Abstract
School suspension and expulsion are important forms of punishment that disproportionately affect Black students, with long-term consequences for educational attainment and other indicators ...of wellbeing. Prior research identifies three mechanisms that help account for racial disparities in suspension and expulsion: between-school sorting, differences in student behaviors, and differences in the treatment and support of students with similar behaviors. We extend this literature by (1) comparing the contributions of these three mechanisms in a single study, (2) assessing behavior and school composition when children enter kindergarten and before most are exposed to school discipline, and (3) using both teacher and parent reports of student behaviors. Decomposition analyses reveal that differential treatment and support account for 46 percent of the Black/White gap in suspension/expulsion, while between-school sorting and differences in behavior account for 21 percent and 9 percent of the gap respectively. Results are similar for boys and girls and robust to the use of school fixed effects and measures of school composition and student behavior at ages 5 and 9. Theoretically, our findings highlight differential treatment/support after children enter school as an important but understudied mechanism in the early criminalization of Black students.
In this article, I argue that the trends associated with the second demographic transition are following two trajectories and leading to greater disparities in children's resources. Whereas children ...who were born to the most-educated women are gaining resources, in terms of parents' time and money, those who were born to the least-educated women are losing resources. The forces behind these changes include feminism, new birth control technologies, changes in labor market opportunities, and welfare-state policies. I contend that Americans should be concerned about the growing disparity in parental resources and that the government can do more to close the gap between rich and poor children.
Over the past four decades, income inequality has increased and family structures have diversified. We argue that family structure has become an important mechanism for the reproduction of class, ...race, and gender inequalities. We review studies of income inequality and family structure changes and find a wide range of estimates of the correlation. We discuss how increases in income inequality may lead to increases in single motherhood, particularly among less educated women. Single motherhood in turn decreases intergenerational economic mobility by affecting children's material resources and the parenting they experience. Because of the unequal distribution of family structure by race and the negative effects of single motherhood, family structure changes exacerbate racial inequalities. Gender inequalities also increase as mothers incur more child-related costs and fewer fathers experience family life with children.
The Causal Effects of Father Absence McLanahan, Sara; Tach, Laura; Schneider, Daniel
Annual review of sociology,
01/2013, Letnik:
39, Številka:
1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
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. We review ...studies that have responded to this critique by employing a variety of innovative research designs to identify the causal effect of father absence, including studies using lagged dependent variable models, growth curve models, individual fixed effects models, sibling fixed effects models, natural experiments, and propensity score matching models. Our assessment is that studies using more rigorous designs continue to find negative effects of father absence on offspring well-being, although the magnitude of these effects is smaller than what is found using traditional cross-sectional designs. The evidence is strongest and most consistent for outcomes such as high school graduation, children's social-emotional adjustment, and adult mental health.
We use data from three waves of the Fragile Families Study (N = 2,111) to examine the prevalence and effects of mothers' partnership changes between birth and age 3 on children's behavior. We find ...that children born to unmarried and minority parents experience significantly more partnership changes than children born to parents who are married or White. Each transition is associated with a modest increase in behavioral problems, but a significant number of children experience 3 or more transitions. The association between instability and behavior is mediated by maternal stress and lower quality mothering. The findings imply that policies aimed at reducing maternal stress and partnership instability may improve child well-being.
Disadvantaged social environments are associated with adverse health outcomes. This has been attributed, in part, to chronic stress. Telomere length (TL) has been used as a biomarker of chronic ...stress: TL is shorter in adults in a variety of contexts, including disadvantaged social standing and depression. We use data from 40, 9-y-old boys participating in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to extend this observation to African American children. We report that exposure to disadvantaged environments is associated with reduced TL by age 9 y. We document significant associations between low income, low maternal education, unstable family structure, and harsh parenting and TL. These effects were moderated by genetic variants in serotonergic and dopaminergic pathways. Consistent with the differential susceptibility hypothesis, subjects with the highest genetic sensitivity scores had the shortest TL when exposed to disadvantaged social environments and the longest TL when exposed to advantaged environments.
"Doubling up" (living with relatives or nonkin) is a common source of support for low-income families, yet no study to date has estimated its economic value relative to other types of public and ...private support. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we examine the prevalence and economic value of doubling up among families with young children living in large American cities. We find that doubling up is a very important part of the private safety net in the first few years of a child's life, with nearly 50 % of mothers reporting at least one instance of doubling up by the time their child is 9 years old. The estimated rental savings from doubling up is significant and comparable in magnitude to other public and private transfers.
Although research consistently demonstrates a link between residential context and physical activity for adults and adolescents, less is known about young children’s physical activity. Using data ...from the U.S. Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (
N
=
1822, 51% male), we explored whether outdoor play and television watching were associated with children’s body mass indexes (BMIs) at age five using OLS regression models, controlling for a wide array of potential confounders, including maternal BMI. We also tested whether subjective and objective neighborhood measures – socioeconomic status (from U.S. Census tract data), type of dwelling, perceived collective efficacy, and interviewer-assessed physical disorder of the immediate environment outside the home – were associated with children’s activities, using negative binomial regression models. Overall, 19% of the sample were overweight (between the 85th and 95th percentiles), and 16% were obese (≥95th percentile). Hours of outdoor play were negatively associated with BMI, and hours of television were positively associated with BMI. Moreover, a ratio of outdoor play to television time was a significant predictor of BMI. Higher maternal perceptions of neighborhood collective efficacy were associated with more hours of outdoor play, fewer hours of television viewing, and more trips to a park or playground. In addition, we found that neighborhood physical disorder was associated with both more outdoor play and more television watching. Finally, contrary to expectations, we found that children living in public housing had significantly more hours of outdoor play and watched more television, than other children. We hypothesize that poorer children may have more unstructured time, which they fill with television time but also with outdoor play time; and that children in public housing may be likely to have access to play areas on the grounds of their housing facilities.
► The ratio of outdoor play to television watching is associated with BMI for five-year-old children. ► Higher neighborhood collective efficacy is associated with more outdoor play time. ► Children in public housing play outside more and watch more television, despite maternal concerns about safety.
We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the association between coparenting quality and nonresident fathers' involvement with children over the first five years ...after a nonmarital birth. We find that about one year after a nonmarital birth, 48% of fathers are living away from their child, rising to 56% and then to 63% at three and five years, respectively. Using structural equation models to estimate cross-lagged effects, we find that positive coparenting is a strong predictor of nonresident fathers' future involvement, whereas fathers' involvement is only a weak (but significant) predictor of future coparenting quality. The positive effect of coparenting quality on fathers' involvement is robust across several techniques designed to address unobserved heterogeneity and across different strategies for handling missing data. We conclude that parents' ability to work together in rearing their common child across households helps keep nonresident fathers connected to their children and that programs aimed at improving parents' ability to communicate may have benefits for children irrespective of whether the parents' romantic relationship remains intact.
Objective
This study examines intergenerational continuities in relationship instability, general relationship quality, and intimate partner violence (IPV) between mothers and adolescents.
Background
...A growing body of literature has observed similarities in relationship quality between parents and their adult offspring. Less attention has focused on whether intergenerational continuities are present in adolescent relationships.
Method
Using age 3, 5, 9, and 15 data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing birth cohort study (N = 3,162), the authors examined the associations between maternal reports of relationship instability, general quality, and IPV in early and middle childhood and similar adolescent reports at age 15. Variations based on the timing and persistence of exposures were considered.
Results
In general, exposures to low‐quality maternal relationships were associated with a higher risk of forming adolescent partnerships and lower relationship quality. Intergenerational links in quality were predominantly construct specific, consistent with observational learning processes. Adolescents exposed to maternal relationships of poor general quality in middle childhood were less likely to report high‐quality relationships themselves, and those exposed to any maternal physical IPV victimization during childhood were more likely to perpetrate IPV in their own relationships. Exposure to maternal relationship instability in both early and middle childhood was associated with more adolescent romantic partners.
Conclusion
The study illuminates additional pathways through which healthy and unhealthy relationships are reproduced across generations.
PDF
