Neighborhoods are important sites for the formation and development of social ties. In theory, living in a disadvantaged neighborhood may be associated with lacking social support. We investigate this hypothesis among mothers of young children using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families...

Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N=16,156), we study private financial transfers among mothers with young children. We describe patterns of transfers over time and explore whether the Great Recession influenced transfer behaviors. We find that the...

The context of family life has changed dramatically over the past 50 years. Today, over 40 percent of children in the U.S. are born to unmarried parents, up from only 5 percent in 1960. My research tries to understand why this change is happening and what it means for parents, children and...

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey (N = 3,567), we analyze the importance of relationship status, relationship quality, and race and ethnicity in determining breastfeeding initiation. We consider four relationship types at birth: married, cohabiting, romantically...

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine associations between first-year maternal employment and child outcomes for 3-year-old white, Black, and Hispanic children. We find that first-year maternal employment is associated with lower vocabulary scores for white,...

Little research looks at the relationship between macroeconomic indicators and material hardship. High unemployment rates as a result of economic downturns are likely to lead to lost income, increased poverty, and material hardship. We examine the effect of the unemployment rate on hardship –...

The literature exploring the health consequences of immigration is largely dominated by efforts to replicate, across outcomes and populations, and explain two widely observed findings: that foreign nativity is protective (yielding the “healthy migrant effect” or “immigrant paradox”) and...

Research suggests that children from low-income families are more likely to exhibit behavioral problems than children from wealthier families and these adverse behaviors have long-term detrimental effects on academic outcomes, health and earnings. In this paper, we examine the relationship...

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...

Researchers and policy makers have long been concerned that government policies may influence individual behavior in unintended ways. In particular, they worry that by providing mothers with an income that is independent of marriage, welfare and child support policies may discourage marriage and...