Field Statement8

The Effects of Parental Marital Status and Living Arrangements on Child Outcomes in the United States: An Overview of the Field

Scott Winship

The growing number of children in single-parent families – overwhelmingly

headed by single mothers – is a matter of great concern among policymakers, researchers,

and Americans throughout the country. The source of this concern lies primarily in the

widely held belief – apparently buttressed by a large body of social science research –

that growing up with a single mother hurts children. This review of the field argues

provocatively that the evidence for this claim is weak and that its theoretical basis is not

only shaky but to a great extent irrelevant to the empirical question at hand.

There is no question that recent decades have seen stunning increases in single

parenthood. In 1940, roughly one in twenty children lived in families headed by a single

mother. The growth of single motherhood accelerated in the ensuing decades,

particularly in the 1970s, so that in 1980 roughly one in four children lived with a single

mother. Since the mid-1990s, the ratio has stood at one in three. Among African

Americans, one in five children lived with a single mother as early as 1940 – a level

whites have yet to reach. Since the early 1980s, over half of black children have lived in

families headed by a single mother.1, 2

1 Trends in family structure are based on the author's calculations from published Census Bureau data. See http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam.html#history. 2 These trends are related to increases in non-marital pregnancy, declines in shotgun marriage, reduced marital fertility, and the rise in divorce. In turn, these changes have been driven by some combination of growing individualism, expanded economic opportunities for women (in absolute terms and relative to men), changes in public assistance for single mothers, and reduced sanctioning of previously deviant sexual and marital decisions. On proximal causes of the trends, see publicly-available vital statistics data from the National Center for Health Statistics, historical data on fertility and marriage from the Census Bureau, and the Statistical Abstract of the United States. On ultimate causes, see Ellwood and Jencks (2004), Lesthaeghe (1995).

http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam.html#history

WINSHIP FIELD STATEMENT

Nor is there any question that the children of single mothers fare worse on a wide

range of outcomes.3 Wendy Sigle-Rushton and Sara McLanahan (2004) offer the most

up to date review, which indicates that those who grow up in fatherless families do worse

on measures of scholastic achievement, educational attainment, psychological health,

behavioral problems, delinquency, stable family formation, early sexual debut, partner

satisfaction, economic success, and even physical health. The disparities often persist

into adulthood and remain even when commonly measured covariates are statistically

controlled. Nevertheless, the evidence that growing up with a single parent per se is

harmful remains to be established.

Theoretical Arguments for the Importance of Family Structure

Much of the theory developed regarding the importance of family structure comes

from scholars outside the field, drawing on more general theories of child development,

household economics, and social capital. One set of hypotheses relating family structure

to child outcomes emphasizes the importance of income. Single motherhood generally

reduces the economic resources available to families (McLanahan and Sandefur, 1994;

Page and Stevens, 2002) because non-custodial fathers contribute far less to their

children’s household than they otherwise would. Only a minority of children with non-

custodial fathers receive any child support payments, and the amount is typically very

small (Furstenberg and Cherlin, 1991). By reducing income and necessitating greater

paid work by mothers, single motherhood increases the time children must spend doing

3 Because the majority of single parents are single mothers (about four in five in 2003), I generally refer to “single mothers” throughout this paper rather than “single parents”. I also implicitly conceptualize “two-parent families” in terms of heterosexual unions. These choices are simply for expositional simplification, but a more complete review of the field would examine differences between children of single mothers and single fathers as well as the evidence on how having same-sex parents affects children. Other distinctions, such as between cohabiting and married heterosexual couples are discussed below where relevant.

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housework and working for pay, which might negatively affect educational achievement

and progress (Garfinkel and McLanahan, 1986). As described below, family income also

may affect children's educational aspirations, their status among their peers, their

neighborhood quality, the stability of their lives, and insecurity within their family, any or

all of which may influence child outcomes.

Furthermore, the inability to exploit the work/home specialization afforded by

two-parent families means that child care expenses are often greater for single mothers

than they would be with a husband. Another benefit of specialization is that married

parents may self-invest strategically in forms of human capital that, over time, magnify

the gains from a work/home division of labor (Becker, 1991). Husbands and wives can

exploit the comparative advantage each has in household and market production so that

investment in children is greater than it would otherwise be in the absence of

specialization. Because single mothers cannot take advantage of specialization, the

economic disadvantage they and their families suffer will tend to grow over time.

A second set of hypotheses about the effect of single motherhood posits that

growing up with a single mother results in worse parenting, which then hurts child

outcomes (Astone and McLanahan, 1991; Thomson, McLanahan, and Curtin, 1992).

Parenting may suffer simply as a consequence of the disruption that non-marital

pregnancy or divorce imposes on a single mother. The psychological adjustment

required of her might temporarily produce withdrawal, ineffective parenting, or both

(Furstenberg and Cherlin, 1991).

Apart from disadvantages associated with disruption, the basic structural

difference between having one guardian rather than two may negatively affect parenting.

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In a two-parent family, both husband and wife may work full time or they may choose to

specialize such that one parent is primarily responsible for childrearing. Single mothers

do not have this luxury; a woman may be forced to devote more time to the labor market

and less to childrearing than would be the case if she were married (Duncan and

Hoffman, 1985). Non-custodial fathers’ involvement in their children’s lives is far below

that of married fathers who live with their children. This is particularly true for fathers of

children born out of wedlock, but even among divorced couples, father involvement

generally diminishes with time (Furstenberg and Cherlin, 1991; Edin and Kefalas, 2005).

The bottom line is that single motherhood may reduce the quantity of parental time with

children, both for mothers and fathers. This may translate into less socialization, less

supervision and monitoring, and less involvement and emotional support (Sigle-Rushton

and McLanahan, 2004). In particular, if socialization is more effective when it is

reinforced by a second person, children in single-mother families will be at a

disadvantage (Maccoby and Martin, 1983).

The structural problem of single vs. dual parenting also may affect the quality of

parenting. Because a single mother must assume both breadwinner and homemaker

roles, she will typically be under greater stress than if she had a partner with whom she

could divide the work (Furstenberg and Cherlin, 1991). Because of increased stress and

insecurity, the warmth a single mother displays in her relationships with her children may

suffer, and she may be less effective at disciplining them (McLanahan and Sandefur,

1994). Socialization may be more effective when coming from two parents together than

the equivalent amount coming from each of them separately. In addition, if two parents

buffer against each other's parenting weaknesses or if they simply make parenting easier

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through mutual support, then single parenthood may be disadvantageous (Maccoby and

Martin, 1983).

Furthermore, single parenting can rob children of gender-specific role-modeling

(Demo and Acock, 1988; Sigle-Rushton and McLanahan, 2004). Father absence –

resulting either from divorce or non-marital pregnancy – might harm the ability of

children to form healthy relationships (Maccoby and Martin, 1983). Nock (1988) has

argued that single-mother families feature less hierarchical and more peer-like relations

between parent and child than two-parent families do. Single mothers are more reliant on

their children for support and assistance than married mothers are. As a result, their

children are under-exposed to authority relations typical of hierarchical institutions

related to education and employment. Finally, fathers may also have cultural capital that

mothers lack, such as knowledge about professions and industries dominated by men

(U.S. Department of Labor, 1965; Lamont and Lareau, 1988).

Instead of emphasizing income or parenting deficits, other social scientists

emphasize a third set of hypotheses related to the psychological impact on children of

growing up in a non-intact family. Children who experience their parents’ divorce may

become resentful or distrustful of one or both parents. They may suffer psychological

harm as a consequence of witnessing conflict between their parents (Maccoby and

Martin, 1983). Father absence may lower children's sense of self-worth if they feel

rejected or to blame (Wallerstein and Blakeslee, 1989).

Single motherhood is also associated with greater residential mobility, which for

children involves the loss of friends and adjustment to new schools (McLanahan, 1983).

Household composition is less stable among single-mother families, with extended

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family, boyfriends, and stepfathers entering and exiting the picture over the course of

childhood. Such instability may be psychologically disruptive to children. To the extent

that it reduces income, growing up with a single mother may shape educational

aspirations by making college seem more or less plausible an option. Furthermore, single

mothers may be unable to afford luxuries such as stylish clothes, sports equipment and

fees, and orthodontics for their children. Their children's status among their peers may

suffer as a result (Harris, 1999). Finally, having a single mother itself may be

stigmatizing to children.

The last set of hypotheses positing that single motherhood is harmful to children

argues that they may be hurt as a consequence of reduced social capital (McLanahan and

Sandefur, 1994; Sigle-Rushton and McLanahan, 2004). Upon divorce, for instance,

single-mother families often are forced for financial reasons to move to neighborhoods

that are less optimal for their children’s development (McLanahan, 1983). Greater

residential mobility leads to a loss of the social ties in which commitment and trust

inhere, and it causes single-mother families to have inadequate information about the

resources available to them. In the wake of divorce, many of the mother’s prior

relationships may be severed due to the need for a fresh start, depression, or lack of time.

Children of divorce also lose access to many of their father’s relationships as their

relationship with him weakens (Furstenberg and Cherlin, 1991). To add to all of these

potential disadvantages, social stigma against single motherhood may deny children

valuable social capital.

Theory as a Leaky Vessel

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The hypotheses presented above are subject to challenge along three

fundamentally different fronts. The first line of challenge accepts the premises of the

above analysis but argues that it overstates the negative consequences of single

motherhood in terms of income, parenting, psychological impact, and social capital. It

does so by neglecting to point out counterarguments and failing to consider factors that

might buffer the effect of single motherhood. For example, single mothers may live with

grandparents or other family members who partly or fully make up for the absent father's

investment in children. In time, the mother may remarry or reside with a boyfriend,

providing additional source of investment (though such a change may create more

difficulties for children – see Furstenberg and Cherlin, 1991; Cherlin, 1992). A single

mother may react to income loss not by reducing investment in children, but by reducing

fertility or her own consumption (Becker, 1991). She may also substitute investment for

luxuries she would otherwise give her children. It is also possible that greater work on

the part of a single mother might improve child outcomes by promoting a work ethic and

demanding greater independence on the part of children (McLanahan and Booth, 1989).

Such arguments are unlikely to persuade most observers that single motherhood's

effects may be overstated. The second line of challenge to the conventional wisdom is

more fundamental. It rejects the premise that the purported factors above negatively

affect child outcomes in a substantial way. Psychological effects of single motherhood

on mother and child may be only temporary. Social capital may be relatively

unimportant in promoting the success of children.

Recent research has, in particular, challenged the extent to which income and

parenting affect child outcomes. Susan Mayer (1997) has shown that conventional

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estimates of the effects of family income on child outcomes are biased upwards. Studies

rarely if ever are able to control for unobserved variables that affect both family income

and child outcomes, and because most of these unobserved measures affect income and

outcomes in the same way, income typically looks more important than it is. Similarly,

Judith Rich Harris (1999) argues that parents provide children with their initial tastes,

interests, and culture but that these bequests ultimately are subordinated to the

socialization that occurs in peer groups from a very early age. According to Harris's

group socialization theory, parents cannot be the agents of socialization because only

peers are suited to teaching age-appropriate behavior: "Socialization is not something

that grownups do to kids – it is something kids do to themselves." (p. 356)

What Harris and Mayer are arguing is that given the minimum level of parenting

and income that is typical in the United States, and given the existing variance in

parenting and income, variation in these inputs does not account for much of the variation

we observe in child outcomes. That puts limits on the extent to which they can explain

differences between children of single and married mothers, for if they could explain

much of the difference, then their correlations with child outcomes in the population

would reflect the disparities. The more general implication is that the disparities that we

observe between the children of single and married mothers might be due to unobserved

variables that differ between the two groups.4

The third and final line of challenge to theories arguing that single motherhood is

disadvantageous relies on counterfactual reasoning. We do not know how the children of

single mothers would have turned out had their parents married (or remained married). It

4 An important source of omitted variable bias may be genetic influences. See Reiss et al. (2003), Cleveland et al. (2000), and McGue and Lykken (1992).

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is possible that investment levels in children could be lower if a resident father brings

home little income or has selfish preferences. A father's family-specific culture or social

capital may be negative rather than positive – he may be a tyrant or have friends that are

bad role models. There may be negative effects on children if the parents constantly fight

or if the father resents the children. Some men may just be terrible fathers, bad

influences, and poor role models, and the fact that the children of single mothers do

worse than those with two parents does not imply that the gap would be smaller if the

single-mother families were intact.

Empirical Critique5

The early literature on the effects of family structure is well represented by the

early literature on divorce in particular. This research suffered from major

methodological shortcomings. Amato and Keith (1991a) reviewed 92 quantitative

studies from 1957 to 1990 that compared children and college students in divorced or

separated families with those who lived continuously in intact families. Fewer than 30

percent of effect sizes they obtained from this literature came from random samples.

Three out of four studies included no attempt to control for or match on covariates.

Amato and Keith (1991b) conducted a similar review of 37 studies from 1952 to 1991

comparing adults whose parents had divorced or separated to those who had lived in

intact families throughout childhood. Only 40 percent of the effect sizes obtained came

5 Because I focus on how social scientists have tried to estimate valid average causal effects of family structure, I do not discuss ethnographic research on family structure. For an invaluable study that explores why poor single mothers make the decisions they do, see Edin and Kefalas (2005).

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from studies that included pre-divorce controls and omitted (correctly) post-divorce

measures. About half the studies included no controls whatsoever.6

Amato and Keith (1991a) found that about 70 percent of the effect sizes they

obtained for children were negative but that the median effect size was just 15 percent of

a standard deviation (12 percent of a standard deviation among multivariate studies).

Three out of four effect sizes failed to attain statistical significance. Among adults who

had lived in a divorced family, the median effect size obtained was about one-sixth of one

standard deviation (Amato and Keith, 1991b). Just less than half of the effect sizes

attained statistical significance.

In the 1980s, a number of nationally representative datasets became available,

improving the models used by social scientists. Nevertheless, much of this research

relied on simple analysis of covariance methods, crude snapshot indicators of living

arrangements and experience of family transitions, or both. This line of research

culminated in the work of Sara McLanahan and her colleagues, and in particular the

field’s most oft-cited work, Growing Up with a Single Parent (McLanahan and Sandefur,

1994).7

McLanahan and Sandefur found that children who had lived with both biological

parents through age sixteen had higher test scores and grades; attended school at higher

rates; were more likely to graduate from high school; were more likely to expect to go to

college, to actually enroll, and to graduate; were less likely to be idle in early adulthood;

6 Demo and Acock's (1988) review of the literature from 1975 to 1988 also highlights the extent to which most studies until recently relied on cross-sectional convenience samples typically including fewer than one hundred children in divorced families. See Amato (2000) for comparable meta-analytic estimates from the 1990s literature.7 Related research involving McLanahan includes McLanahan (1985), McLanahan (1988), McLanahan and Bumpass (1988), Astone and McLanahan (1991), Manski et al. (1992), Sandefur, McLanahan, and Wojtkiewicz (1992), Thomson, Hanson, and McLanahan (1994), Case, Lin, and McLanahan (1999); and Harper and McLanahan (2004).

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and (among women) were less likely to become a mother as a teenager. These results

were robust to controlling for child gender, race, parents’ education, region, and number

of siblings and held for children of different ethnic groups and whose parents had

different education levels.8 Quantifying these effects is problematic in many cases

because the outcome variables are often scaled in non-intuitive ways, but the effect on

college graduation for those graduating from high school ranged from 3 to 8 percentage

points (where 21 to 27 percent of children in two-parent families were predicted to

graduate, adjusted for covariates), and the effect on teen motherhood ranged from 5 to 17

percentage points (where 11 to 20 percent of children in two-parent families were

predicted to become a teenage mother).9

McLanahan and Sandefur further found that outcomes were typically similar for

children with single mothers, single fathers, or stepparents. They also reported that

children of never-married mothers sometimes did worse than children of divorced

mothers and that children of widowed mothers typically did better than either of these

two groups. Finally, McLanahan and Sandefur found that effects did not vary depending

on whether single motherhood was experienced in early childhood, middle childhood, or

adolescence; whether the duration of the spell was less than five years or greater than five

years; or whether the number of disruptions experienced was less than two or not.

These latter measures on the timing, frequency, and duration of exposure to single

parenthood are the basis of a number of studies that seek to operationalize more subtly

the concept of growing up with a single parent. Studies examining the effect of the

duration of exposure cannot be summarized in any straightforward way except to say that

8 Note that if being a single mother affects her education or fertility, then controlling mother’s education and the number of siblings a child has is problematic.9 These figures come from four national surveys of cohorts born in the 1950s and 1960s.

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in general, more time with a single mother is associated with worse child outcomes.

However, some studies find that effects are not statistically significant for some outcomes

(Lang and Zagorsky, 2001) or some subgroups (Krein and Beller, 1988). Researchers

have also found negative associations between years of exposure to stepfamily and

cohabitation arrangements (Li and Wotjkiewicz, 1992; Wotjkiewicz, 1993; Hao and Xie,

2002).10

The number of transitions experienced in childhood sometimes is associated with

worse outcomes (Sandefur and Wells, 1999; Hao and Xie, 2002), but Harper and

McLanahan (2004) found no effect on incarceration. Hill and her colleagues (2001)

found that some specific sequences of transitions appear harmful (single motherhood,

followed by a marriage, followed by a divorce) but effects on boys and on educational

attainment were inconsistent. Transitions per se appeared to only consistently affect the

probability of a nonmarital birth among girls. Disruptions that occur recently rather than

in the past either hurt children more (Ermisch and Francesconi, 2001; Hao and Xie, 2002;

only among whites according to McLanahan, 1985), hurt them by the same amount (for

risk of nonmarital birth according to Hill et al., 2001; for blacks according to

McLanahan, 1985), or hurt girls but help boys (for educational attainment according to

Hill et al., 2001). These alternative measures of family structure are still problematic

however. As Frank Furstenberg (1990) has noted, it is difficult to distinguish the

“effects” of duration of exposure from those of age at disruption and duration since

disruption. Furthermore, any of these measures is subject to omitted variable bias in that

the timing of disruption (and hence of duration) is nonrandom. Marriages that end when

10 Ginther and Pollak (2003) and Grogger and Ronan (1995) also examine duration-based measures.

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children are young are likely to differ along important dimensions than marriages that

end when children are older, and these dimensions may affect child outcomes themselves.

A more rigorous application of the analysis of covariance approach is to utilize

family fixed effects models that examine the effect of family structures and transitions on

outcomes within families. Doing so controls all influences shared by siblings and so is

more powerful than conventional ANCOVA models. Korenman and his colleagues

(2001) found that including extended family fixed effects (controlling influences shared

by cousins) reduced the estimated effect of being born to a never-married mother by two-

thirds for low birthweight and by 25 to 60 percent for test scores. Effects on test scores

and on behavior problems, however, remained sizeable, though none of the effects were

statistically significant. Grogger and Ronan (1995) found that family fixed effects did

not alter the estimated effects of single parenthood on the educational attainment and

entry-level wages of whites or Hispanics but reversed the sign of the effects on blacks (so

that growing up with a single parent was beneficial). Ermisch and Francesconi (2001)

and Bjorklund and Sundstrom (2002) find that OLS and fixed effects estimates are

similar for a range of outcomes in early adulthood. Bjorklund and Sundstrom (2002) find

that single parenthood in Sweden has no effects on educational attainment after adding

fixed effects. 11

Even if fixed effects studies were consistent, they would still potentially suffer

from omitted variable bias, as parents may consider the unique characteristics of each of

their children when making marital and fertility decisions. In addition, characteristics of

11 A number of studies (with conflicting results) compare half siblings within “blended families” to estimate the effect of living with a step-parent vs. two biological parents within a blended family. See Ginther and Pollak (2003); Case, Lin, and McLanahan (1999); Evenhouse and Reilly (2000).

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particular children may contribute to a family disruption. And as noted above, effects of

family disruption may vary with age.

Longitudinal data provides another kind of advantage over cross-sectional data –

one can control for family and child characteristics that predate family disruptions. The

field of family structure effects has benefited from a number of large nationally

representative longitudinal surveys. The National Child Development Study (NCDS)

followed a sample of 1958 births in Britain for 33 years. Researchers have considered a

range of outcomes have generally found that divorce and separation hurt those who

experience them in childhood. Nevertheless, estimated effects are not always significant

(particularly when pre-disruption measures of the dependent variable are controlled) and

they differ depending on when outcomes are measured and the age at which disruption

occurs (Fronstin et al., 2001). The NCDS has revealed that children who will experience

divorce in the subsequent 15 years already have more emotional problems at age seven

than those who will remain in intact families (Cherlin et al., 1998). And for some

outcomes, the effects of remarriage look worse than the effects of divorce without

remarriage (Kiernan, 1992).12

In the United States, the National Survey of Children (NSC) has also yielded

important findings. After controlling measured outcomes in the first survey wave,

Baydar (1988) found that family disruption had small and non-significant effects on the

change in nine of ten behavioral and psychological outcomes. Cherlin and his colleagues

(1991) found that once child behavior problems and marital conflict pre-divorce were

controlled, the effect of divorce on boys’ behavior problems and scholastic achievement

12 Other NCDS studies include Cherlin et al., 1991; Cherlin et al., 1995; Chase-Lansdale et al., 1995; Kiernan, 1997; Kiernan and Cherlin, 1999; Ni Bhrolchain (2000); and Furstenberg and Kiernan, 2001.

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was no longer statistically significant. Girls actually benefited from divorce once these

factors were accounted for. Similarly, Peterson and Zill (1986) showed that children in

mother-only or step-families had outcomes similar to those of children in high-conflict

intact families once parent-child relationship quality was controlled.13

Interactions between marital conflict and family disruption were found in two

other American studies. Jekielek (1998) concluded that among families with high levels

of parental conflict in 1988, children experiencing divorce in the subsequent four years

had no more anxiety or depression as children who remained in intact families. Amato

and his colleagues (Amato, Loomis, and Booth, 1995; Amato and Booth, 1997) also

found similar interactions. The existence of this interaction underlines the fundamental

shortcoming that a counterfactual approach to causal inference highlights: validly

estimating the effect of divorce on outcomes requires that treatment and control groups

be equivalent in terms of marital conflict and satisfaction.14 Since parents’ assessments

of their marriage are likely to vary over time, even sophisticated longitudinal methods

that model trajectories of outcomes pre- and post-disruption using within-individual fixed

effects are unlikely to circumvent this problem (Aughinbaugh et al., 2003; Hao and Xie,

2002).15,16

13 Other NSC studies include Allison and Furstenberg, 1989; Zill, Morrison, and Coiro, 1993; and Furstenberg and Teitler, 1994.14Another methodological difficulty with research based on events is that children often experience multiple transitions, as when parents divorce and the mother subsequently remarries. The problem of conceiving transitions as either events or processes is compounded when multiple sequential transitions are involved. Adequately capturing the complexity of family transitions over the course of childhood may require not only rich longitudinal or prospective data, but sophisticated modeling that considers the timing, sequence, and combination of events experienced by children.15 Space constraints prevent me from elaborating on other longitudinal approaches, including the small, non-random detailed observational studies of Mavis Hetherington (e.g., Hetherington and Clingempeel, 1992) and the clinical studies of Judith S. Wallerstein and her colleagues (e.g., Wallerstein et al., 2001; Wallerstein and Blakeslee, 1989 and Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980).16 See Ni Bhrolchain (2001) for an invaluable review of the shortcomings of longitudinal research on divorce effects. Other longitudinal studies omitted here include Morrison and Cherlin (1995), Amato (1996), and Painter and Levine (2000).

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Before concluding, it is worth mentioning a few other identification strategies

employed in the literature. A number of scholars examine the difference in the effect of

father absence due to divorce and that due to death (Lang and Zagorsky, 2001; Biblarz

and Gottainer, 2000; Corak, 2000). This research also yields inconsistent results, and it is

unclear how useful the exercise is, since losing a father to death is not exogenous either

and since even if it was, it amounts to a different “treatment” than parental divorce.

Bronars and Grogger (1994) find that being born out of wedlock as a twin (rather than a

singleton) has no significant effect on years of schooling. This strategy assumes that the

effect of being born out of wedlock with an unexpected sibling versus alone is the same

as the effect of being born alone out of wedlock versus alone within wedlock. Such an

assumption seems unwarranted. Finally, Gruber (2000) and Johnson and Mazingo (2000)

consider variation in the timing of state adoption of unilateral divorce laws to see whether

such laws affect child outcomes. Both find that exposure to unilateral divorce laws in

childhood worsens outcomes in adulthood, but both note that the effects are too large to

attribute solely (or even mostly) to greater divorce rates as a mechanism.17

Conclusion

How are researchers to proceed? The first step is to recognize that family

structure is fundamentally endogenous and that estimating a unique average effect of

single motherhood (or of being born out of wedlock, or of divorce) in a structural model

makes little sense. It is impossible even to imagine a randomized experiment in which

17 Due to space constraints, I am unable to discuss in detail the effect of single parenthood vs. cohabitation or of single motherhood vs. single fatherhood. Nor am I able to discuss the issue of interactions between different child or family characteristics and family structure/disruption. Finally, I am unable to explore the question of whether the effects of family structure and disruption have changed over time (Biblarz and Raftery, 1999), or whether they depend on different policy environments (Pong et al., 2002).

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couples are compelled to marry or split up against their will, and such an experiment

would have no real-world analogue.

Thinking about experiments, however, provides a way through this conceptual

thicket. If researchers can identify random events that cause some parents to alter their

marital decisions, then they may be able to estimate valid average causal effects on the

children of those whose behavior the event altered. That this is the best researchers can

do will be unsatisfying to many, particularly since different events will affect different

people and estimated average effects will differ depending the population affected. But

this approach is methodologically defensible and conceptually logical, neither of which

may be said of conventional research on the effects of family structure. What is more, by

amassing a body of valid estimates for different populations affected by different random

events, policymakers can have more reliable information about the likely effects of

specific policies that disproportionately affect particular populations.

If this conclusion is correct, then the way to advance research in this field is to

conduct randomized policy experiments and to look for natural experiments that may be

exploited using instrumental variables techniques. Social scientists could then build up a

database of estimated average causal effects that apply to different populations (different

groups of children whose parents were affected by particular exogenous shocks). Over

time, social science would discover when single motherhood matters and when it does

not, when it hurts and when it helps, who it hurts a little and who it hurts profoundly.

Policymakers might then design policies intended to induce behavioral change among

those whose children would be helped by marriage promotion, and they might learn how

to more effectively induce such change. Such a state of affairs would be far preferable to

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the current state in which all we can say is that some children are hurt by single

motherhood while others are not or are even helped by it.

18


Works Cited

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Amato, Paul R. 2000. “The Consequences of Divorce for Adults and Children.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 62: 1269-87.

Amato, Paul R. 1996. “Explaining the Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 58: 628-40.

Amato, Paul R. and Alan Booth. 1997. A Generation at Risk: Growing Up in An Era of Family Upheaval Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.

Amato, Paul R. and Bruce Keith 1991a. “Parental Divorce and the Well-Being of Children: A Meta-Analysis.” Psychological Bulletin 110:26-46.

Amato, Paul R. and Bruce Keith 1991b. “Parental Divorce and Adult Well-being: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 53: 43-58.

Amato, Paul R., Laura Spencer Loomis, and Alan Booth. 1995. “Parental Divorce, Marital Conflict, and Off-Spring Well-Being During Early Adulthood.” Social Forces 73:895-915.

Astone, Nan Marie and Sara S. McLanahan. 1991. “Family Structure, Parental Practices and High School Completion.” American Sociological Review 6:309-320.

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Field Statement8

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Transcript of Field Statement8