Social Ecological Model of Development
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Indicators of the social context of families can be developed from a framework based upon current research and theory on families and their interaction with their social environment. First, we present the theory underlying the conceptual framework, and second, the stages in the life cycle of the family that should be considered in indicator development. Third, each element in the social ecology of families is identified, and critical considerations for developing indicators are reviewed.
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This framework is based on an ecological model of human development, in which individual development occurs within concentric circles of environmental influence, which include the family, the school, peer, neighborhood, community and nation (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). “The ecological model environment is conceived as a set of nested structures, each inside the other like a set of Russian dolls” (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, p.3). These structures within the ecological model are systems in themselves, yet are not independent of each other, so that, for example, the family circle overlaps with the school, neighborhood, and peer circles (Coatsworth, 2002). Further removed from the individual in the model is the parent job context; parent support networks including child care and families of peers; and neighborhood, community and religious organizations and opportunities. Still further removed in the ecosystem are the social, cultural, political, and economic contexts of the larger society. (See Chart A).
More recently, this ecological model has evolved to recognize that the process of interaction between the individual and the environment is central to human development, and that this process will vary with characteristics of the person, their environmental contexts, and the time periods, both within an individual’s life course and historical times, in which the processes take place (Bronfenbrenner, 1998).
It is useful to apply this concept of an individual’s life course to families. “The life course is conceived as an age-graded sequence of socially defined roles and events that are enacted and even recast over time. It consists of multiple, interlocking trajectories, such as work and family, with their transitions or changes in states” (Elder, 1998, p.983). A family cycle has been conceived of as stages of parenthood, including marriage, birth of the first child, the preschool period, children’s entry into school and transitions through each level of school, and the transitions to the empty nest (Elder, 1978). This concept of a single, smooth family cycle describes a decreasing proportion of families, however, as more children are raised outside of marriage because of increases in nonmarital births, cohabitation, and divorce, and changes in the order of the stages as experienced by parents (a birth before a marriage, for example). Therefore, in this framework, married couple families as well as other family types are considered. In addition, recent research on the life course takes into consideration cohort as well as period effects on individual family members and their roles within the family.
In conceptualizing measures of the social context of families, this framework utilizes lessons emerging from the study of family strengths. There is an emerging consensus in the family strengths literature that:
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Indicators of the social context of families will need to be developed with consideration of the life cycle stages of the family, determined by the presence and ages of the children in the family. The stages that we recommend include a) conception and the prenatal period and, b) families with preschool-aged children (ages 0-5), c) families with elementary school-aged children (ages 6-11), d) families with children in middle and high school (ages 12-17), and e) families with young adults (ages 18-24) (see Chart B). Obviously, many families have children who fit in several age categories, but it is useful to consider special situations and contexts that families typically experience when they have any children at each of these stages.
We have chosen to focus on children as the determinant of life cycle states, because families with children are the focus of the project. Nevertheless, it is also important to note how the age of the parents typically interacts with these life cycle stages, and how that also influences the needs of families.
Each of these stages can be sub-divided into two stages. These stages (0-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-11, 12-14, 15-17, and 18-24) reflect more finely detailed developmental stages, and may represent useful categories when considering varied aspects of family context, such as parental employment patterns, monitoring, and parent-child communication.
Data are not currently collected consistently for many potential indicators according to these developmental stages, or by the more finely detailed age breaks, which will become apparent once the data for recommended indicators are made available. Nevertheless, conceptually, these categories can guide thinking and planning.
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This framework begins by addressing the various types of family structure and transitions between structures, and then considers critical aspects of how families function as a unit. The interaction of family members with the world of work, including child care considerations, and the involvement of parents in school will be addressed. Important aspects of how families, in general, and youth, in particular, engage with their neighborhoods and communities, and their religion, are considered. Finally, the importance of social connections for families is summarized.
Family Formation. A nuclear family is formed with a first birth to a couple. Indicators of this first step in the process of family formation need to take into consideration current trends in marital status at birth, as well as the intendedness of the pregnancy. Both have important implications for the stability of the union as well as the quality of parenting (Brown & Eisenberg, 1995). Children born to unmarried mothers are more likely to be of low birthweight, which can lead to developmental delays, and to have access to more limited social, economic, and emotional resources (McLanahan, 1995). In a study of “fragile families”, or newly unwed parents, McLanahan et al (2001) found that half of unmarried mothers are living with the fathers of their children, and that the parents are committed to each other and to their child. However, they face many barriers to marriage, including unemployment or incarceration of fathers, and poor relationship skills.
Family Types. Existing indicators of family structure typically include an indicator on the proportion of children living with two parents (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2002). However, research indicates that living with both biological parents gives children an advantage over other types of two-parent families, including one biological and one step-parent, and one biological parent with a cohabiting partner. Children living in the latter types of two-parent families appear to have outcomes that are more similar to children living in single-parent families (Moore, Jekielek, & Emig, 2002). In developing indicators for families, however, consideration must be given to the well-being of all family members, and remarriage and cohabitation can have important benefits for a single parent, including economic benefits, sharing of household chores and parenting responsibilities, and emotional support and companionship.
Cohabitation is an increasingly common experience for children — it has been estimated that at least two-fifths of all children will spend some time in a cohabiting family before age 16 — and this likelihood is higher among certain groups of children, particularly among black children (Bumpass & Lu, 2000). Children living in cohabiting families tend to be worse off economically compared to children living with married parents, and they are at higher risk of experiencing future instability in their living arrangements (Manning & Lichter, 1996; Graefe & Lichter, 1999).
Youth who have spent time in single-parent families are more likely to perform worse in school, to drop out of high school, and to have a birth while a teen, and are less likely to enroll in college or to be working as young adults, even after adjusting for other family background characteristics (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). Parental involvement and supervision in high school is lower among single parents than in other family types, and community resources available to single-parent families are weaker. Loss of income and higher residential mobility are two of the negative effects of family disruption that help explain differences among youth outcomes in single versus two-parent families (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994).
Transitions in Family Structure. Children involved in divorce are also more likely to experience problems with behavior, social competence, and psychological adjustment (Amato, 2000). Divorce has major negative consequences for adults as well as children in a family, including economic hardship, lower levels of psychological well-being, and difficulty with parenting; but there can also be positive consequences, including higher levels of autonomy, personal growth, and happiness (Amato, 2000).
Transitions and instability in family structure, per se, can lead to negative outcomes for young adult well-being. For example, instability in family structure was found to be more predictive of premarital births among young adults than specific experiences of family disruption (Wu & Martinson, 1993).
Parental incarceration is also associated with psychosocial and health problems in the family (Kemper & Rivara, 1993). Maternal imprisonment, in particular, can result in major changes in family structure, such as children being put into kinship care arrangements with grandparents or other relatives, or placed into foster care (Young & Smith, 2000; Johnson & Waldfogel, 2002).
Therefore, monitoring the incidence of family structure transitions (other than births and adoptions) is important. Grandparents and other extended family members can provide critical support during times of family transitions or crises, such as marital disruption, parental unemployment, and imprisonment (Cherlin & Furstenberg, 1986; Hill, 1999), and often provide child care while parents work. According to some studies, in families where no biological father is present, the presence of extended family members in the home tends to offset the absence of the father. Children from families with a grandmother, aunt, or other family member in the house tend to thrive as well as those from two-parent families (DeLeire & Kalil, 2002; Wilson & Tolson,1990). Therefore, the presence of extended family members, and the nature and extent of their involvement in the structure and function of a family are important to measure in portraying the social context of families.
Research studies consistently find that family factors influence children's development (e.g., National Research Council, & Institute of Medicine, 2000; Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, & Hetherington, 2000; Miller, 1998; Kirby, 1999). Considerable research indicates that parents are very important to children's development and that the types of influences that parents have are broad and occur throughout childhood (Borkowsky, Ramey & Bristol-Powers, 2000). Here we highlight some of the crucial elements of family functioning that affect children's development.
The relationship of the child with their parent(s) is a crucial predictor of children's development (Hair et al., 2002). This holds not only for the relationship of the child with their residential parents, but with their biological parents outside of the home (if any). Among young children, this is often referred to as “attachment,” while “connectedness” or “parent-child relationship” is often noted among school-age children. It is important to note that this relationship continues to be important throughout childhood and into the transition to adulthood, as well as throughout the life course (Peterson, Madden-Derdich, & Leonard, 2000). Parental warmth is a related aspect of family functioning, which has been found to be associated with more positive development for children (Demo & Cox, 2000).
The quality of the marital or partner relationship between the child's parents or parent and step-parent or partner has also been regularly found to affect children's development and contributes to the quality of parenting (Hetherington & Kelly, 2002; Amato, 2000; Simons & Johnson, 1996). In addition, marital satisfaction is a critical component of life satisfaction for adults as well (Bradbury, Fincham & Beach, 2000). This indicates that in addition to measuring family structure and whether or not the child resides with both biological parents, it is important to assess the quality of the relationship that exists between the residential parents. It is also important to assess the frequency of contact and the relationship between the child and an absent parent.
The issue of family or domestic violence represents a more extreme topic but it is an important extension of the construct of the quality of family relationships and interactions. Research consistently finds an association between exposure to family violence and poorer developmental outcomes for children and adults, though the magnitude of the effect on children of observing violence is described as small (Johnson & Ferraro, 2000). At the low end, marital and family disagreements and conflict resolution can be issues, while, at the high end, physical abuse and injury are concerns.
Family routines represent another important element of family functioning (Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992), for a variety of reasons. Families with regular patterns and habits may be more likely to provide for children's needs and also to create a sense of stability and trust. From the opposite perspective, turbulence has been found to undermine children's development (Moore, Vandivere & Redd, forthcoming). Turbulence in schools (Pribesh & Downey, 1999), child care (Howes & Hamilton, 1993), family structure (Cherlin, 1999), and residence have each been found to be associated with poorer outcomes for children.
Monitoring and supervision of children's friends and activities represent another aspect of family functioning that is important for children's development. However, in cross-sectional studies, high levels of monitoring are often found associated with problem behaviors, presumably because children with behavior problems are monitored more closely. Catsambis & Beveridge (2001) found that parental monitoring was particularly beneficial to students in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Of course, appropriate monitoring varies substantially by age, and measures need to address this. Likewise, gatekeeping, resource management, and networking are important functions that parents perform for their children that influence child outcomes (Furstenberg et al., 1999).
Parenting style is a categorization of parental approaches, which examines responsiveness and demandingness together (Darling & Steinberg, 1993). Authoritative parents are "high in both demandingness and responsiveness," while authoritarian parents are "high in demandingness but low in responsiveness;" indulgent parents are "high in responsiveness but low in demandingness;" and neglecting parents are "low in both responsiveness and demandingness" (Darling & Steinberg, 1993, p. 491).
Communication in the family represents another critical element of family functioning (Miller et al., 1998). This communication may occur between the parents, between parents and children, or among all family members. Positive constructive communication is regularly recommended for families; but it is important to note that both the quality and quantity of communication are important. A particular case of parent-child communication is communication about school. When parents communicate with their children about school and about their expectations for their children, children tend to perform better in school and have higher educational expectations themselves (Fan & Chen, 1999; Trusty, 1999).
Measures of the interaction of families with the world of work need to extend beyond traditional measures of employment to the status of family-friendly workplace policies and the availability of quality child care for parents during their working hours.
Secure parental employment is critical for a family economic stability. Not only does it provide steady income, but also a secure job is more likely to offer health, retirement and other benefits for the employee and his or her family members. In addition, secure parental employment can contribute to healthy family functioning and psychological well-being, and protect against the stress associated with unemployment, underemployment, and poverty (Mayer, 1997; Smith et al, 1997).
Parental employment status is related to the economic status of children in mother-headed single-parent families. The economic security of children can be affected by gaps in non-resident fathers and custodial mothers income and employment (Bianchi, Subaiya, & Kahn, J.,1999). Furthermore, a high rate of joblessness among black males has been found to be related to their lower likelihood of being present or involved with their families (Wilson & Tolson, 1990). One measure of secure employment is whether at least one parent is employed full-time, full year (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2002).
The quality, not just the stability, of a parental job is important to measure. When working parents earn below minimum wage and have jobs without benefits, they are often not fully able to provide for the needs of their families, and are unable to lift their family above the poverty threshold. This is particularly problematic for single mothers who enter low-complexity jobs, where there is evidence of a lower quality home environment as well (Menahan & Parcel, 1995)
Juggling family and work responsibilities, parents want control over their work schedules. Their needs include having to coordinate child care coverage with another parent or child care provider, to timing arrival at home with the return of children from school, to attending teacher conferences and children doctor appointments. The degree to which parents feel that they can arrange their schedules to meet their family needs is an important aspect of family well-being. While there are many informal arrangements that data systems are not yet able to capture, the availability of flextime schedules to workers is an important piece that is measurable. The age of children in the family is an important feature to consider in this indicator, though flexibility can be crucial for parents with older as well as younger children.
Shift work is quite different than flexible scheduling and has been found to be related to marital instability among couples with children, particularly if the non-standard working hours occur during the week rather than the weekend (Presser, 2000). Factors that are related to marital instability include the type of schedule worked, the gender of the parent working nonstandard hours, and the duration of the marriage.
Family and medical leave as well as paid maternity/paternity leave are workplace policies that allow families to care for newborns and seriously ill family members while maintaining their jobs (Joesch, 1997). It would be important to monitor the availability and use of these policies for all working parents, as well as for working poor parents.
While monitoring the use and availability of these family-friendly policies indicates how parents are using them to juggle their responsibilities, a measure of work-family stress would be important to include in order to capture the degree to which current workplace policies are not going far enough to address parents needs. Measures of the degree to which parents feel overworked, or feel that the demands of their jobs are interfering with their family lives have appeared in various sources, including the National Study of the Changing Workforce, the Iowa Youth and Families Project, and Roper polls. Studies have found that being overworked leads to more work-life conflict, less successful relationships with family members and friends, increased self-neglect, lost sleep, increased health problems, and higher levels of stress (Galinsky, Kim, & Bond, 2001).
New research on the interplay between the social contexts of working parents everyday lives at work, at home, and in public, and their stress levels as measured by cortisol levels in each setting, points to a potential direction for developing new measures of parental stress in each setting (Adam, 2002).
Access to good quality child care is a critical component of balancing work and family responsibilities. A few studies have found a negative relationship between extensive early maternal employment during a child’s first year of life and children’s cognitive outcomes (Brooks Gunn, Han, & Waldfogel, 2002), suggesting that tracking full-time and overtime maternal employment during a child’s first year may be important, though a single measure of work hours may not be the best indicator, if the association is driven by child care quality, stress, conflict, or inflexible work hours. Good quality child care can mediate negative effects of maternal employment, so it is critical to measure the availability of child care, and the trust and confidence that parents have in their provider. Also, family work patterns, more than individual work patterns, may be more relevant to the quality of care and nurturing that children receive. The age of children is an important consideration for these measures. For older children, the availability of before- and after-school programs is a more salient concern.
Families connect to their communities in many ways. Parental involvement in their children school is one of the key ways in which parents interact with a community-based institution, as well as their children peers and their parents. Parental involvement can be measured as participation in general school meetings, attending conferences with teachers, attending school events, and volunteering or fundraising for the school. Studies find that students of parents who are involved in their school are more likely to have positive educational outcomes, including higher grades, and avoid grade repetition, suspension, expulsion, and dropping out (Nord & West, 2001). Most parents attend some meetings or events at their children school, and rates of involvement are highest in primary school but decline at higher grade levels. Only a minority of parents, however, takes time to volunteer in their children’s school (U.S. Department of Education, 2001).
Civic engagement can take many forms and can have a positive influence on children development as well as on the community (Zaff & Michelsen, 2002). One way that families connect to their communities is to work together with others in their community to solve problems where they live. Interestingly, some research suggests that high levels of family-community involvement exist in many of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods (Rankin & Quane, 2000), suggesting that these families have taken it upon themselves to rectify the disorder and deterioration in their neighborhoods, and are making concerted efforts to seek out safe and supervised activities for their children. Another form is to raise funds for charity, or to do volunteer work for organizations on a regular basis, or to be an active member of an organization that works on community service projects (Keeter et al, 2002). A less active form of engagement is simply to make donations to charitable or educational organizations.
Participation in electoral politics is key to our democratic process, and, for families, elections can influence the development of child and family policies and programs. Measures of engagement in the electoral process include voting in elections, volunteering for a candidate or a political organization, persuading others on electoral issues, displaying support through signs, buttons, etc., or contributing money to a party on political candidate (Keeter et al, 2002). The percentage of eligible parents who are registered to vote is a measure of intent to participate in elections.
In addition to the above more formal expressions of civic and political engagement, families can express their political voice in informal ways such as writing letters or contacting officials or the media, signing petitions, protesting or canvassing neighborhoods, or boycotting products because of conditions under which the product is made or by which the company operates (Keeter et al, 2002).
As with many other family characteristics, parents provide a role model of civic involvement and compassion for others when they volunteer (Vandivere et al., 2000). Parental civic engagement is positively associated with the civic engagement of their high school-aged children (U.S. Department of Education, 1996). In general, research that thoroughly controls for the range of confounding influences is lacking, and it appears that self-selection may account for a portion on the associations that have been found. Nevertheless, multivariate and a few experimental studies support the notion that parental involvement in school (Redd, Brooks, & McGarvey, 2002) and civic engagement (Zaff & Michelsen, 2002) are positive influences on children development.
Family engagement with religion can be conceptualized as a special case of connection to community, when characterized by family participation in religious services or membership in a religious organization. However, the observance of a religious or spiritual practice transcends any one community, and ties family members to a sense of higher purpose, meaning, and values. This sense of connection to something larger than oneself or one’s community has been found to benefit individual efficacy and positive development among adults as well as youth (Bridges & Moore, 2002; Damon, 2002), and is no doubt related to positive family functioning as well.
Research shows that parental religiosity is related to positive outcomes among children, including cognitive and social competence, higher levels of adolescent social responsibility, and avoidance of early sexual activity, delinquency, and depression (Benson & Scales, 2003; Moore, Chalk, Scarpa, & Vandivere, 2002). Adolescent religiosity can positively influence their sense of autonomy and their involvement with community service (ibid).
Most commonly, religiosity is measured by the frequency of attendance at religious services, both for individuals and for families. But many religious observances and spiritual practices take place in the home, and these are not captured by such measures, yet they are particularly germane to the study of family context. For example, Jewish families observe the Sabbath and religious holidays such as Passover in the home, and Hindus and Buddhists often have shrines at which they pray in the home. Muslims answer the call to prayer several times a day, regardless of their location. For families, it would also be important to measure the frequency with which they pray together informally, for example, saying grace before dinner in a Christian home, or saying the blessings after meals in a Jewish home. It is also important to capture other forms of spirituality besides prayer, such as meditation, yoga, or chanting, which families can do together, or parents can model for their children.
Attitudes toward religion and its salience and importance (Benson & Scales, 2003) are important to capture as well, and measures currently exist on whether adults and young adults consider themselves to be religious persons (Moore et al., 2002).
While many measures of youth development are embedded in the discussions above, it is worth mentioning some important independent ways in which youth connect to their social environment.
Youth connectedness to school has been well-researched in the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent Health (Add Health). The degree to which youth feel connected to peers in their school turns out to be highly predictive of their success in school and protective against risky behaviors (McNeely et al., 2002). Similarly, when youth can identify two or more close friends, it is an important indicator of their social adjustment.
Youth who are consistently engaged in extracurricular activities (school-based or community-based) are more likely to enroll in college, to volunteer, and to vote when eligible (Zaff, Moore, Papillo, & Williams, 2001). In addition, youth who engage in volunteer activities have higher levels of knowledge of civics, leadership skills, and tolerance towards others (U.S. Department of Education, 1999). Youth need the opportunity to belong and to build skills for adulthood, both in school and in their communities, and this can be measured both by their involvement in extracurricular school activities as well as in civic and religious youth group activities (National Research Council, 2002).
As youth move toward independence, the safety of their environment becomes increasingly important. A measure of whether youth feel unsafe in school or on the way to and from school can capture this aspect of their environment. Furthermore, a supportive school environment, and a classroom that fosters open discussions where students feel comfortable participating, can actually foster positive development and civic engagement independent of family background (Torney-Purta et al, 2002; National Research Council, 2002). Measures of whether school rules and treatment are seen as fair by youth can also tap into their perceptions of the school environment.
Families have social capital, or access to resources and beneficial relationships through their personal or organizational networks (Coleman, 1988; Putnam, 1995). These networks prove critical for meeting a variety of individual’s personal and social needs. Recent research examining the amount of social capital, interpersonal resources and connections present in American communities suggests that there have been significant declines over the past several decades in the degree to which Americans socialize with their neighbors and trust other people, along with a loosening of bonds within the family (Putnam, 2001).
The degree to which family members trust others in their neighborhoods, their sense of community, and their concern for their safety are important factors in community involvement. In addition, participating in formal and informal social networks in a neighborhood provide families with more social connections, which, in turn, can support good parenting (Sampson, 1992). Families can feel socially isolated in communities where such networks are nonexistent, which, in turn, can negatively affect parenting (Furstenberg et al., 1993; Pinderhughes et al., 2001).
The interpersonal networks shared by family members, and the degree to which individuals are socially connected to the community can play a role in coping with hardships and in providing opportunities to succeed. For instance, neglectful parents tend to have fewer connections to others than their non-neglecting counterparts, and as such, fewer potential sources of support (Coohey, 1996). Formal social service interventions can provide parents with support they may be missing from natural social networks (DePanfilis, 1996), so ensuring access to those services is essential.
Research has found that the composition of interpersonal networks is related to family well-being. A network comprised of friends rather than family members has been found more likely to be associated with a parent’s perceptions of support from the network. Furthermore, the composition of the network proved more important than the size of the network (Tracy, 1990). This finding suggests that kin-dominated networks tend to be more obligatory than voluntary when contrasted with friend-dominated networks. However, cross-cultural research suggests that the presence of kin living nearby can help share some of the childcare responsibilities, for example, that parents might otherwise bear by themselves (Chen et al, 2000). Individuals who have networks in which a large proportion of the members are critical of them report less social support, while reciprocal helping relationships are positively related to perceptions of support. Single parents seem to perceive less support and generally have more conflicted networks (Tracy, 1990). Having a diverse social network has even been found to be related to higher resistance to upper respiratory infections such as the common cold (Cohen et al., 1997).
As social attachment to others affects individual well-being, so does physical access to community resources. Research suggests that, for urban residents, access to public transportation is a significant factor in determining participation in the labor market (Sanchez, 1999). Technological and transportation advances in society have served to expand the scope of individuals' social networks beyond the neighborhood, as people's workplaces, houses of worship, and other social groupings take place in contexts that are more spatially dispersed (Rankin & Quane, 2000). Therefore, for those without their own transportation, ready access to public transit from home to work is a critical factor in their employment options, as well as in their access to social networks beyond their neighborhood. Also, the presence of community centers and safe recreational areas in a neighborhood can support families in positive ways (Pinderhughes et al., 2001). In addition, anecdotal reports indicate that internet connections such as email and instant messaging can be important to disabled adolescents who are home-bound.
Often compounding low-income families access to networks is the finding that residents of poor neighborhoods tend to have fewer friends who are stably employed or college-educated, and more who are on public assistance (Rankin & Quane, 2000). There are thus less resources for parents to draw upon, fewer role models for children, and even negative neighborhood effects on parental warmth have been found, after controlling for family socioeconomic status (Pinderhughes et al., 2001). A related phenomenon involves the disruption of social organization in communities deeply afflicted by poverty. Many high-poverty neighborhoods have experienced the flight of community institutions, such as businesses, churches, social clubs, and community associations. These institutional resources can have substantial benefits for families, particularly those that have few resources of their own (Wilson, 1996).
In sum, indicators of the social context of families have a wealth of theory and research upon which to draw within each domain of family interaction. An indicator chartbook based upon this research for each of these domains follows as a starting point for consideration. All of the indicators presented have a source of data from which indicators could be developed. However, this project has also focused on the development of indicators for which there are no current measures or data sources. Working papers have been written to explore important gaps in measurement and data availability that limit our ability to portray a complete picture of the social context of families. They are:
Chart A:
Social Ecological Model of Development
Source: Coatsworth, J.D. (2002)
| Prenatal (Family Formation) |
Pre-School (Child 0-5) |
Elementary (Child 6-11) |
Secondary School (Child 12-17) |
Young Adults (18-24) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Contextual Domains | |||||
| Family Structure | |||||
| Family Functioning | |||||
| Family, Work, and Childcare | |||||
| School Involvement and Civic Engagement | |||||
| Religiosity | |||||
| Youth Development | |||||
| Social Connections |
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Amato, P. (2000). The consequences of divorce for adults and children. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, (4), 1269-88.
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Bianchi, S., Subaiya, L., & Kahn, J. (1999). The gender gap in the economic well-being of nonresident fathers and custodial mothers. Demography, 36, 195-204.
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