Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,176) are used to examine family structure transitions and maternal parenting stress. Using multilevel modeling, we find that mothers who exit coresidential relationships with biological fathers or enter coresidential relationships with nonbiological fathers report higher levels of parenting stress than mothers in stable coresidential relationships. Mothers who enter coresidential relationships with biological fathers report lower levels of parenting stress than mothers who remain single. Mothers’ resources, especially their relationships with biological fathers, account for most of the associations between transitions and parenting stress, with posttransition resources being more important than pretransition resources. Mothers with high levels of education are less affected by transitions than mothers with less education.

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More than a century of empirical evidence links marital status to mortality. However, the hazards of dying associated with long-term marital trajectories and contributing risk factors are largely unknown. The authors used 1992-2006 prospective data from a cohort of US adults to investigate the impact of current marital status, marriage timing, divorce and widow transitions, and marital durations on mortality. Multivariate hazard ratios were significantly higher for adults currently divorced and widowed, married at young ages (< or =18 years), who accumulated divorce and widow transitions (among women), and who were divorced for 1-4 years. Results also showed significantly lower risks of mortality for men married after age 25 years compared with on time (ages 19-25 years) and among women experiencing > or =10 years of divorce and > or =5 years of widowhood relative to those without exposure to these statuses. For both sexes, accumulation of marriage duration was the most robust predictor of survival. Results from risk-adjusted models indicated that socioeconomic resources, health behaviors, and health status attenuated the associations in different ways for men and women. The study demonstrates that traditional measures oversimplify the relation between marital status and mortality and that sex differences are related to a nexus of marital experiences and associated health risks.

This document and trademark(s) contained herein are protected by law. This representation of RAND intellectual property is provided for noncommercial use only. Unauthorized posting of this publication online is prohibited. Permission is given to duplicate this document for personal use only, as long as it is unaltered and complete. Permission is required from RAND to reproduce, or reuse in another form, any of its research documents for commercial use. For information on reprint and linking permissions, please visit www.rand.org/pubs/permissions.The RAND Corporation is a research organization that develops solutions to public policy challenges to help make communities throughout the world safer and more secure, healthier and more prosperous. RAND is nonprofit, nonpartisan, and committed to the public interest.RAND's publications do not necessarily reflect the opinions of its research clients and sponsors.Support RAND Make a tax-deductible charitable contribution at www.rand.org/giving/contribute www.rand.org Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data For more information on this publication, visit www.rand.org/t/RR1695Published by the RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, Calif. © Copyright 2018 RAND CorporationR® is a registered trademark. Cover photo credits from top to bottom:Photo by Cpl PrefaceThe Health Related Behaviors Survey (HRBS) is the U.S. Department of Defense's flagship survey for understanding the health, health-related behaviors, and well-being of service members. Originally implemented to assess substance use (i.e., illicit drugs, alcohol, and tobacco), the survey now includes content areas-such as mental and physical health, sexual behavior, and postdeployment problems-that may affect force readiness or the ability to meet the demands of military life. The HRBS is intended to supplement administrative data already collected by the armed forces. In 2014, the Defense Health Agency asked the RAND Corporation to review previous iterations of the HRBS, update survey content, administer a revised version of the survey, and analyze data from the resulting 2015 HRBS of active-duty personnel. The 2015 HRBS included U.S. Air Force, Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Coast Guard personnel, and this report details the survey methodology and results. No expertise in health, health-related behaviors, or health care is required to read this report. However, it may be of most use to individuals who provide direct care related to the health and health-related behaviors of active-duty service members or who are responsible for making related policy decisions. Additional information can be found in a series of online appendixes.This research was sponsored by the Defense Health Agency and conducted within the Forces and Resources Policy Center of the RAND National Defense Research Institute, a federally funded research and development center sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Joint Staff, the Unified Combatant Commands, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the defense agencies, and the defense Intelli...

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.

Recent studies linking marital status and health increasingly focus on marital trajectories to examine the relationship from a life course perspective. However, research has been slow to bridge the theoretical concept of a marital trajectory with its measurement. This study uses retrospective and prospective data to model the age-dependent effects of marital sequences, timing, transitions, and durations on physical health. Results indicate that marriage duration is associated with lower rates of disease for men and women; however, the effect is time dependent and contingent on other trajectory components. For females, marriage timing and the cumulative number of divorce transitions are also important for health. For males, divorce duration and widowhood transitions play an integral role in this process. The authors also find that marital typologies have no effect when the number of transitions is taken into account.During the past two decades the life course perspective has gained notable momentum in many disciplines and has played an increasing role in how research addresses relationships that vary over personal and historic time

As blushing diffuses the likelihood of negative evaluations (and, thus, potential rejection) when an individual's status in a valued group is in jeopardy, people who are particularly concerned with others' evaluations and with their social relationships should be prone to blush. The Blushing Propensity scale, a battery of personality measures, and a questionnaire about blushing were completed by 225 Ss. The frequency with which Ss reported blushing correlated most strongly with measures that reflect people's concerns with how they are regarded by others. Four predictors (embarrassability, interaction anxiousness, self-esteem, and refinement) accounted for 40% of the variance in blushing propensity scores. A factor analysis showed that 2 distinct but correlated factors accounted for situations that elicit blushing. Finally, the predominant physical and psychological concomitants of blushing were described.

Social inequality is well established in the mental health of race-ethnic groups, but little is known about this disparity from adolescence to young adulthood. This study examined differences in trajectories of depressive symptoms across 4 race-ethnic groups (Whites, Blacks, Hispanics, and Asians) using 3 waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. Latent trajectory analyses showed race-ethnic variations among both females and males. Stressors were significantly related to depressive symptoms for all study members, but they accounted for symptom trajectories only among Black males and minority females. Persistent differences in trajectories for Blacks and Whites showed parallel slopes that did not converge over time. Neither background characteristics nor social resources (i.e., social support) altered this gap. However, social support represents a potential equalizer of these race-ethnic differences, owing to the ubiquitous nature of its protective effects.