Skip to main content

Income, Relationship Quality, and Parenting: Associations With Child Development in Two-Parent Families

Author(s): Berger, Lawrence M.; McLanahan, Sara

Download
To refer to this page use: http://arks.princeton.edu/ark:/88435/pr16j6b
Abstract: Prior research suggests considerable heterogeneity in the advantages of living in a two-parent family. Specifically, children living with married biological parents exhibit more favorable outcomes than children living with cohabiting biological parents and with married and cohabiting stepparents. To explain these differences, researchers have focused almost exclusively on differences in the levels of factors such as income, parental relationship quality, and parenting quality across family types. In this paper, we examined whether differences in the benefits associated with these factors might also account for some of the variation in children’s cognition and social-emotional development. Focusing on children at the time they enter kindergarten, we found only weak evidence of differences in benefits across family types. Rather, we found that children living in stepfather families experienced above average levels of parental relationship quality and parenting quality which, in turn, played a protective role vis-à-vis their cognitive and social-emotional development.
Publication Date: Aug-2015
Electronic Publication Date: 7-Apr-2015
Citation: Berger, Lawrence M., McLanahan, Sara S. (2015). Income, Relationship Quality, and Parenting: Associations With Child Development in Two-Parent Families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 77 (4), 996 - 1015. doi:10.1111/jomf.12197
DOI: doi:10.1111/jomf.12197
ISSN: 0022-2445
Pages: 996 - 1015
Type of Material: Journal Article
Journal/Proceeding Title: Journal of Marriage and Family
Version: Author's manuscript



Items in OAR@Princeton are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.