The Child Health Disadvantage of Parental Cohabitation

This study uses Fragile Families data (N = 2,160) to assess health differences at age 5 for children born to cohabiting versus married parents. Regression analyses indicate worse health for children born to cohabiting parents, including those whose parents stably cohabited, dissolved their cohabitation, and married, than for children with stably married parents. The findings also suggest that stable cohabitation is no better for child health than cohabitation dissolution. Child health is better among those whose cohabiting parents marry than for those whose parents remain stably cohabiting, which indicates a possible health advantage of parental marriage, even if it occurs after the child's birth.     

Cyclical Cohabitation Among Unmarried Parents in Fragile Families

Building on past research suggesting that cohabitation is an ambiguous family form, the authors examined an understudied residential pattern among unmarried parents: cyclical cohabitation, in which parents have multiple cohabitation spells with each other. Using 9 years of panel data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,084), they found that 10% of all parents with nonmarital births and nearly a quarter of those living together when the child is 9 years old are cyclical cohabitors. Cyclically cohabiting mothers reported more material hardships than mothers in most other relationship patterns but also reported more father involvement with children. On all measures of child well‐being except grade retention, children of cyclically cohabiting parents fared no worse than children of stably cohabiting biological parents and did not differ significantly from any other group.     

Multipartnered Fertility and Depression among Fragile Families

We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the association between multipartnered fertility (MPF)-when parents have children with more than one partner-and depression. Random effects models suggested that MPF is associated with a greater likelihood of depression, net of family structure and other covariates. However, these associations disappeared in more conservative fixed effects models that estimated changes in MPF as a function of changes in depression. Results also suggested that social selection may account for the link between MPF and depression for fathers (but not mothers), as depressed fathers with no MPF were more likely to have a child by a new partner four years later. Ultimately, MPF and depression may be reciprocally related and part of broader processes of social disadvantage.     

Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Dissolution in Postreform China

The author uses cohabitation data from the 2010 Chinese Family Panel Studies to analyze the association of premarital cohabitation with subsequent divorce of first marriage. After balancing selection factors that influence premarital cohabitation through propensity score matching, the author uses Cox proportional hazards models to examine the selection, causation, and diffusion perspectives on the relationship between premarital cohabitation and marital dissolution. The results show that premarital cohabitation is positively associated with divorce for those married in the early‐reform period (1980–1994) when cohabitation was uncommon. However, this relationship disappears for those married in the late‐reform period (1995–2010) when cohabitation became more prevalent. The findings suggest variation in the link between premarital cohabitation and divorce across different marriage cohorts and provide strong evidence for the diffusion perspective in postreform China. Supplemental sensitivity analyses support the robustness of the conclusion.     

Veteran Status,Race‐Ethnicity,and Marriage Among Fragile Families

We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,679 ) to examine the impact of men's past military service on the likelihood that a couple will marry within 5 years of a nonmarital birth. Logistic regression analyses showed that men's past military service increased marriage odds by 54% for couples with Black fathers even after controlling for potential mediators. But veteran status had no effect on couples with White or Hispanic fathers. As a result, the large Black‐White gap in postbirth marriage evident among couples with civilian fathers did not exist among couples with veteran fathers. Our findings bolster other evidence that military service exerts lasting and unique pro‐marriage effects on Blacks.     

Serial Cohabitation and the Marital Life Course

Using cohort data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this paper tracks the experiences of serial cohabitors. Results indicate that only a minority of cohabiting women (about 15% – 20%) were involved in multiple cohabitations. Serial cohabitations were overrepresented among economically disadvantaged groups, especially those with low income and education. They also were less likely than single‐instance cohabiting unions to end in marriage rather than dissolve. If serial cohabitors married, divorce rates were very high — more than twice as high as for women who cohabited only with their eventual husbands. The results suggest the need to balance the government’s current preoccupation with marriage promotion with greater support of “at risk” unions that marriage promotion initiatives have helped create.     

Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Dissolution: An Examination of Recent Marriages

An ongoing question remains for family researchers: Why does a positive association between cohabitation and marital dissolution exist when one of the primary reasons to cohabit is to test relationship compatibility? Drawing on recently collected data from the 2006–2008 National Survey of Family Growth, the authors examined whether premarital cohabitation experiences were associated with marital instability among a recent contemporary (married since 1996) marriage cohort of men (N = 1,483) and women (N = 2,003). They found that a dichotomous indicator of premarital cohabitation was in fact not associated with marital instability among women and men. Furthermore, among cohabitors, marital commitment prior to cohabitation (engagement or definite plans for marriage) was tied to lower hazards of marital instability among women, but not men. This research contributes to our understanding of cohabitation, marital instability, and broader family change.     

Premarital Sex,Premarital Cohabitation,and the Risk of Subsequent Marital Dissolution Among Women

Using nationally representative data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, I estimate the association between intimate premarital relationships (premarital sex and premarital cohabitation) and subsequent marital dissolution. I extend previous research by considering relationship histories pertaining to both premarital sex and premarital cohabitation. I find that premarital sex or premarital cohabitation that is limited to a woman's husband is not associated with an elevated risk of marital disruption. However, women who have more than one intimate premarital relationship have an increased risk of marital dissolution. These results suggest that neither premarital sex nor premarital cohabitation by itself indicate either preexisting characteristics or subsequent relationship environments that weaken marriages. Indeed, the findings are consistent with the notion that premarital sex and cohabitation limited to one's future spouse has become part of the normal courtship process for marriage.     

Contemporaneous Versus Retrospective Reports of Cohabitation in the Fragile Families Survey

We compare contemporaneous and retrospective reports of cohabitation among unmarried mothers in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing survey (N =2,524). We find that (a) many mothers revise their reports of whether they cohabited at the time of the birth of their child and (b) revisions in reports are systematically related to individuals’ characteristics and the quality and trajectory of parents’ relationships. These results have important implications for analyses of determinants and consequences of family structure using these data and, potentially, any retrospective data on relationships and family structure.     

Paternal Incarceration and Father–Child Contact in Fragile Families

High rates of incarceration in the United States have motivated a broad examination of the effects of parental incarceration on child well‐being. Although a growing literature documents challenges facing the children of incarcerated men, most incarcerated fathers lived apart from their children before their arrest, raising questions of whether they were sufficiently involved with their families for their incarceration to affect their children. The author used the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 4,071) to examine father–child contact among incarcerated fathers and found that most incarcerated fathers maintained a degree of contact with their children through either coresidence or visitation. Moreover, the results revealed robust reductions in both father–child coresidence and visitation when fathers are incarcerated—between 18% and 20% for coresidence and 30% to 50% for the probability of visitation. The findings suggest that these reductions are driven by both incapacitation while incarcerated and union dissolution upon release.     

Age at Coresidence,Premarital Cohabitation,and Marriage Dissolution: 1985–2009

Does the age at which premarital cohabitors moved in together explain why they have been found to have an increased risk of marital dissolution? Explanations for the increased risk of marriage dissolution among those who marry young center on marital role preparation; for premarital cohabitors, many, if not most, of these roles began at the onset of cohabitation, not marriage. Analyses of the 1995, 2002, and 2006–2010 waves of the National Survey of Family Growth (N = 7,037) revealed that age at coresidence explained a substantial portion of the higher marital dissolution risk of premarital cohabitors. In comparisons standardized by age at coresidence, the difference in risk of marital dissolution between premarital cohabitors and those who married without prior cohabitation (“direct marriers”) was much smaller than in comparisons standardized by age at marriage, and in some models this difference was not significant. Selection into direct marriage and premarital cohabitation was also examined.     

Better Parents,More Stable Partners: Union Transitions Among Cohabiting Parents

Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,702 couples) are employed to examine the association between mother‐ and father‐reported parenting characteristics (father involvement and coparenting) and transitions out of cohabitation through marriage or separation in the 5 years after a child is born. Father involvement and coparenting may be signs of commitment and investment among couples without the legal bonds of marriage. Both the level and change in father involvement and coparenting are associated with a decreased likelihood of separation, although neither is associated with greater odds of marriage. These results suggest that higher levels of father involvement and a positive coparenting relationship may keep couples together, which allows children to spend their early years with both biological parents in the household.     

Modeling Repeatable Events Using Discrete‐Time Data: Predicting Marital Dissolution

I join two methodologies by illustrating the application of multilevel modeling principles to hazard‐rate models with an emphasis on procedures for discrete‐time data that contain repeatable events. I demonstrate this application using data taken from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) to ascertain the relationship between multiple covariates and risk of subsequent marital dissolution. I consider both fixed‐ and random‐effects versions of the multilevel model, as well as a Generalized Estimating Equation alternative to estimating random effects. I compare results obtained from the various estimators, noting why differences occur, and recommend when to choose the various alternatives. I also provide a set of SAS and STATA programs that can be used to analyze the NSFG data.     

Maternal Relationships and Nonresidential Father Visitation of Children Born Outside of Marriage

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 781), I examined how father visitation for children born outside of marriage is affected by subsequent maternal relationship formation, focusing on the timing, type, and stability of maternal relationships. Results showed that fathers were most likely to have not seen their child at all when mothers formed a new relationship early in the child's life, especially if the new relationship was coresidential and the partner engaged in activities with the child. Fathers who initially visited their child were more likely to stop visiting their child if an initially unpartnered mother became partnered. Frequency of visitation was not as strongly affected as whether visitation occurred at all.     

Income,Relationship Quality,and Parenting: Associations With Child Development in Two‐Parent Families

Prior research suggests considerable heterogeneity in the advantages of living in a 2‐parent family. Specifically, children living with married biological parents exhibit more favorable outcomes than children living with cohabiting biological parents and with married and cohabiting stepparents. To explain these differences, researchers have focused almost exclusively on differences in the levels of factors such as income, parental relationship quality, and parenting quality across family types. In this study the authors examined whether differences in the benefits associated with these factors might also account for some of the variation in children's cognition and social‐emotional development. Focusing on children at the time they enter kindergarten, they found only weak evidence of differences in benefits across family types. Instead, they found that children living in stepfather families experienced above‐average levels of parental relationship quality and parenting quality, which in turn played a protective role vis‐à‐vis their cognitive and social‐emotional development.     

Measuring Maternal Nonstandard Work in Survey Data

Surveys differ in the measurement of nonstandard work, such that some surveys require respondents to indicate whether they work either a standard or a nonstandard schedule, whereas others allow respondents to indicate that they work both types of schedules. We test whether these measurement decisions influence the estimated prevalence of maternal nonstandard work, using data from two sources: the Current Population Survey (N = 1,430) and the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,524). Using propensity score techniques, we find that giving respondents the option of reporting work at more than one type of schedule doubles the prevalence of nonstandard work, compared to allowing respondents to indicate only one type of schedule. Our results suggest that many mothers of young children regularly work at both standard and nonstandard times and that mutually exclusive conceptualizations of standard and nonstandard work schedules do not fully capture their experiences.     

A Longitudinal Examination of Housing Hardships Among Urban Fathers

Stable housing is widely recognized as a prerequisite for the functioning of individuals and families. However, the housing stability of fathers is understudied, particularly for fathers living apart from their children. This analysis measures the extent and nature of fathers' housing insecurity using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a national longitudinal survey of urban families. Housing insecurity affects a substantial portion of fathers, with 25% experiencing insecurity at least once in their child's first 9 years. However, few fathers report persistent insecurity that spans consecutive waves. Data also indicate significant differences in rates of housing insecurity between fathers living with, and apart from, the mothers of their children, with nonresident fathers far less likely to report secure housing and more likely to experience incarceration. The nature of insecurity experienced by nonresident fathers is also qualitatively different than that experienced by their coresident counterparts.