Who’s in the House? Race Differences in Cohabitation, Single Parenthood, and Child Development

Abstract

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.

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