Relationship Transitions and Maternal Parenting
Abstract
We use data from the Fragile Families Study (N=1975) to examine the relationship between mothers’ partnership changes and parenting behavior during the first five years of their child’s life. We compare coresidential and dating transitions and recent and more distal transitions. We also examine interactions between transitions and race/ethnicity, maternal education and family structure at birth. Findings indicate that both coresidential and dating transitions are associated with higher levels of maternal stress and harsh parenting, with recent transitions having stronger associations than distal transitions. Maternal education significantly moderates these associations, disadvantaging children of less educated mothers in terms of maternal stress, and children of more educated mothers in terms of literacy activities.Download Info
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Paper provided by Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing. in its series Working Papers with number 1131.Length:
Date of creation: Jan 2009
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:pri:crcwel:1131
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Web page: http://crcw.princeton.edu/
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Related research
Keywords: parenting; family instability; family structure; Fragile Families; nonmarital births;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- D10 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - General
- D60 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - General
- I19 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Other
- J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
- J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2009-02-28 (All new papers)
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- Carey E. Cooper & Cynthia A. Osborne & Audrey N. Beck & Sara S. McLanahan, 2008. "Partnership Instability and Child Wellbeing during the Transition to Elementary School," Working Papers 1078, Princeton University, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
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