Mental Illness as a Barrier to Marriage Among Mothers With Out-of-Wedlock Births Center for Research on Child Wellbeing Working Paper #2007-01-FF

Mental Illness as a Barrier to Marriage Among Mothers With Out-of-Wedlock Births

This study explores how mental illness shapes transitions to marriage among unwed mothers using augmented data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study. We estimate proportional hazard models to assess the effects of mental illness on the likelihood of marriage over a five year period following a non-marital birth. Diagnosed mental illness was obtained from the survey respondents' pr...

DO UNMARRIED PARENTS’ EXPECTATIONS PREDICT MARITAL TRANSITIONS? EARLY EVIDENCE FROM THE FRAGILE FAMILIES AND CHILD WELL-BEING STUDY Center for Research on Child Wellbeing Working Paper #01-03-FF

Effects of Welfare Participation on Marriage Center for Research on Child Wellbeing

Despite interest in the potential of the welfare system as a tool to affect marriage behaviors among low-income women, little is known about how welfare participation affects decisions to marry. We employ an event history approach to examine transitions to marriage over a five-year period among mothers who have had a non-marital birth. We find that welfare participation under the Temporary Assi...

Children’s Elevated Risk of Asthma in Unmarried Families: Underlying Structural and Behavioral Mechanisms Center for Research on Child Wellbeing Working Paper #2005-01-FF Kristen Harknett* University of Pennsylvania Children’s Elevated Risk of Asthma in Unmarried Families: Underlying Structural and Behavioral Mechanisms

Among a recent birth cohort in U.S. cities, children were far more likely to be diagnosed with asthma and to experience an asthma-related emergency within 15 months of their birth if their parents were unmarried. Comparing babies born to parents who were married, cohabiting, and not living together at the time of their baby’s birth reveals a “family structure gradient:” asthma diagnoses and eme...

Cohabitation : An Elusive Concept

Rates of out-of-wedlock births in the US have increased over the past three decades and rates of cohabitation among unwed parents have risen. Consequently, unwed parenthood is decreasingly synonymous with single parenthood. As we focus more attention on unwed parents, their living arrangements, and relationships, it is becoming clear that cohabitation is an ambiguous concept that is difficult t...