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November 23, 2009
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Sara McLanahan's Research Children and FamiliesSara McLanahan, Sarah Meadows, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn examined the association between parental major depressive and generalized anxiety disorders and child behavior problems across a variety of family types: married, cohabiting, involved nonresident father, and noninvolved nonresident father. They found that among three-year-olds, maternal anxiety/depression is associated with increased odds of anxious/depressed, attention deficit, and oppositional defiant disorders. Paternal anxiety/depression had no significant association with these problem behaviors; however, it exacerbated anxious/depressed behaviors in young children if both parents were ill and if the father was coresident. The findings underscore the importance of maternal mental health for child wellbeing and suggest that a negative interaction between parent illnesses is most likely when parents and children share the same disorder.
Sara McLanahan, Carey Cooper, Sarah Meadows, and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,753) to examine family structure transitions and maternal parenting stress. Using multilevel modeling techniques, they found that mothers who exit co-residential relationships with a biological father or enter co-residential relationships with a non-biological father experience higher levels of parenting stress than mothers in stable co-residential relationships. Mothers' pre-transition resources account for very little of these associations, whereas post-transition resources appear to mediate the associations. Significant interactions between maternal education and family structure transitions suggest that divorcing a biological father or moving in with a non-biological father increases parenting stress for less educated mothers. In contrast, moving in with a biological father decreases stress for highly educated mothers.
Sara McLanahan, with Shelly Lundberg and Elaina Rose of the University of Washington, examined the effects of child gender on father involvement to determine if gender effects differ by parents' marital status. They examined several indicators of father involvement, including whether the father acknowledged "ownership" of the child, whether the parents lived together when the child was one year old, and whether the father provided financial support when the child was one year old. Among unmarried parents, they found some evidence that child gender is associated with fathers' involvement around the time of the birth: sons born to unmarried parents are more likely than daughters to receive the father's surname, especially if the mother has no other children. However, one year after birth, they found very little evidence that child gender was related to parents' living arrangements or the amount of time or money fathers invest in their children. In contrast, and consistent with previous research, fathers who were married when their child is born were more likely to live with a son than with a daughter one year after birth. This pattern supports an interpretation of child gender effects based on parental beliefs about the importance of fathers for the long-term development of sons.
With Rachel Kimbro (Rice University), Sara McLanahan and Jeanne Brooks-Gunn examined racial/ethnic differences in overweight and obesity in three-year-old children from low-income, urban families and assessed the possible determinants of this difference. They found that 35 percent of the study children were overweight or obese. Hispanic children were twice as likely as either black or white children to be overweight or obese. After controlling for a wide variety of characteristics, they were unable to explain either white--Hispanic or black--Hispanic differences in overweight and obesity. However, birth weight, taking a bottle to bed, and mother's weight status were important predictors of children's overweight or obesity at age three years. The study shows that race/ethnic gaps in obesity appear as early as age three.
McLanahan, Carey Cooper, Audrey Beck, and Cynthia Osborne (University of Texas) used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,957) to examine partnership instability and children's wellbeing during the transition to elementary school. They found that co-residential transitions are related to externalizing, attention, and social problems. Mothers' mental health and use of harsh parenting partially mediate the associations between co-residential transitions and child outcomes at age five. The impact of co-residential transitions on externalizing, attention, and social problems is stronger for boys than girls. Also, nonco- residential transitions predict externalizing and attention problems for white children but not for Hispanic children. Finally, the association between co-residential transitions and verbal ability is stronger for children with highly educated mothers than for children of less educated mothers.
As part of a volume entitled Welfare Reform and Its Long-Term Consequences for America's Poor (James P. Ziliak, ed., Cambridge University Press), Jean Knab, Irv Garfinkel (Columbia University), Sara McLanahan, Emily Moiduddin, and Cynthia Osborne (University of Texas-Austin) examined the effects of welfare and child support policies on marriage following a non-marital birth. They find that more generous benefits and stepped up efforts to collect child support payments are associated with lower rates of marriage and stricter policies on welfare receipt are associated with higher marriage rates.View All Research on Children and Families
Migration and DevelopmentMarta Tienda and Sara McLanahan are leading a multidisciplinary research initiative to document the contours of child and youth migration from a global perspective in order to understand whether and under what circumstances young people are better or worse off for having moved. This undertaking requires collaboration between experts in migration and development, mainly economists and demographers, and those in child and adolescent development, mainly psychologists and family demographers. Reframing migration from a child-centric perspective promises new insights about the long-term significance of population movements for social and economic inequality.View All Research on Migration and Development
Source: OPR Annual Reports.
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