Does single parenthood increase the probability of teenage promiscuity,substance use,and crime?

There is longstanding evidence that youths raised by single parents are more likely to perform poorly in school and partake in “deviant” behaviors such as smoking, sex, substance use, and crime. However, there is not widespread agreement as to whether the timing of the marital disruption differentially impacts youth outcomes. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and its Young Adult Supplement, we find that an additional 5 years with the biological father decreases the probability of smoking, drinking, engaging in sexual activity, marijuana use, and conviction by approximately 5.3, 1.2, 3.4, 2.2 and 0.3 percentage points, respectively.

Positive Marital Quality,Acculturative Stress,and Child Outcomes Among Mexican Americans

Previous research suggests that the quality of parents' relationships can influence their children's adjustment, but most studies have focused on the negative effects of marital conflict for children in White middle‐class families. The current study focuses on the potential benefits of positive marital quality for children in working‐class first generation Mexican American families using observational and self‐report data. This study examined the links between positive marital quality and child internalizing and externalizing behaviors 1 year later when the child was in sixth grade (N = 134 families). Positive marital quality was negatively correlated with child internalizing behaviors. Parent acculturative stress was found to mediate the relationship between positive marital quality and child internalizing behaviors in sixth grade.     

Intergenerational Experiences of Discrimination in Chinese American Families: Influences of Socialization and Stress

In this longitudinal study, we investigated the mechanisms by which Chinese American parents' experiences of discrimination influenced their adolescents' ethnicity‐related stressors (i.e., cultural misfit, discrimination, attitudes toward education). We focused on whether parents' ethnic‐racial socialization practices and perpetual foreigner stress moderated or mediated this relationship. Participants were 444 Chinese American families. Results indicated no evidence of moderation, but we observed support for mediation. Parental experiences of discrimination were associated with more ethnic‐racial socialization practices and greater parental perpetual foreigner stress. More ethnic‐racial socialization was related to greater cultural misfit in adolescents, whereas more perpetual foreigner stress was related to adolescents' poorer attitudes toward education and more reported discrimination. Relationships between mediators and outcomes were stronger for fathers than for mothers.     

How Are Parental Psychological Control and Autonomy‐Support Related? A Cluster‐Analytic Approach

This study addresses the hypothesis that the relationship between parental psychological control and autonomy‐support depends on how autonomy‐support is conceptualized, that is, in terms of promotion of independence or in terms of promotion of volitional functioning. Questionnaires tapping into psychological control and these two types of autonomy‐support were administered to a sample of 495 emerging adults. Cluster analysis revealed that, whereas parental promotion of independence may or may not co‐occur with psychological control, high parental promotion of volitional functioning systematically goes together with low psychological control and vice versa. Differences between clusters in terms of adjustment were mainly driven by differences in psychological control and promotion of volitional functioning and to a lesser extent by differences in promotion of independence.     

The Impact of Parental Divorce: The Relationship Between Social Support and Confidence Levels in Young Adults

Parental divorce is a life transition that affects a substantial number of children each year. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between social support and confidence levels (defined as career expectations and confidence in romantic relationships) for those impacted by parental divorce. Three hundred and twelve young adults participated in the study. The results indicate that the quality of social support had a significantly positive relationship with career expectations and romantic relationship confidence. The findings suggest quality relationships regarding social support are more significant than quantity or amount of social support given by parents, family members, or friends.     

Helping foster youth find a job: a random‐assignment evaluation of an employment assistance programme for emancipating youth

A primary task for youth aging out of foster care is finding and maintaining a job. In recognition of the challenges that foster youth face, employment assistance has become an important part of child welfare agencies' efforts to prepare youth for emancipation. The current study uses random assignment to evaluate the impact of an employment assistance programme for foster youth on the rate of employment, income and other self‐sufficiency outcomes among a group of adolescents in substitute care in Kern County, California. Data were collected via multi‐wave, in‐person interviews of 254 foster youth. At the second follow‐up interview, only two‐fifths of the sample report being employed. However, three‐quarters of the sample are either working or attending school, and a quarter reports both working and attending school. Nevertheless, significant minorities report experiencing financial hardships and receiving financial assistance. No statistically significant impacts of the evaluated programme are found on any measured employment or self‐sufficiency outcome. Implications for child welfare policy are discussed.     

Race/Ethnic Differences in Effects of Family Instability on Adolescents' Risk Behavior

We used data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (N = 7,686) to determine whether racial and ethnic differences in socioeconomic stress and social protection explained group differences in the association between family structure instability and three risk behaviors for White, Black, and Mexican American adolescents: delinquent behavior, age at first nonmarital sex, and age at first nonmarital birth. The positive association between mothers' union transitions and each outcome for White adolescents was attenuated by social protection. The association of instability with age at first sex and first nonmarital birth was weaker for Black adolescents but not for Mexican American adolescents. The weaker association was explained by Black adolescents' more frequent exposure to socioeconomic stress in the context of union instability.     

Remarriage and Stepfamilies: Strategic Sites for Family Scholarship in the 21st Century

This article reviews areas of advancement over the past decade in our understanding of remarriage and stepfamilies and suggests promising new directions for future work. Profound shifts in the demographic context of family life motivate central themes in recent scholarship on remarriage and stepfamilies, including the diversity and complexity of stepfamily structures and processes, the consequences of multiple partnerships for adults and children, and potential selectivity in the characteristics of individuals entering remarried families and stepfamilies. Despite challenges to further progress, I argue that remarriage and stepfamilies offer strategic opportunities to investigate many core concerns of family scholars.     

Bounds on Average and Quantile Treatment Effects on Duration Outcomes Under Censoring,Selection, and Noncompliance

Abstract

We consider the problem of assessing the effects of a treatment on duration outcomes using data from a randomized evaluation with noncompliance. For such settings, we derive nonparametric sharp bounds for average and quantile treatment effects addressing three pervasive problems simultaneously: self-selection into the spell of interest, endogenous censoring of the duration outcome, and noncompliance with the assigned treatment. Ignoring any of these issues could yield biased estimates of the effects. Notably, the proposed bounds do not impose the independent censoring assumption—which is commonly used to address censoring but is likely to fail in important settings—or exclusion restrictions to address endogeneity of censoring and selection. Instead, they employ monotonicity and stochastic dominance assumptions. To illustrate the use of these bounds we assess the effects of the Job Corps (JC) training program on its participants’ last complete employment spell duration. Our estimated bounds suggest that JC participation may increase the average duration of the last complete employment spell before week 208 after randomization by at least 5.6 log points (5.8%) for individuals who comply with their treatment assignment and experience a complete employment spell whether or not they enrolled in JC. The estimated quantile treatment effects suggest the impacts may be heterogeneous, and strengthen our conclusions based on the estimated average effects.     

A Perspective on Problem Gambling Treatment: Issues and Challenges

Researchers face several challenges in conducting gambling treatment research. These include the impact of monetary incentives to participate, difficulty in subject recruitment, treatment ambivalence, heterogeneity of gambling behaviors among treatment samples, the role of natural recovery, the impact of intractable financial pressures, and the specification of adequate process and outcome measures. Each challenge is defined and potential resolutions suggested.