal surveys from Great Britain and the United States were used to investigate the effects of divorce on children. In both studies, a subsample of children who were in two-parent families during the initial interview (at age 7 in the British data and at ages 7 to 11 in the U.S. data) were followed through the next interview (at age 11 and ages 11 to 16, respectively). At both time points in the British data, parents and teachers independently rated the children's behavior problems, and the children were given reading and mathematics achievement tests. At both time points in the U.S. data, parents rated the children's behavior problems. Children whose parents divorced or separated between the two time points were compared to children whose families remained intact. For boys, the apparent effect of separation or divorce on behavior problems and achievement at the later time point was sharply reduced by considering behavior problems, achievement levels, and family difficulties that were present at the earlier time point, before any of the families had broken up. For girls, the reduction in the apparent effect of divorce occurred to a lesser but still noticeable extent once preexisting conditions were considered.

This study uses data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study to examine the extent to which economic circumstances in infancy and mother's mental well-being are associated with children's cognitive development and behaviour problems at age 3 years, and what part parenting behaviours and attitudes play in mediating these factors. The analyses derived from Structural Equation Modelling show that economic deprivation and maternal depression separately and collectively diminish the cognitive and emotional well-being of children, and part of this diminution emanates from less nurturing and engaged parenting by those with less economic and emotional resources.

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This paper focuses on cohabitation and unmarried parenthood across a range of European nations. It includes a brief outline of the history of cohabitation, reviews recent trends in cohabitation and unmarried parenthood, compares the stability of marital and cohabiting unions, examines the extent to which cohabiting couples are regarded as families, and the final sections include a review of the policy responses to date, as well as a discussion of the impetuses that may lie behind the rise in cohabitation and unmarried parenthood.

It has been suggested that people in racial/ethnic minority groups are healthier when they live in areas with a higher concentration of people from their own ethnic group, a so-called ethnic density effect. Ethnic density effects are still contested, and the pathways by which ethnic density operates are poorly understood. The aim of this study was to systematically review the literature examining the ethnic density effect on physical health, mortality, and health behaviors. Most studies report a null association between ethnic density and health. Protective ethnic density effects are more common than adverse associations, particularly for health behaviors and among Hispanic people. Limitations of the literature include inadequate adjustment for area deprivation and limited statistical power across ethnic density measures and study samples.