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A decade ago we published a book reporting an extensive analysis of nationwide panel data from the Monitoring the Future (MTF) project showing impacts of post-high school experiences on substance use (Bachman, Wadsworth, O'Malley, Johnston, & Schulenberg, 1997). One of the most important findings was that various categories of marital status, including engagement and divorce/separation, showed substantial impacts on young adults' use of cigarettes, alcohol, and illicit drugs. MTF now has data extending to modal age 45. Using these new data, we revisit the effects of marriage on substance use, which we have termed "marriage effects," and consider two questions: (1) Have marriage effects changed in recent years? and (2) Are substance use effects of marital status transitions different when those transitions occur during ages 30-45, versus ages 19-30? (Contains 2 footnotes, 9 figures, and 3 tables.) [For "Monitoring the Future Occasional Paper Paper 67," see ED508290.]

Within the last 50 years, the work-family-household arrangements upon which social policy systems in industrial nations were formulated have disappeared. This briefing paper examines how social policies of the United States, Japan, Germany, Italy, and France have responded. The paper is presented in two major sections. The first section describes family policies in each country concerning parental leave, child benefits/family allowances, child care, marriage/cohabitation, and divorce. The second section discusses the mixed effects of maternity leave on womens employment, the lack of a relationship between fertility and maternity leave and fertility and cash benefits, and factors that complicate the relationship between countries' social spending and child poverty. Job-protected maternity leave is described as the most basic entitlement reflecting public acknowledgment of the economic necessity of working motherhood. Analyses suggest that fertility rates do not seem responsive to cash benefits or other policies, such as extended maternity leave, that function as wages for motherhood. In countries where child care provisions are not widely available, lengthy paid leaves have the effect of bringing women into the home for long periods of time. The most important role of cash benefits is to reduce child poverty, as illustrated by patterns in the U.S., France, and Germany. The paper concludes by asserting that Western European nations family policy can be divided into two types, one in which the social welfare system provides a comprehensive array of universal family benefits and services, and the other in which benefits are nonuniversal and accompanied by higher child poverty rates. The United States fits neither of the European patterns and is characterized by several contradictions contributing to the lack of political support for families. (Contains 98 references.) (KB)

This paper summarizes changes in key elements of welfare policy and in closely related policies on child support enforcement and sex education and family planning programs. Drawing on a conceptual framework that highlights how incentives created by public policy can affect demographic behaviors, the paper concludes that, as Congress intended, reform has shifted welfare's incentives in directions that encourage marriage and discourage nonmarital pregnancy and childbearing, childbearing while on welfare, divorce, living independently from relatives, and avoiding child support responsibilities. The paper reviews the empirical evidence about welfare's effects on demographic behavior, including nonmarital childbearing, abortion, sexual activity, contraceptive use and pregnancy among teenagers, marriage and divorce, single parenthood, living arrangements, and nonresident parenting behavior. The general tenor of this evidence is that behavioral effects consistent with theoretical expectations and policymakers' intentions do exist. Their magnitudes are small or uncertain. A tentative but reasonable "bottom line" is that one should not expect welfare reform to dramatically alter low-income Americans' demographic behavior, but one can expect it to have modest effects in the directions desired by policymakers. There is little or no evidence about how several important aspects of recent reform are likely to affect demographic behavior. (Contains 81 references.) (Author/SM)

In recent years, the belief that marriage bestows large economic gains has generated enthusiasm for policy proposals that encourage the formation and continuation of two-parent families. This study examined the effects of family structure on economic resources, controlling for unobservable family background characteristics. Data were drawn from the 1968 through 1993 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a longitudinal survey conducted by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. The present analysis was based on a sample of children born into two-parent families, used to estimate the effects of divorce, and a second sample of children born into single-parent families, used estimate losses associated with being born out-of-wedlock. Findings indicated that family structure has a significant impact on the economic status of families with children. In the long run, family income of children who parents divorce and remain divorced for at least 6 years falls by 45 percent, and food consumption is reduced by 16 percent. Among the less-studied population of children born to single parents, there is no evidence of an increase in food consumption, but those whose parents marry and remain married for at least 6 years experience income gains of around 70 percent. The more modest effects of living with a single parent on food consumption suggest that children's access to essentials may be somewhat better protected than income estimates indicate. While these estimated effects are large, it is important to note that: because estimates are based on variation within the same families over time, they are substantially smaller than estimates based on cross-national comparisons of different types of families; the estimated changes do not apply to the typical child who experiences a parental divorce at a point in time, but rather to those whose parents are currently divorced; and while the estimate that single-parent families have substantially lower incomes than they would if a second parent were in the household, these income losses do not necessarily translate into a decline in children's resources. (Contains 38 references.) (HTH)

Policies governing divorce and parenting, such as child support orders and enforcement, child custody regulations, and marital dissolution requirements, can have a large impact on the welfare of parents and children. Recent research has produced evidence on the responses of divorce rates to unilateral divorce laws and child support enforcement. In this paper the authors argue that in order to assess the child welfare impact of family policies, one must consider their influence on parents' investments in their children as well as the stability of the marginal marriage. Further, the authors expect that changes in the regulatory environment induce changes in the distribution of resources within both intact and divided families. The authors develop a continuous time model of parents' marital status choices and investments in children, with the main goal being the determination of how policies toward divorce influence outcomes for children. Estimates are derived for model parameters of interest using the method of simulated moments, and simulations based on the model explore the effects of changes in custody allocations and child support standards on outcomes for children of married and divorced parents. We find that, while small changes in children's academic attainment are induced by significant shifts in custody and support, the major effects of these policies in both intact and divided households are on the distribution of welfare between parents. In addition, children's attainments are not necessarily best served by the divorce-minimizing policy. [This research is supported in part by a grant from the C. V. Starr Center for Applied Economics at NYU.]

This document summarizes the findings of a research report which focuses on the consequences of early childbearing on the later life of the mother. Education, family size, marriage and marriage stability, labor force participation and earnings, welfare receipt, and poverty are all considered. Each of these outcomes is described separately. In addition, the interrelationships between these outcomes are put into the perspective of causal models. These models explore the indirect as well as the direct effects of a woman's age at first childbirth on her later well-being. The reader is referred to a series of related papers which contain research methodologies, statistical tables, variable definitions, and relevant research literature that focus on the particular outcomes of this research in greater detail. (Author/EB)

In recent decades the proportion of women with children who head their own households has increased dramatically. The following factors have contributed to this: (1) decrease in fertility; (2) increase in divorce; (3) increased propensity for women with children to establish independent households; (4) increase in remarriage; and (5) increase in nonmarital births. This paper uses United States Census data to analyze the impact of these major demographic components on the growth in female-headed families from 1950 to 1980. The findings indicate that for white women, the major source of growth has been the increase in the number of formerly married mothers, which results from higher divorce rates and, more recently, lower rates of remarriage. For black women, much of the early growth in female-headed households was caused by an increase in formerly married mothers, but recent growth has come from declines in marriage and increases in births to never-married women. Data are presented on ten tables and figures. A list of references is included. Decomposition equations and notes are provided in an appendix. (Author/BJV)

Examined in this document are the prevalence of early marriage and childbearing, and the relationship of early marriage and childbearing to divorce and separation. The report focuses on three hypotheses: (1) that marriage between young, unprepared teenagers ends more frequently in divorce regardless of the presence or absence of a child; (2) that early marriage and childbearing are only associated with divorce in the case of premarital pregnancies; and (3) teenage marriage alone, without the extra financial, emotional, and physical drains of parenthood, is viable, but that the particular burden of parenthood makes these marrriages fragile. Reviews of related literature and data from the Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the National Longitudinal Survey of Young Women are used in exploring these hypotheses. Factors considered include race, social and economic background, educational and work experience, and family income. Findings presented indicate that the marriage of women who first wed during the teenage years are less viable than those of older brides. In addition, it is pointed out that although the analysis conducted does not indicate that teenage childbearing increases the risk of marital dissolution in later life, it is not totally unrelated. (Author/EB)

This document reviews empirical studies concerning the enforcement of the child support obligation and describes recent research on coparental interactions and father/child visitations. The discussion begins with an overview of the incidence of child support awards among demographically eligible women and then focuses on research on factors determining fathers' payment performance. Chambers' (1979) study of payment patterns of divorced males in Genessee County, Michigan is emphasized. Subsequently, attention is given to factors influencing post-divorce visitation arrangements, father involvement in parenting, and the relationship between child support payment and visitation. Major limitations of the studies are pointed out, and the need for research on the dynamic interface between child support payments and post-divorce spousal and father/child relationships is indicated. (RH)

To gain perspective on how the structure of a family impacts young people, data from a national study conducted by the Search Institute were reexamined. Of the 47,000 students of the study, 8,266 live in a single parent household, due largely to divorce. Analysis focused on at-risk behavior, deficits, and the dynamics of healthy single-parent families that help them beat the odds. The issues are too complex, and the perspectives and values too diverse to settle in a single discussion, but it appears that categorical statements about two-parent families being good and single-parent families being bad overstate the case. Two-parent families have an edge, but being in one is no guarantee that a young person will have the nurture, control, and guidance needed to grow up healthy. Being a single parent is tough, and living in such a family structure is not ideal for children, but with special effort and with the support of institutions, communities, and individuals around them, single-parent families can be supportive and healthy families in which young people can thrive. Six figures provide details of the situations of single families. (SLD)

Women born in 1935 went to college significantly less than their male counterparts and married women's labor force participation (LFP) averaged 40% between the ages of thirty and forty. The cohort born twenty years later behaved very differently. The education gender gap was eliminated and married women's LFP averaged 70% over the same ages. In order to evaluate the quantitative contributions of the many significant changes in the economic environment, family structure, and social norms that occurred over this period, this paper develops a dynamic life-cycle model calibrated to data relevant to the 1935 cohort. We find that the higher probability of divorce and the changes in wage structure faced by the 1955 cohort are each able to explain, in isolation, a large proportion (about 60%) of the observed changes in female LFP. After combining all economic and family structure changes, we find that a simple change in preferences towards work can account for the remaining change in LFP. To eliminate the education gender gap requires, on the other hand, for the psychic cost of obtaining higher education to change asymmetrically for women versus men.

This paper studies the effect of mothers' education on their fertility and their children's schooling. We base our evidence on a natural experiment that sharply reduced the cost of attending school and, as a consequence, significantly increased the education of affected cohorts. This natural experiment was the result of the de facto revocation in October 1963 of the military rule that had been imposed on Arabs in Israel, immediately creating free access to institutions of schooling. Military rule, in effect from 1948 to 1966, imposed severe restrictions on movement and travel and therefore disrupted access to schools for residents of localities that had no schools. The change in access to schools affected mainly girls, increasing schooling by 1.02 years for women who were aged 4-8 in 1964 and by 0.58 year for those who were aged 9-13 at the time. These very large effects triggered a sharp decline in completed fertility, measured at 0.61 child for the younger affected cohorts and 0.47 for the older cohorts. Implied 2SLS estimates show that a one-year increase in maternal schooling caused a decline in fertility of 0.5-0.6 child in the younger cohorts. Additional evidence that we present suggests that labor-force participation, age upon marriage, marriage and divorce rates, and spousal labor-force participation and earnings played no role in this fertility decline. However, since spousal education increased sharply through assortative matching, it did play a role in the decline in fertility. These results are robust to checks against various threats to our identification strategy. We also estimate that the increase in mother's schooling led to an increase in the education of children, amounting to about one-third of the increase in their mothers' schooling.

This paper examines how marital and fertility patterns have changed along racial and educational lines for men and women. Historically, women with more education have been the least likely to marry and have children, but this marriage gap has eroded as the returns to marriage have changed. Marriage and remarriage rates have risen for women with a college degree relative to women with fewer years of education. However, the patterns of, and reasons for, marriage have changed. College educated women marry later, have fewer children, are less likely to view marriage as "financial security", are happier in their marriages and with their family life, and are not only the least likely to divorce, but have had the biggest decrease in divorce since the 1970s compared to women without a college degree. In contrast, there have been fewer changes in marital patterns by education for men.