Kristen Harknett

Education, Labor Markets, and the Retreat from Marriage

Kristen Harknett et al. — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:16:17 PDT

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study and Current Population Surveys, we find that labor market conditions play a large role in explaining the positive relationship between educational attainment and marriage. Our results suggest that if low-educated parents faced the same (stronger) labor market conditions as their more-educated counterparts, then differences in marriage by education would narrow considerably. Better labor markets are positively related to marriage for fathers at all educational levels. In contrast, better labor markets are positively related to marriage for less-educated mothers but not their more-educated counterparts. We discuss the implications of our findings for theories about women’s earning power and marriage, the current economic recession, and future studies of differences in family structure across education groups.

Who Lacks Support? An Examination of Mothers’ Personal Safety Nets

Kristen Harknett et al. — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 08:09:47 PDT

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 12,140 person–waves) to identify characteristics associated with mothers’ having or lacking “personal safety net” support from family and friends. We focus on characteristics that are likely to increase the importance of having support available but may also interfere with the maintenance of supportive ties: poverty, poor physical and mental health, and challenging child rearing responsibilities. By capitalizing on distinctions among these types of personal disadvantages and among types of personal safety nets (financial, housing, child care, and emotional), we help to explain why personal disadvantages are associated with weaker support. Our paper contributes to the literature emphasizing the importance of reciprocity in support relationships and introduces the idea that families that are more difficult to help will have less support available.

Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantage and Perceptions of Social Support among New Parents

Kristen Harknett — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 07:45:03 PDT

Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing survey (N = 4,211), this study examines neighborhood disadvantage and perceptions of instrumental support among mothers with young children. The authors find that (a) living in a disadvantaged neighborhood is associated with less instrumental support, particularly financial assistance, from family and friends; (b) residential stability is associated with stronger personal safety nets irrespective of neighborhood quality; and (c) mothers who move to a more disadvantaged neighborhood experience a small but significant decline in perceived instrumental support compared with those who do not move. In interpreting these results, the authors suggest instrumental support may be either a cause or consequence of living in an advantaged neighborhood, but in either case, neighborhood and social network disadvantages go hand in hand.

Racial and Gender Differences in Kin Support: A Mixed-Methods Study of African American and Hispanic Couples

Clarisse Haxton et al. — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:17:35 PDT

This article uses qualitative and quantitative data for a recent birth cohort from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study to compare kin support patterns between African Americans and Hispanics. It focuses on financial and housing support from grandparents and other kin during the transition to parenthood. Qualitative analysis (n = 122 parents) uncovers distinctions in the way African American and Hispanic parents discuss their family networks, with African Americans emphasizing relations with female kin and Hispanics emphasizing a more integrated system. Consistent with these findings, quantitative analysis (n = 2,472 mothers and n = 2,639 fathers) finds that compared with Hispanic parents, African American parents are more likely to receive financial and housing support from grandmothers and less likely to receive support from both grandparents. Contrary to expectations that fathers would be the primary support recipients in Hispanic households, the authors find that mothers are the more common recipients of support among African Americans and Hispanics.

How an Earnings Supplement Can Affect Union Formation Among Low-Income Single Mothers

Kristen Harknett et al. — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:02:37 PDT

Using data from an experimental evaluation in two Canadian provinces, we found that offering an earnings supplement to single mothers in place of welfare altered rates of marriage and cohabitation, but that the direction of the effects varied by province. Our findings suggest that research on the relationship between women's economic well-being and marital decisions at the national level is likely to mask important variation at the local level. After eliminating several explanations for the opposite effects in the two provinces, we propose that local labor markets and local policy contexts are potentially important mediating characteristics of marriage and cohabitation.

Explaining Racial and Ethnic Differences in Marriage among New, Unwed Parents

Kristen Harknett et al. — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:00:28 PDT

This article uses new data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study to examine the reasons why white, Mexican-American, and other Hispanic parents are approximately 2.5 times more likely than African-American parents to marry within the 30 months after a nonmarital birth. Combining Fragile Families microdata with 2000 U.S. Census data shows that marriage market conditions exert a large influence on marriage decisions, even among couples that already have formed a romantic relationship and had a child together. The findings also show that an undersupply of employed African-American men can explain a large portion of the racial and ethnic differences in decisions to marry after a nonmarital birth. The current findings support the theory that marriage markets are influential not only during the search for romantic partners, but also in determining whether romantic relationships, once formed, will lead to marriage.

Are Public Expenditures Associated with Better Child Outcomes in the U.S.? A Comparison Across 50 States

Kristen Harknett et al. — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:55:14 PDT

Our article utilizes variation across the fifty U.S. states to examine the relationship between public expenditures on children and child outcomes. We find that public expenditures on children are related to better child outcomes across a wide range of indicators including measures of child mortality, elementary-school test scores, and adolescent behavioral outcomes. States that spend more on children have better child outcomes even after taking into account a number of potential confounding influences. Our results are robust to numerous variations in model specifications and to the inclusion of proxies for unobserved characteristics of states. Our sensitivity analyses suggest that the results we present may be conservative, yet our findings reveal a strong relationship between state generosity toward children and children’s wellbeing.

The Relationship Between Private Safety Nets and Economic Outcomes Among Single Mothers

Kristen Harknett — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:49:35 PDT

This article examines the relationship between private safety nets and economic outcomes among 2,818 low-income single mothers in three U.S. counties in the 1990s. I define private safety nets as the potential to draw upon family and friends for material or emotional support if needed. Using a combination of survey and administrative records data collected for the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies, I find that human capital deficits, depressive symptoms, and low self-efficacy are associated with having less private safety net support, suggesting that social network disadvantages compound individual-level disadvantages. I also find that mothers with strong private safety nets worked more, earned more, and were less reliant on welfare compared with mothers with more meager private safety nets.

Parenting across Racial and Class Lines: Assortative Mating Patterns of New Parents Who Are Married, Cohabiting, Dating, and No Longer Romantically Involved

Joshua Goldstein et al. — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:47:31 PDT

In this article, we examine the assortative mating patterns of new parents who are married, cohabiting, romantically involved, and no longer romantically involved. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, we find that the effects of crossing racial and ethnic lines depend very much on whose perspective is taken. Crossing racial and ethnic lines has large effects on mothers' relationship status at the time of baby's birth but makes little difference from the fathers' perspective. Crossing educational attainment lines has little effect on relationship status at the time of baby's birth but same education-couples were slightly less at risk of divorce in the years that followed.

Does Receiving an Earnings Supplement affect Union Formation?: Estimating Effects for Program Participants using Propensity Score Matching

Kristen Harknett — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:44:03 PDT

This paper demonstrates a novel application of propensity score matching techniques: to estimate nonexperimental impacts on program participants within the context of an experimental research design. I examine the relationship between program participation, defined as qualifying for an earnings supplement by working full time, and marital union formation among low-income mothers in two Canadian provinces. I find that receipt of an earnings supplement substantially increased union formation in one province but not the other. A subgroup analysis based on propensities of program participation revealed that the positive effect on unions was concentrated among relatively disadvantaged participants. The techniques demonstrated in the paper are broadly applicable to studies in which take-up is less than 100 percent among those randomly-assigned to a program group.

More Kin, Less Support: Multipartnered Fertility and Kin Support among New Mothers

Kristen Harknett et al. — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:41:46 PDT

Recent research has documented the high prevalence of having children with more than one partner, termed multipartnered fertility. Because childbearing is an important mechanism for building kin networks, we theorize that multipartnered fertility will influence the availability of social support for mothers. Analyzing three waves of data from the Fragile Families study (N = 12,259), we find that multipartnered fertility is negatively associated with the availability of financial, housing, and child care support. Our longitudinal evidence suggests a bidirectional relationship in which multipartnered fertility reduces the availability of support, and the availability of support inhibits multipartnered fertility. We conclude that smaller and denser kin networks seem to be superior to broader but weaker kin ties in terms of perceived instrumental support.

Why are Children with Married Parents Healthier? The Case of Pediatric Asthma

Kristen Harknett — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:40:20 PDT

Among a recent birth cohort in U.S. cities, young children were far more likely to be diagnosed with asthma and to experience an asthma-related emergency if their parents were unmarried. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, I find that the child health benefits of marriage seem to stem from the benefits of parental coresidence and the demographic and socioeconomic correlates of marriage. Children whose parents live apart appear to be at heightened risk of asthma even after taking into account demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. The child health benefits of marriage are only weakly related to mothers’ health behaviors and are not related to father involvement. An analysis of relationship transitions suggests that marital disruption may be more harmful for children than the disruption of cohabiting unions. The results provide some cautions and considerations for the U.S. government’s Healthy Marriage Initiative.

Mate Availability and Unmarried Parent Relationships

Kristen Harknett — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 10:38:58 PDT

Theoretically, a shortage of males in a local marriage market may influence the formation, quality, and trajectory of unmarried parent relationships. To test these hypotheses, I combine city-level sex ratio data from the U.S. Census with microdata on unmarried couples who recently had a child from the Fragile Families study. A shortage of men in a marriage market is associated with lower relationship quality for unmarried parents. Male shortages are associated with lower rates of marriage following a nonmarital birth, and this is in part because of the mediating influence of relationship quality. A shortage of men is not significantly related to the economic quality of male, nonmarital childbearing partners.