Using data from years one and three of the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study, changes in depressive and anxious symptoms are compared for mothers and fathers who: 1) dissolve a cohabitating union versus remain intact; 2) dissolve a marital union versus remain intact; and 3) dissolve a...

Maternal parenting stress is associated with lower levels of life satisfaction and marital satisfaction, poor parent-child communication and disruptive child behavior. Belsky’s process model of parenting suggests that stress is influenced by three domains: maternal, child and contextual...

Though sociologists have examined the consequences of mass imprisonment of African-American men on the incarcerated men, their families, and their communities, no study has considered its impact on racial disparities in educational achievement. Analyzing the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing...

This paper uses data from a subsample of the Fragile Families and Child Well-being survey (N = 1,799) to examine the relationship between parental depression and children’s developmental outcomes. Results suggest that parental depression when children are 12 months old, particularly maternal...

While an extensive literature has shown that family structure is linked with child wellbeing, less well understood is how the dynamics within families affect children. Family systems theory posits that parents’ couple relationship is important for children’s well-being. In this paper, we use...

In response to the rapid growth in mass incarceration, a burgeoning literature documents the mostly deleterious consequences of mass incarceration for individuals and families. But mass incarceration, which has profoundly altered the American kinship system, may also have implications for...

Data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,725) are used to examine associations between mothers‘ partnership instability and coparenting over the first five years after a nonmarital birth, differences between coresidential and nonresident, dating transitions and variation...

Recent research suggests soda consumption is associated with aggression and depression among adolescents. However, this association has not been examined among younger children. We examine soda consumption and aggressive behaviors, attention problems and withdrawn behavior among five-year-old...

Incarceration, now a rite of passage for many economically disadvantaged minority men involving an immediate and involuntary removal from families, places these marginal men in a liminal state where they are simultaneously members of families and isolated from families. Despite a burgeoning...

The literature on father absence is frequently criticized for its use of cross-sectional data and methods that fail to take account of possible omitted variable bias and reverse causality. In this paper we review studies that have responded to this critique by employing a variety of innovative...