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source (google.com.pk)ast research suggests that children who experience multiple transitions in family structure may face worse developmental outcomes than children raised in stable two-parent families and perhaps even children raised in stable, single-parent families. However, multiple transitions and negative child outcomes may be associated because of common causal factors such as parents’ antecedent behaviors and attributes. Using a nationally-representative, two-generation longitudinal survey that includes detailed information on children’s behavioral and cognitive development, family history, and mother’s attributes prior to the child’s birth, we examine these alternative hypotheses. Our results suggest that, for white children, the association between the number of family structure transitions and cognitive outcomes is largely explained by mother’s prior characteristics but that the association between the number of transitions and behavioral outcomes may be causal in part. We find no robust effects of number of transitions for black children.
The instability of family structure has become an increasingly salient part of children’s lives in the United States over the past half-century. During this period, as is well-known, divorce rates increased (Cherlin 1992), as did the prevalence of nonmarital cohabitation, which is less stable than marriage (Bumpass and Lu 2000). Moreover, cohabitation and marriage appear to be more unstable in the United States than in most other developed countries; and a relatively high percentage of American children experience transitions into single-parent families and stepfamilies (Andersson, 2002; Heuveline, Timberlake and Furstenberg 2003).
A growing body of literature suggests that children who experience multiple transitions in family structure may fare worse developmentally than children raised in stable two-parent families and perhaps even than children raised in stable, single-parent families. This body of research presents what we call the instability hypothesis, the prediction that children are affected by disruption and changes in family structure as much as (or even more than) by the type of family structures they experience. If this hypothesis were true, it would suggest that a significant reinterpretation of the effects of family structure on children’s well-being may be warranted. For example, it would imply that a child born to a single parent might be as well off, or perhaps even better off, if the parent did not cohabit or remarry.
However, most empirical tests of the instability hypothesis have neglected an alternative explanation. The association between multiple transitions and negative child outcomes does not necessarily imply that the former causes the latter. In fact, multiple transitions and negative child outcomes may be associated with each other through common causal factors reflected in the parents’ antecedent behaviors and attributes. We call this explanation the selection hypothesis. A test of the instability hypothesis versus the selection hypothesis would therefore be of interest to sociologists in several sub-disciplines: family sociology, with its emphasis on family and household structure; the sociology of children and youth, with its concern for children’s well-being; life course studies, which emphasize the long-term effects of early events on individuals’ later lives; the sociology of crime and deviance, which includes studies of the early antecedents of anti-social behavior; and the sociology of education, with its interest in the determinants of academic achievement.
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