Can We Promote Child Well‐Being by Promoting Marriage?

Acs, Gregory

doi:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2007.00450.x

Cited by 41 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…The BCS is a longitudinal survey that contains incredibly detailed background information about a cohort of individuals born in 1970, providing us with information about these people throughout their lives, starting long before their marriage decisions were 3 These issues are covered in detail by Goodman and Greaves (2010a). 4 See, for example, McLanahan and Sandefur (1994), Manning and Lamb (2003), Acs and Nelson (2004), Ribar (2004), Ermisch (2005), Brien, Lillard and Stern (2006), Manning and Brown (2006), Acs (2007), Björklund, Ginther and Sundström (2007) and Goodman and Greaves (2010a). 5 For example, Brown (2004).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cohabitation, marriage, relationship stability and child outcomes: an update

Crawford¹,

Goodman

Greaves³

et al. 2011

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cohabitation, marriage, relationship stability and child outcomes: an update

Crawford¹,

Goodman

Greaves³

et al. 2011

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“…Baseline bias occurs when preexisting characteristics are associated with both marriage and child well-being. In this case, marriage itself may not directly confer benefits for children; rather, such outcomes may be due to the fact the most secure, healthy, and advantaged individuals are more likely to marry (Acs 2007;Hofferth 2005). Failure to account for baseline selection bias could bias associations between family structure and child well-being (McLanahan and Percheski 2008).…”

Section: The Role Of Selection Biasmentioning

confidence: 90%

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

Sassler

2015

Demography

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Recent decades have seen a significant decline in mid-pregnancy ("shotgun") marriage, particularly among disadvantaged groups, which has contributed to increasing nonmarital birth rates. Despite public and political concern about this shift, the implications for parenting and child well-being are not known. Drawing on a sample of U.S. black and white mothers with nonmarital conceptions from the NLSY79, our study fills this gap. Using propensity score techniques to address concerns about selection bias, we found that mid-pregnancy marriages were associated with slightly better parenting quality relative to remaining single, although effect sizes were small and limited to marriages that remained intact at the time of child assessment. Mid-pregnancy marriages were not associated with improved children's behavior or cognitive ability. These findings suggest that the retreat from mid-pregnancy marriage may contribute to increasing inequality in parenting resources for children.

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“…42 Further, studies that focus just on low-income children (the targets of many public policies) also show that for most behavioral and cognitive outcomes, children in cohabiting two-biological-parent families fare as well as children in married two biological parent families. 43 …”

Section: Recent Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cohabitation and Child Wellbeing

Manning¹

2015

The Future of Children

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Summary In recent decades, writes Wendy Manning, cohabitation has become a central part of the family landscape in the United States—so much so that by age 12, 40 percent of American children will have spent at least part of their lives in a cohabiting household. Although many children are born to cohabiting parents, and cohabiting families come in other forms as well, the most common cohabiting arrangement is a biological mother and a male partner. Cohabitation, Manning notes, is associated with several factors that have the potential to reduce children’s wellbeing. Cohabiting families are more likely than married families to be poor, and poverty harms children in many ways. Cohabiting parents also tend to have less formal education—a key indicator of both economic and social resources—than married parents do. And cohabiting parent families don’t have the same legal protections that married parent families have. Most importantly, cohabitation is often a marker of family instability, and family instability is strongly associated with poorer outcomes for children. Children born to cohabiting parents see their parents break up more often than do children born to married parents. In this way, being born into a cohabiting family sets the stage for later instability, and children who are born to cohabiting parents appear to experience enduring deficits of psychosocial wellbeing. On the other hand, stable cohabiting families with two biological parents seem to offer many of the same health, cognitive, and behavioral benefits that stable married biological parent families provide. Turning to stepfamilies, cohabitation’s effects are tied to a child’s age. Among young children, living in a cohabiting stepfamily rather than a married stepfamily is associated with more negative indicators of child wellbeing, but this is not so among adolescents. Thus the link between parental cohabitation and child wellbeing depends on both the type of cohabiting parent family and the age of the child.

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Can We Promote Child Well‐Being by Promoting Marriage?

Cited by 41 publications

References 32 publications

Cohabitation, marriage, relationship stability and child outcomes: an update

Cohabitation, marriage, relationship stability and child outcomes: an update

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

Cohabitation and Child Wellbeing

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