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...

Although developing-country research has found that spending on children's food, healthcare, and education varies depending on which parent controls income, developed-country research on child wellbeing tends to ignore intrahousehold allocation. This study uses data from the Fragile Families and...

In this analysis we connect neighborhood conditions to birth outcomes through their intermediate effects on allostatic load. We hypothesize that neighborhood poverty and racial isolation combine to produce unsafe environments which raise allostatic load and thereby increase the likelihood of...

A complete account of the U.S. child care subsidy system requires an understanding of its implications for both parental and child well-being. Although the effects of child care subsidies on maternal employment and child development have been recently studied, many other dimensions of family...

Rising rates of incarceration since the 1970s, combined with high rates of fatherhood among men in jails and prisons, have led to an unprecedented number of children more than 1.7 million in 2007 affected by paternal imprisonment. The growing literature documenting challenges faced by families...

Theoretical perspectives suggest a strong link between maternal mental health and parenting, which may facilitate the intergenerational transmission of disadvantage from depressed mothers to their children. In this paper, I extend prior research by using data from the Fragile Families and Child...

Qualitative research suggests that economically disadvantaged fathers experience considerable stress due to difficulty fulfilling the breadwinning ideal and workplace inflexibility that ignores their childcare responsibility. Yet, quantitative research on how employment and work-family conflict...

This paper explores the relationship between public housing and health outcomes among low-income housing residents. While public housing can be dangerous and unhealthy environments to live, the subsidized rent may free up resources for nutritious food and health care. In addition, public housing...

Many studies have explored dynamics within religiously heterogamous marriages, but little is known about religiously heterogamous cohabiting unions. Using data from the Fragile Families Study, this study examines the influence of religious heterogamy on union stability among married and...

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...