COHABITATION: AN ELUSIVE CONCEPT

Rates of out-of-wedlock births in the US have increased over the past three decades and rates of cohabitation among unwed parents have risen. Consequently, unwed parenthood is decreasingly synonymous with single parenthood. As we focus more attention on unwed parents, their living arrangements, and relationships, it is becoming clear that cohabitation is an ambiguous concept that is difficult to measure. In this study, we use the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing data to document how sensitive cohabitation estimates can be to various sources of information and we demonstrate that relationships among unwed parents fall along a continuum, from marriage-like cohabitation at one extreme to parents who have no contact at all with one another at the other. The results underscore the limitations of using binary measures of cohabitation to characterize parent relationships.

Immigration and low birthweight in the US: The role of time and timing

The literature exploring the health consequences of immigration is largely dominated by efforts to replicate, across outcomes and populations, and explain two widely observed findings: that foreign nativity is protective (yielding the “healthy migrant effect” or “immigrant paradox”) and that the health advantage of immigrants diminishes over time in the host country. In this study, we focus on the second of these patterns and provide evidence that a lifecourse perspective can help to explain the apparent deterioration in health by incorporating attention to immigrants’ timing of arrival. We examine the role of immigrants’ exposure to the US, in terms of both age at immigration and length of residence, in shaping birthweight, a well measured and consequential marker of health, and maternal smoking, an important risk factor for low birthweight.

Mental Illness as a Barrier to Marriage Among Mothers With Out-of-Wedlock Births

This study explores how mental illness shapes transitions to marriage among unwed mothers using augmented data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study. We estimate proportional hazard models to assess the effects of mental illness on the likelihood of marriage over a five year period following a non-marital birth. Diagnosed mental illness was obtained from the survey respondents' prenatal medical records. We find that mothers with mental illness were about two thirds as likely as mothers without mental illness to marry, even after controlling for demographic characteristics, and that human capital, relationship quality, partner selection, and substance abuse explain only a small proportion of the effect of mental illness on marriage.

Effects of Welfare Participation on Marriage

Despite interest in the potential of the welfare system as a tool to affect marriage behaviors among low-income women, little is known about how welfare participation affects decisions to marry. We employ an event history approach to examine transitions to marriage over a five-year period among mothers who have had a non-marital birth. We find that welfare participation under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program (TANF) reduces the likelihood of transitioning to marriage (hazard ratio is .67, p

The Role of Welfare in New Parents’ Lives

Welfare caseloads have declined substantially since the landmark PRWORA legislation of 1996, which was designed to shift the burden of supporting needy families from government to families themselves. These caseload declines have been well documented, and characteristics of recipients following the implementation of PRWORA can be gleaned from administrative and agency records. Less readily available is documentation of recent rates of welfare dependency for specific population subgroups. Mothers giving birth in the aftermath of the 1996 legislation are of particular interest since they are more likely than other potential recipients to meet work requirements and hit time limits before their children are in school.

Segregation in social networks based on acquaintanceship and trust

Using recently collected data from the 2006 General Social Survey, we compare levels of segregation by race and along other dimensions of potential social cleavage in the contemporary United States. Americans are not as isolated as other recent evidence suggests. However, hopes that "bridging" social capital is more common in broader acquaintanceship networks than in core networks are not supported by the GSS data. Instead, the entire acquaintanceship network appears to be as segregated as the more restricted and much smaller network based on trust. Social divisions based on religiosity, political ideology, family behaviors and socioeconomic standing are high and in some cases rival racial segregation in their intensity. The major challenge to social integration today comes less from the risk of social isolation--complete isolation is rare--than from the tendency of many Americans to isolate themselves from others who differ on race, political ideology, level of religiosity, and other salient aspects of social identity

Independent Review Of Social And Population Variation In Mental Health Could Improve Diagnosis In DSM Revisions

At stake in the May 2013 publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), are billions of dollars in insurance payments and government resources, as well as the diagnoses and treatment of millions of patients. We argue that the most recent revision process has missed social determinants of mental health disorders and their diagnosis: environmental factors triggering biological responses that manifest themselves in behavior; differing cultural perceptions about what is normal and what is abnormal behavior; and institutional pressures related to such matters as insurance reimbursements, disability benefits, and pharmaceutical marketing. In addition, the experts charged with revising the DSM lack a systematic. way to take population-level variations in diagnoses into account. To address these problems, we propose the creation of an independent research review body that would monitor variations in diagnostic patterns, inform future DSM revisions, identify needed changes in mental health policy and practice, and recommend new avenues of research. Drawing on the best available knowledge, the review body would make possible more precise and equitable psychiatric diagnoses and interventions

The impact of neighborhood norms on youth sexual and fertility behavior

Recent research in sociology supports the contention that neighborhoods vary in their normative climates, which affect youth behaviors. Spatial variation in norms is thought to be primarily due to increased concentration of poverty and racial segregation, but a number of different theories of how structural changes affect behavior have emerged. Empirical research supporting neighborhood effects theories has lacked normative data, however, making it difficult to formally test neighborhood effects theories. Using recent data from the Philadelphia Teen Study (PTS), this dissertation builds census tract measures of adolescent transition norms including norms of sexual initiation and fertility. Multilevel statistical models are then employed in order to determine which theories of neighborhood effects most accurately reflect observed rates of youth sexual and fertility behavior. The results indicate that most neighborhood differences in norms and in behavior are due to the racial composition of neighborhoods rather than their socioeconomic composition. To the extent that norms and behaviors are related to the socioeconomic composition, they are only among primarily white neighborhoods. The results of the analyses do not provide strong support for most normative theories of behavior. Rather, they suggest that most of the association between socioeconomic characteristics of neighborhoods and youth sexual and fertility behavior is due to selectivity and race

Paternal Age as a Risk Factor for Low Birthweight

Objectives. We examined associations between paternal age and low birth-weight in the US urban population. Methods. Using a population-based sample of 4621 births, we used multiple logistic regression analysis to estimate associations between paternal age and low birthweight, controlling for maternal age, other demographic factors, and the child’s gender. Results. When the child’s gender and the mother’s race/ethnicity, birthplace, parity, marital status, and health insurance type were controlled, teenaged fathers were 20% less likely and fathers older than 34 years were 90% more likely than fathers aged 20 to 34 years to have low-birthweight babies. The associations were significant when maternal age was also controlled. No racial/ethnic differences in associations between paternal age and low birthweight were found. Conclusions. We identified paternal age as an independent risk factor for low birthweight in the US urban population, suggesting that more attention needs to be paid to paternal influences on birth outcomes and to the interactive effects of urban environments and individual risk factors on health