Center for Demography and Ecology University of Wisconsin-Madison Remarriage, Cohabitation, and Changes in Mothering

We use data from two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to investigate changes in mothering behavior associated with union formation among single mothers. We consider three dimensions of mothering: (1) time and supervision; (2) discipline and decisionmaking; and (3) relationship quality. Our major finding is that union formation and/or the disruption of new unions have very few effects on mothering. Mothers’ and children’s reports sometimes produce different results, but the patterns do not suggest that children’s reports are any more or less accurate than those of mothers. The most consistent effects of union change indicate that the presence of a partner reduces mothers’ time with children but also inhibits mothers’ harsh discipline. Remarriage, Cohabitation, and Changes in Mothering Behavior Demographic trends in cohabitation, marriage, divorce, and remarriage have changed children’s experience of family life (Manning and Lichter 1995; Cherlin 1992; Bumpass 1994). Gone for most children are the days of living with two biological parents until age eighteen. Instead, most children will experience more than one different family type while growing up (Bumpass, Raley & Sweet 1995; Graefe and Lichter 1997). Many children whose parents divorce or end their cohabiting relationship will experience a second union, either marriage or cohabitation; and children born to unmarried, noncohabiting mothers may experience their mother’s first cohabiting or marital union (Cherlin 1992; Norton and Moorman 1987). We know a lot about effects of divorce on parents and children, but are less well informed about the next potential transition in children’s lives, a single mother’s marriage or cohabitation. In this paper, we use panel data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to estimate effects of new unions, defined as cohabitation or marriages, or the disruption of those unions, on mothering behavior. We examine three dimensions of children’s experiences with their mothers: 1) mother’s time and supervision, 2) discipline and decision-making, and 3) relationship quality. Our study makes two important contributions. First, the panel design of NSFH allows us to measure mothers’ behaviors and mother-child relationships before mothers form a new union. We can therefore control for potential selection of particular types of single mothers into unions, going beyond cross-sectional analyses of differences between single and remarried or repartnered mothers. Second, because both the mother and a focal child were interviewed, we have a more complete picture of the mother-child relationship at the second interview than with mothers’ reports alone. Why might one expect mothering to change when a woman enters a new marriage or partnership? First, new partners bring added income into the household. Remarriage in particular is associated with a large increase in family economic well-being (McLanahan and Sandefur 1994). Low levels of income increase parental stress which in turn may lead to poorer parenting (McLeod and Shanahan 1993; McLoyd and Wilson 1991; Elder 1974). An increase in income and economic security should lower stress and thereby improve the mother-child relationship.