Child support enforcement policies enjoy widespread support from legislators because most people believe that fathers should support their children, even when they live in separate households. Less often emphasized is the potentially far-reaching impact of these policies on increasing the...

Married men earn more than unmarried men. Previous research suggests that marriage itself causes some of the difference, but includes few men who fathered children out of wedlock. This paper asks whether increasing marriage (and possibly cohabitation) following a non-marital birth is likely to...

This study examines whether the intergenerational transmission of human capital, measured by intergenerational earnings mobility, is affected by divorce. Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, I find that, with each additional year in a family involving a single or a step parent, the earnings...

Recent scholarship has begun to investigate the consequences of instability in the family over a period of time, as compared to examining family status at a particular point in time (Fomby & Cherlin, 2007; Osborne & McLanahan, 2007; Wu & Martinson, 1993; Wu & Thomson, 2001). This body of research has...

We use data from the Fragile Families Study (N=1975) to examine the relationship between mothers’ partnership changes and parenting behavior during the first five years of their child’s life. We compare coresidential and dating transitions and recent and more distal transitions. We also...

Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,957) are used to examine partnership instability and children’s wellbeing during the transition to elementary school. We find that coresidential transitions are related to externalizing, attention, and social problems. Mothers’...

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine couple how couple relationship quality and parental engagement are linked over children’s early years. Our sample includes 1,630 couples that are co-resident over years 1 to 3 and 1,376 over years 3 to 5 (1,196 over...

Nonmarital childbearing has increased dramatically in the U.S. since the early 1960s, rising from 6% of all births in 1960 to fully 40% in 2007 (Hamilton, Martin, & Ventura, 2009; Ventura & Bachrach, 2000). Whereas similar trends have occurred in many developed nations, the U.S. stands out in the...

We investigate the influence of changes in demography, the strength of the economy, and social policies on teen birth rates in the U.S. from 1981 to 1999, a period of wildly fluctuating rates. We find that demographic and social policy changes largely counteracted one another during this period...

Using a population-based, longitudinal family survey (N=4,898), we identify a set of economic, residential, and developmental risks particular to the children of incarcerated parents. We use parental reports of incarceration history, demographic background, and a rich set of child and family...