The Economic Consequences of absent Parents

This paper examines the effects of family structure on family income and food consumption, using fixed-effects to control for unobservable characteristics of the family. The effects of divorce on the family income and family-level consumption of children born to two-parent households, and the effects of marriage on children born into singleparent households are both considered. In the year following a divorce, family income falls by 41% and family food consumption falls by 18%. By six or more years after the divorce, some recovery has occurred, so that family income and food consumption are reduced by 21% and 6%. Virtually all of this recovery reflects remarriage; for a child whose parent divorces and remains unmarried, family income is reduced by 45% during the period six or more years after the divorce. Marriage raises the family income of children born to single parents by 68% in the initial year, and by 45% six or more years later. Food consumption is significantly increased only in the year of the marriage. Virtually all of the deterioration in the income gains associated with marriage is the result of the ending of these marriages. These estimates are substantially smaller than the losses that are implied by cross-sectional comparisons across family types. We are grateful to Tom DeLeire, Susan Mayer and seminar participants at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, the Joint Center for Poverty Research, National Bureau of Economic Research, Syracuse University, University of British Columbia, University of Michigan, University of Toronto and University of Wisconsin for their helpful comments. Much of the work on this project was completed while Page was a Visiting Scholar at the Joint Center for Poverty Research.