Under Whose Roof? Understanding the Living Arrangements of Children in Doubled-Up Households.

A growing literature in family demography examines children's residence in doubled-up (shared) households with extended family members and nonkin. This research has largely overlooked the role of doubling up as a housing strategy, with "hosts" (householders) providing housing support for "guests" living in their home. Yet, understanding children's experiences in doubled-up households requires attention to host/guest status. Using the American Community Survey and Survey of Income and Program Participation, we identify the prevalence of children doubling up as hosts and guests in different household compositions (multigenerational, extended family, nonkin), show how this varies by demographic characteristics, and examine children's patterns of residence across these household types. We find large variation by demographic characteristics. More disadvantaged children have higher rates of doubling up as guests than hosts, whereas more advantaged children have higher rates of doubling up as hosts than guests. Additionally, compared with hosts, guests more often use doubling up as a longer-term strategy; a greater share of guests live consistently doubled up over a three-year period, but those who do transition between household types experience more transitions on average than do hosts. Our findings show the importance of attending to both housing status and household composition when studying children living in doubled-up households.

Historical Trends in Children Living in Multigenerational Households in the United States: 1870-2018.

Over the last two decades, the share of U.S. children under age 18 who live in a multigenerational household (with a grandparent and parent) has increased dramatically. Yet we do not know whether this increase is a recent phenomenon or a return to earlier levels of coresidence. Using data from the decennial census from 1870 to 2010 and the 2018 American Community Survey, we examine historical trends in children's multigenerational living arrangements, differences by race/ethnicity and education, and factors that explain the observed trends. We find that in 2018, 10% of U.S. children lived in a multigenerational household, a return to levels last observed in 1950. The current increase in multigenerational households began in 1980, when only 5% of children lived in such a household. Few differences in the prevalence of multigenerational coresidence by race/ethnicity or education existed in the early part of the twentieth century; racial/ethnic and education differences in coresidence are a more recent phenomena. Decomposition analyses do little to explain the decline in coresidence between 1940 and 1980, suggesting that unmeasured factors explain the decrease. Declines in marriage and in the share of White children most strongly explained the increase in multigenerational coresidence between 1980 and 2018. For White children with highly educated parents, factors explaining the increase in coresidence differ from other groups. Our findings suggest that the links between race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status and multigenerational coresidence have changed over time, and today the link between parental education and coresidence varies within racial/ethnic groups.

A developmental perspective on the link between parents' employment and children's obesity.

Despite public concerns about the negative implications of the increased labor force participation of mothers for child development, decades of research have revealed few risks and some benefits. One potential risk-a consistently observed association between maternal employment and childhood obesity-offers a window into how some dimensions of family health may be undermined by work in an economic and policy context that is not family friendly. The purpose of this article is to identify ways that a developmental perspective can enrich the literature on how children's weight may be related to the work experiences of both mothers and fathers across diverse populations, a literature that heretofore has been dominated by economic and demographic perspectives, focused almost solely on women, and largely ignored racial/ethnic variation. After reviewing the extant literature, we put forward a conceptual model that uses ecological and developmental insights to identify the mechanisms by which parents' employment might matter to children's weight and discuss this model in the context of the contemporary landscape of family policy. (PsycINFO Database Record

Understanding Grandfamilies: Characteristics of Grandparents, Nonresident Parents, and Children.

Using data from the Year 9 Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N~3,182), we investigated the characteristics grandfamilies (grandparents raising their grandchildren with no parent present, N = 84) and compared them to other key groups, including children's nonresident parents and other economically disadvantaged families with children. Results show that grandparents raising their grandchildren were generally better off in terms of educational attainment, marital status, and economic well-being than the child's parents. Grandparents raising their grandchildren also had very similar characteristics to other disadvantaged mothers. Academic and socioemotional well-being was poorer among children in grandfamilies compared with those living with their mothers, but parenting practices were very similar. These findings suggest that although children in grandfamilies may be at a disadvantage academically and socioemotionally, grandparent caregivers are in many ways similar to other fragile-family mothers. Overall, this study enhances our knowledge of an important, yet understudied family type.

Mothering Experiences: How Single Parenthood and Employment Structure the Emotional Valence of Parenting.

Research studies and popular accounts of parenting have documented the joys and strains of raising children. Much of the literature comparing parents with those without children indicates a happiness advantage for those without children, although recent studies have unpacked this general advantage to reveal differences by the dimension of well-being considered and important features in parents' lives and parenting experiences. We use unique data from the 2010, 2012, and 2013 American Time Use Survey to understand emotions in mothering experiences and how these vary by key demographic factors: employment and partnership status. Assessing mothers' emotions in a broad set of parenting activities while controlling for a rich set of person- and activity-level factors, we find that mothering experiences are generally associated with high levels of emotional well-being, although single parenthood is associated with differences in the emotional valence. Single mothers report less happiness and more sadness, stress, and fatigue in parenting than partnered mothers, and these reports are concentrated among those single mothers who are not employed. Employed single mothers are happier and less sad and stressed when parenting than single mothers who are not employed. Contrary to common assumptions about maternal employment, we find overall few negative associations between employment and mothers' feelings regarding time with children, with the exception that employed mothers report more fatigue in parenting than those who are not employed.

Better for Baby? The Retreat From Mid-Pregnancy Marriage and Implications for Parenting and Child Well-being.

Recent decades have seen a significant decline in mid-pregnancy ("shotgun") marriage, particularly among disadvantaged groups, which has contributed to increasing nonmarital birth rates. Despite public and political concern about this shift, the implications for parenting and child well-being are not known. Drawing on a sample of U.S. black and white mothers with nonmarital conceptions from the NLSY79, our study fills this gap. Using propensity score techniques to address concerns about selection bias, we found that mid-pregnancy marriages were associated with slightly better parenting quality relative to remaining single, although effect sizes were small and limited to marriages that remained intact at the time of child assessment. Mid-pregnancy marriages were not associated with improved children's behavior or cognitive ability. These findings suggest that the retreat from mid-pregnancy marriage may contribute to increasing inequality in parenting resources for children.

Work Hours, Schedules, and Insufficient Sleep Among Mothers and Their Young Children.

Studies have linked parents' employment, work hours, and work schedules to their own sleep quality and quantity, but it is unclear whether these associations extend to children. The authors used data from the 5-year in-home survey of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,818) to examine the associations between maternal work hours and schedule and insufficient sleep among disadvantaged mothers and their young children. They found that mothers who worked more than 35 hours per week were more likely to experience insufficient sleep compared to mothers who worked fewer hours, whereas children were more likely to experience insufficient sleep when their mothers worked between 20 and 40 hours. Nonstandard work schedules were associated with an increased likelihood of insufficient sleep for mothers but not their children. The results highlight a potentially difficult balance between work and family for many disadvantaged working mothers in the United States.

Measuring Maternal Nonstandard Work in Survey Data.

Surveys differ in the measurement of nonstandard work, such that some surveys require respondents to indicate whether they work either a standard or a nonstandard schedule, whereas others allow respondents to indicate that they work both types of schedules. We test whether these measurement decisions influence the estimated prevalence of maternal nonstandard work, using data from two sources: the Current Population Survey (N = 1,430) and the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,524). Using propensity score techniques, we find that giving respondents the option of reporting work at more than one type of schedule doubles the prevalence of nonstandard work, compared to allowing respondents to indicate only one type of schedule. Our results suggest that many mothers of young children regularly work at both standard and nonstandard times and that mutually exclusive conceptualizations of standard and nonstandard work schedules do not fully capture their experiences.

Mothers' night work and children's behavior problems.

Many mothers work in jobs with nonstandard schedules (i.e., schedules that involve work outside of the traditional 9-5, Monday through Friday schedule); this is particularly true for economically disadvantaged mothers. In the present article, we used longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Survey (n = 2,367 mothers of children ages 3-5 years) to examine the associations between maternal nonstandard work and children's behavior problems, with a particular focus on mothers' night shift work. We employed 3 analytic strategies with various approaches to adjusting for observed and unobserved selection factors; these approaches provided an upper and lower bound on the true relationship between night shift work and children's behavior. Taken together, the results provide suggestive evidence for modest associations between exposure to maternal night shift work and higher levels of aggressive and anxious or depressed behavior in children compared with children whose mothers who are not working, those whose mothers work other types of nonstandard shifts, and, for aggressive behavior, those whose mothers work standard shifts.

Parental employment and children's body weight: Mothers, others, and mechanisms.

A robust body of literature spanning several countries indicates a positive association between maternal employment and child body mass index (BMI). Fewer studies have examined the role of paternal employment. More importantly, little empirical work examines the mechanisms that might explain the relationships between parental employment and children's BMI. Our paper tests the relationship between the cumulative experience of maternal and spouse employment over a child's lifetime and that child's BMI, overweight, and obesity at age 13 or 14. We further examine several mechanisms that may explain these associations. We use data from the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) merged mother-child file on cohorts of children who were born during a period of dramatic increase in both childhood obesity and maternal employment. We find that the number of hours that highly-educated mothers work over her child's lifetime is positively and statistically significantly associated with her child's BMI and risk of overweight at ages 13 or 14. The work hours of mothers' spouses and partners, on the other hand, are not significantly associated with these outcomes. Results suggest that, for children of highly-educated mothers, the association between maternal work hours and child BMI is partially mediated by television viewing time.

The Role of Grandparents in the Lives of Youth.

Recent demographic trends suggest that grandparents may play influential roles in the lives of their grandchildren. Despite this, the role of grandparents in the lives of youth remains an understudied topic. Using data from a nationally-representative group of youth aged 14-19 from the 1992 Wave Two National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), this study seeks to better understand the role of grandparents in the lives of grandchildren by examining which factors predict the quality of the grandparent-grandchild relationship, and what the implications of this relationship are for youth. Key factors influencing the quality of the grandparent-grandchild relationship are distance, the parent's relationship with both the grandparent and the child, and age of both the child and parent. Results do not support the hypothesis that grandparents influence the dimensions of youth well-being examined here.

Employment patterns of less-skilled workers: links to children's behavior and academic progress.

Using data from five waves of the Women's Employment Survey (WES; 1997-2003), we examine the links between low-income mothers' employment patterns and the emotional behavior and academic progress of their children. We find robust and substantively important linkages between several different dimensions of mothers' employment experiences and child outcomes. The pattern of results is similar across empirical approaches-including ordinary least squares and child fixed-effect models, with and without an extensive set of controls. Children exhibit fewer behavior problems when mothers work and experience job stability (relative to children whose mothers do not work). In contrast, maternal work accompanied by job instability is associated with significantly higher child behavior problems (relative to employment in a stable job). Children whose mothers work full-time and/or have fluctuating work schedules also exhibit significantly higher levels of behavior problems. However, full-time work has negative consequences for children only when it is in jobs that do not require cognitive skills. Such negative consequences are completely offset when this work experience is in jobs that require the cognitive skills that lead to higher wage growth prospects. Finally, fluctuating work schedules and full-time work in non-cognitively demanding jobs are each strongly associated with the probability that the child will repeat a grade or be placed in special education.

Maternal employment, work schedules, and children's body mass index.

Previous work has shown that mothers' employment is associated with increases in children's body mass index (BMI), a measure of weight for height. Nonstandard work (working evenings or nights, weekends, or an irregular shift) may also be associated with children's BMI. This article examines the association between maternal work and children's BMI and considers the influence of mothers' nonstandard work schedules. Using data from school-age children (approximately 8 to 12 years) in the NICHD's Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 990), this study found that an increase in the total time a mother is employed is associated with an increase in her child's BMI; additionally, the association between maternal employment and children's weight is much stronger at 6th grade relative to younger ages. There was no evidence that maternal or home characteristics or children's time use mediated these associations, nor was there any evidence that nonstandard work was associated with children's BMI. Implications for policy and future research are discussed.

Family Economic Well-Being Following the 1996 Welfare Reform: Trend Data from Five Non-Experimental Panel Studies.

This analysis summarizes trends in family economic well-being from five non-experimental, longitudinal welfare-to-work studies launched following the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). The studies include a sizable group of parents and other caregivers who received TANF at the point of sample selection or shortly thereafter, and share a wide range of similar measures of economic well-being. This analysis provides descriptive information on how these families are faring over time. Our results confirm what has been found by previous studies. Many families remain dependent on public benefits, and are either poor or near-poor, despite gains in some indicators of economic well-being. We caution that these aggregate statistics may mask important heterogeneity among families.

Maternal working conditions and child well-being in welfare-leaving families.

In the wake of welfare reform, thousands of low-income single mothers have transitioned into the labor market. In this article, the authors examine how the work conditions of mothers leaving welfare for employment are associated with the emotional well-being of 372 children ages 5 to 15 years. The authors examine the cumulative incidence, over a 5-year period, of maternal non-family-friendly work conditions, including long work hours, erratic work schedules, nonday shifts, and lengthy commute times, in association with children's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems and levels of positive behavior. The authors found that mothers' lengthy commute times are associated with higher levels of internalizing problem behaviors and lower levels of positive behaviors.

Who's in the house? Race differences in cohabitation, single parenthood, and child development.

This study examined four questions: (1) How does family structure (specifically, single parenthood, married parent, and cohabitating parent) affect children's delinquency and math test scores? (2) Do these effects differ by race? (3) Do parenting practices mediate the links between family structure and children's outcomes? and (4) Does this mediation differ by race? Unlike some previous work in this area, the present study distinguished between the effects of single parenthood and cohabitation. Using fixed-effects techniques to control for unobserved heterogeneity between children in the various family structures, single parenthood was found to be associated with reduced well-being among European American children, but not African American children. Cohabitation was associated with greater delinquency among African American children, and lower math scores among European American children. No evidence was found to indicate that parenting mediated the links between family structure and children's outcomes. Finally, it was found that for African American children, measures of maternal warmth and the provision of rules had direct effects on children's delinquency.