FAMILY STRUCTURE AND CHILD HEALTH OUTCOMES IN FRAGILE FAMILIES

Abstract

Dramatic changes in family demography in the United States have led to increasing numbers of children living in “non-traditional” households. A large body of literature documents the association between living in a non-traditional family structure/familial instability and children’s cognitive and behavioral outcomes. In contrast, relatively little research has focused on the relationship between family structure and instability and children’s physical health outcomes, despite the fact that there is good theoretical reason to expect that family structure and instability might be associated with children’s physical health. The current study uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to assess whether family structure and familial instability are associated with a variety of children’s physical health outcomes. The paper pays particular attention to possible mediating mechanisms and utilizes longitudinal data to address potential problems of selection bias and reverse causality. The results suggest that children living with two married biological parents tend to fare better than children living in less traditional family structures across a variety of physical health outcomes, and that at least some portion of these relationships are likely the result of selection bias and/or reverse causality.