Employment rates for married and unmarried mothers in the United States crossed over in the early 1990s, leading to questions about how marital status and family structure affect contemporary maternal employment. A mother's family structure whether she is married, cohabiting or living without a...

This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study to examine whether family instability is associated with changes in perceived social support, material hardship, maternal depression, and parenting stress among mothers of young children. In addition to accounting for the...

Family structure is often related to financial instability. It is also established that stress caused by instability negatively influences home environments and these environments are integral to positive child outcomes as widely recounted in the family stress model (Conger 1992; 2002). Therefore a...

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...

This paper uses data from the first four waves of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the following questions: (1) what are unmarried parents’ capabilities at the time of their child’s birth, and what is the nature of their relationship at birth and over time? (2) How...

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study this paper examines associations between family structure and economic trajectories during the first five years after a child’s birth, paying special attention to non-traditional families. Among families with stable structures,...

We draw on three waves of the Fragile Families Study (N = 2,249) to examine family stability among a recent birth cohort (1998 – 2000) of children. We find that children born to cohabiting versus married parents have over five times the risk of experiencing their parents’ separation by age...

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...

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study this paper examines associations between family structure and economic trajectories during the first five years after a child’s birth, paying special attention to non-traditional families. Among families with stable structures,...

This paper uses data from the first four waves of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the following questions: (1) what are unmarried parents’ capabilities at the time of their child’s birth, and what is the nature of their relationship at birth and over time? (2) How...