In this paper we investigate the effect of relative income on marital status. We develop an identity model based on Akerlof and Kranton (2000) and apply it to the marriage decision. The empirical evidence is consistent with the idea that people are more likely to marry when their incomes...

Rates of out-of-wedlock births in the US have increased over the past three decades and rates of cohabitation among unwed parents have risen. Consequently, unwed parenthood is decreasingly synonymous with single parenthood. As we focus more attention on unwed parents, their living arrangements,...

I use variation in state EITCs between 1997-2005 to identify changes in informal and regular labor supply by unmarried men and women with children. Men’s participation in the informal sector declines by 6 percentage points if a state EITC increases by 10% of the federal credit. Usual...

The associations between intimate partner violence (IPV) and mental health among adolescents and young adults were compared in the current study. The connections among marriage status, Latino heritage and abusive experiences were also analyzed. 672 women including 282 adolescents between the...

Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,162) and the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (N = 1,308), we estimate associations between material and instrumental support available to unwed, low-income mothers and young children‘s...

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...

Neighborhood effects theories predict that residing in areas characterized by concentrated poverty has detrimental effects on a host of individual outcomes. However, due to conceptual and methodological problems, the empirical evidence in support of these theories is weak. Using data from a...

In the United States, the Great Recession has been marked by severe shocks to labor and housing markets. In this study, we combine longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) with administrative data on local area unemployment rates and state-level mortgage...

The amount of charitable provision administered by the monasteries of the later Middle Ages has long received the attention of historians exploring pre-industrial social-welfare systems. Most nineteenth-century commentators remained skeptical about the value of monastic poor relief: The charity...

Non-cognitive skills in childhood and adolescence are associated with a host of outcomes in adulthood, including educational and occupational attainment. One explanation for these associations is that poor non-cognitive skills in early childhood interfere with the development of cognitive skills...