Families are the core social institution and a growing body of research documents the costs of single parenthood for children in the twentieth century. This study documents racial differences in the incidence and costs of single parenthood in the mid-nineteenth century. Data from the urban South reveal two notable consequences of single parenthood. First, white children residing with single mothers left school earlier than children residing with two parents. Black children in single mother homes started school later and left school earlier. Single motherhood is therefore associated with less lifetime schooling for both races, but the consequences of living in a nontraditional home was larger for blacks. Second, single motherhood was associated with an increased incidence of labor force participation for white youth, but not for blacks. Single parenthood imposed costs, in terms of foregone human capital formation, on children in the mid-nineteenth century, but the consequences of single motherhood were mitigated by social norms toward childhood education.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
12056.
Length: Date of creation: Feb 2006 Date of revision: Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12056
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Find related papers by JEL classification: I2 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics N3 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth
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References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Stephen Crawford, 1992.
"The Slave Family: A View from the Slave Narratives,"
NBER Chapters,
in: Strategic Factors in Nineteenth Century American Economic History: A Volume to Honor Robert W. Fogel, pages 331-350
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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