Fragile Families and the Reproduction of Poverty

In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned that non-marital childbearing and marital dissolution were undermining the progress of African Americans. I argue that what Moynihan identified as a race-specific problem in the 1960s has now become a classbased phenomena as well. Using data from a new birth cohort study, I show that unmarried parents come from much more disadvantaged populations than married parents. I further argue that non-marital childbearing reproduces class and racial disparities through its association with partnership instability and multi-partnered fertility. These processes increase in maternal stress and mental health problems, reduce the quality of mothers' parenting, reduce paternal investments, and ultimately lead to poor outcomes in children. Finally, by spreading fathers‘ contributions across multiple households, partnership instability and multi-partnered fertility undermine the importance of individual fathers‘ contributions of time and money which is likely to affect the future marriage expectations of both sons and daughters.Family structure, family instability, poverty, inequality, parenting, child wellbeing

The Impact of Child Support Enforcement on Fertility, Parental Investment and Child Well-Being

Increasing the probability of paying child support, in addition to increasing resources available for investment in children, may also alter the incentives faced by men to have children out of wedlock. We find that strengthening child support enforcement leads men to have fewer out-of-wedlock births and among those who do become fathers, to do so with more educated women and those with a higher propensity to invest in children. Thus, policies that compel men to pay child support may affect child outcomes through two pathways: an increase in financial resources and a birth selection process.

Marriage Meets the Joneses: Relative Income, Identity, and Marital Status

This paper investigates the effect of relative income on marriage. Accounting flexibly for absolute income, the ratio between a manÂ’s income and a local reference group median is a strong predictor of marital status, but only for low-income men. Relative income affects marriage even among those living with a partner. A ten percent higher reference group income is associated with a two percent reduction in marriage. We propose an identity model to explain the results.marriage, relative income, inequality, identity

Partnership Instability and Child Well-being

We use data from three waves of the Fragile Families Study (N = 2,111) to examine the prevalence and effects of mothers’ partnership changes between birth and age 3 on children’s behavior. We find that children born to unmarried and minority parents experience significantly more partnership changes than children born to parents who are married or White. Each transition is associated with a modest increase in behavioral problems, but a significant number of children experience three or more transitions. The effects of instability do not depend on the mothers’ relationship status or race/ethnicity with one exception: instability has a stronger effect on aggression among Hispanic children. The association between instability and behavior is mediated by maternal stress and lower quality mothering.

The Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study: Questions, Design, and a Few Preliminary Results

Nonmarital childbearing is important because it is increasing and because there is concern (and some evidence) that it is damaging to children and perhaps parents as well. We refer to the unions of unwed parents as fragile families because they are similar to traditional families in many respects, but more vulnerable. Most people believe that children in fragile families would be better off if their parents lived together and their fathers were more involved in their upbringing. Indeed, public policy is now attempting to enlarge the role of unwed fathers both by cutting public cash support for single mothers and by strengthening paternity establishment and child support enforcement. Yet the scientific basis for these policies is weak. We know very little about the men who father children outside marriage, and we know even less about the nature of their relationships with their children and their children’s mothers. The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFS) is designed to remedy this situation by following a new birth cohort of approximately 4,700 children, including 3,600 children born to unmarried parents. The new data will be representative of nonmarital births in each of 20 cities and in U.S. cities with populations over 200,000. Both mothers and fathers will be followed for at least 4 years, and in-home assessments of children’s heath and development will be carried out when the child is 4 years old. The survey is designed to address the following questions: (1) What are the conditions and capabilities of new unwed parents, especially fathers? (2) What is the nature of the relationships in fragile families? (3) What factors push new unwed parents together and what factors pull them apart? In particular, how do labor markets, welfare, and child support public policies affect family formation? (4) How do children fare in fragile families and how is their well-being affected by parental capacities and relationships, and by public policies? The paper discusses what we know about each of these questions and how the FFS addresses each of them. It also presents preliminary findings based on data from Austin, Texas, and Oakland, California.

Marriage Meets the Joneses: Relative Income, Identity, and Marital Status

In this paper we investigate the effect of relative income on marital status. We develop an identity model based on Akerlof and Kranton (2000) and apply it to the marriage decision. The empirical evidence is consistent with the idea that people are more likely to marry when their incomes approach a financial level associated with idealized norms of marriage. We hypothesize that the marriage ideal is determined by the median income in an individual’s local reference group. After controlling flexibly for the absolute level of income and a number of other factors, the ratio between a man’s income and the marriage ideal is a strong predictor of marital status but only if he is below the ideal. For white men, relative income considerations jointly drive coresidence, marriage, and fatherhood decisions. For black men, relative income affects the marriage decision only, and relative income is tied to marital status even for those living with a partner and children. Relative income concerns explain 10-15 percent of the decline in marriage since 1970 for low income white men, and account for more than half of the persistent marriage gap between high- and low-income men.marriage, relative income, inequality, identity

The Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study: Questions, Design, and a Few Preliminary Results

Nonmarital childbearing is important because it is increasing and because there is concern (and some evidence) that it is damaging to children and perhaps parents as well. We refer to the unions of unwed parents as fragile families because they are similar to traditional families in many respects, but more vulnerable. Most people believe that children in fragile families would be better off if their parents lived together and their fathers were more involved in their upbringing. Indeed, public policy is now attempting to enlarge the role of unwed fathers both by cutting public cash support for single mothers and by strengthening paternity establishment and child support enforcement. Yet the scientific basis for these policies is weak. We know very little about the men who father children outside marria ge, and we know even less about the nature of their relationships with their children and their children’s mothers. The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFS) is designed to remedy this situation by following a new birth cohort of approximately 4,700 children, including 3,600 children born to unmarried parents. The new data will be representative of nonmarital births in each of 20 cities and in U.S. cities with populations over 200,000. Both mothers and fathers will be followed for at least 4 years, and inhome assessments of children’s heath and development will be carried out when the child is 4 years old. The survey is designed to address the following questions: (1) What are the conditions and capabilities of new unwed parents, especially fathers? (2) What is the nature of the relationships in fragile families? (3) What factors push new unwed parents together and what factors pull them apart? In particular, how do labor markets, welfare, and child support public policies affect family formation? (4) How do children fare in fragile families and how is their well-being affected by parental capacities and relationships, and by public policies? The paper discusses what we know about each of these questions and how the FFS addresses each of them. It also presents preliminary findings based on data from Austin, Texas, and Oakland, California.

SHARED PARENTING IN FRAGILE FAMILIES

This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the frequency of parent-child interaction in several areas across a range of family types. Overall, we find that few individual characteristics of mothers or fathers are consistently associated with how often parents engage in activities with their one-year-old children. The nature of parents’ relationship, however, does appear to be important for parenting. Non-resident fathers exhibit significantly lower levels of interaction with their children in activities such as care giving, playing and cognitive stimulation, than resident fathers. In addition, the father’s supportiveness toward the mother affects several mother-child and father-child activities. Future research with a larger sample and a greater number of comparable parenting items will be useful for improving our understanding of how mother-father relationships, mothers’ parenting, and fathers’ parenting are linked to each other and, ultimately, to children’s wellbeing.

Mothers’ Investments in Child Health in the U.S. and U.K.: A Comparative Lens on the Immigrant 'Paradox'

Research on the immigrant paradox healthier behaviors and outcomes among more socioeconomically disadvantaged immigrants is mostly limited to the U.S. Hispanic population and to the study of birth outcomes. Using data from the Fragile Families Study and the Millennium Cohort Study, we expand our understanding of this phenomenon in several ways. First, we examine whether the healthier behaviors of Hispanic immigrant mothers extend to other foreign-born groups, including non-Hispanic immigrant mothers in the U.S. and white, South Asian, black African and Caribbean, and other (largely East Asian) immigrants in the U.K, including higher SES groups. Second, we consider not only the size of the paradox at the time of the child's birth, but also the degree of its persistence into early childhood. Third, we examine whether nativity disparities are weaker in the U.K., where a much stronger welfare state makes health information and care more readily accessible. Finally, we examine whether differences in mothers’ instrumental and social support both inside and out of the home can explain healthier behaviors among the foreign-born. The results suggest that healthier behaviors among immigrants are not limited to Hispanics or to low SES groups; that nativity differences are fairly persistent over time; that the immigrant advantage is equally strong in both countries; and that the composition and strength of mothers’ support plays a trivial explanatory role in both countries. These findings lead us to speculate that what underlies nativity differences in mothers’ health behaviors may be a strong parenting investment on the part of immigrants.Fragile Families Study, Millennium Cohort Study, immigrants, behavior

FRAGILE FAMILIES AND WELFARE REFORM

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is designed to shift more of the responsibility for poor children from government to parents. To accomplish this goal, the new law requires welfare clients to work and limits the total number of years they can receive assistance. In addition, the new legislation requires unwed fathers to establish paternity and strengthens child support enforcement among nonresident fathers. Although many people believe that poor children would be better off if their mothers worked and their fathers were more involved in their upbringing, the scientific evidence for these assumptions is weak. We know very little about the ability of poor parents to support their children, and we know even less about their ability to cooperate with one another.