Endnotes of Amato article
1. For examples, see Sheldon Glueck and Eleanor Glueck, Family
Environment and Delinquency (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962); J.
F. McDermott, "Divorce and Its Psychiatric Sequelae in Children,"
Archives of General Psychiatry 23 (1970): 421–27.
2. Judith S. Wallerstein and Joan B. Kelly, Surviving the Breakup:
How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce (New York: Basic
Books, 1980).
3. E. Mavis Hetherington, "Divorce: A Child's Perspective,"
American Psychologist 34 (1979): 851–58; E. Mavis Hetherington,
Martha Cox, and R. Cox, "Effects of Divorce on Parents and
Children," in Nontraditional Families, edited by Michael Lamb
(Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1982), pp. 233–88.
4. The effect size for a study is defined as the standardized mean
difference on some outcome between two groups of interest, that is,
(–x1––x2)/Spooled. For information on meta-analysis, see Harris M.
Cooper and Larry V. Hedges, eds., The Handbook of Research
Synthesis (New York: Russell Sage, 1994).
5. Paul R. Amato and Bruce Keith, "Consequences of Parental Divorce
for Children's Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis," Psychological
Bulletin 10 (1991): 26–46.
6. Paul R. Amato, "Children of Divorce in the 1990s: An Update of
the Amato and Keith (1991) Meta-Analysis," Journal of Family
Psychology 15 (2001): 355–70.
7. Paul R. Amato and Alan Booth, A Generation at Risk: Growing Up
in an Era of Family Upheaval (Harvard University Press, 1997);
Paul R. Amato and Juliana M. Sobolewski, "The Effects of Divorce and
Marital Discord on Adult Children's Psychological Well-Being,"
American Sociological Review 66 (2001): 900–21; William S.
Aquilino, "Impact of Childhood Family Disruption on Young Adults'
Relationships with Parents," Journal of Marriage and the Family
56 (1994): 295–313; Alan Booth and Paul R. Amato, "Parental
Predivorce Relations and Offspring Postdivorce Well-Being,"
Journal of Marriage and the Family 63 (2001): 197–212; Larry L.
Bumpass, Theresa C. Martin, and James A. Sweet, "The Impact of
Family Background and Early Marital Factors on Marital Disruption,"
Journal of Family Issues 12 (1991): 22–42; Andrew J. Cherlin,
P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, and Christine McRae, "Effects of Divorce
on Mental Health throughout the Life Course," American
Sociological Review 63 (1998): 239–49; Sara McLanahan and Gary
Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps
(Harvard University Press, 1994); Lawrence L. Wu and B. C.
Martinson, "Family Structure and the Risk of a Premarital Birth,"
American Sociological Review 58 (1993): 210–32.
8. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent
(see note 7); Paul R. Amato, "Parental Absence during Childhood and
Adult Depression," Sociological Quarterly 32 (1991): 543–56;
Paul R. Amato and Bruce Keith, "Separation from a Parent during
Childhood and Adult Socioeconomic Attainment," Social Forces
70 (1991): 187–206; William Aquilino, "The Life Course of Children
Born to Unmarried Mothers: Childhood Living Arrangements and Young
Adult Outcomes," Journal of Marriage and the Family 58
(1996): 293–310; Robert Haveman, Barbara Wolf, and Karen Pence,
"Intergenerational Effects of Nonmarital and Early Childbearing," in
Out of Wedlock: Causes and Consequences of Nonmarital Fertility,
edited by Lawrence L. Wu and Barbara Wolfe (New York: Russell Sage
Foundation, 2001), pp. 287–316; Jay D. Teachman, "Childhood Living
Arrangements and the Intergenerational Transmission of Divorce,"
Journal of Marriage and Family 64 (2002): 717–29; Jay D.
Teachman, "The Childhood Living Arrangements of Children and the
Characteristics of Their Marriages," Journal of Family Issues
25 (2004): 86–96.
9. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent
(see note 7).
10. Amato, "Parental Absence during Childhood and Adult Depression"
(see note 8); Amato and Keith "Separation from a Parent" (see note
8); Teachman, "Childhood Living Arrangements" (see note 8).
11. Larry L. Bumpass and Hsien-Hen Lu, "Trends in Cohabitation and
Implications for Children's Family Contexts in the United States,"
Population Studies 54 (2000): 29–41; Sara McLanahan and
others, "Unwed Parents or Fragile Families? Implications for Welfare
and Child Support Policy," in Out of Wedlock: Causes and
Consequences of Nonmarital Fertility, edited by Lawrence L. Wu
and Barbara Wolfe (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001), pp.
202–28.
12. Susan Brown, "The Effect of Union Type on Psychological
Well-Being: Depression among Cohabitors versus Marrieds," Journal
of Health and Social Behavior 41 (2000): 241–55; Susan Brown and
Alan Booth, "Cohabitation versus Marriage: A Comparison of
Relationship Quality," Journal of Marriage and the Family 58
(1996): 668–78; Judith Seltzer, "Families Formed outside of
Marriage," Journal of Marriage and the Family 62 (2000):
1247–68.
13. Susan Brown, "Family Structure and Child Well-Being: The
Significance of Parental Cohabitation," Journal of Marriage and
the Family 66 (2004): 351–67. For a general review of this
literature, see Wendy Manning, "The Implications of Cohabitation for
Children's Well-Being," in Just Living Together: Implications of
Cohabitation for Families, Children, and Social Policy, edited
by Alan Booth and Ann Crouter (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum
Associates, 2002), pp. 21–152.
14. Nancy S. Landale and Susan M. Hauan, "The Family Life Course of
Puerto Rican Children," Journal of Marriage and the Family 54
(1992): 912–24; Wendy Manning, Pamela Smock, and Debarun Majumdar,
"The Relative Stability of Marital and Cohabiting Unions for
Children," Population Research and Policy Review 23 (2004):
135–59.
15. M. Carlson, Sara McLanahan, and Paula England, "Union Formation
and Dissolution in Fragile Families," Fragile Families Research
Brief, no. 4 (Bendheim-Thoman Center for Research on Child
Wellbeing, Princeton University, January 2003); see also Sara
McLanahan, "Diverging Destinies: How Children Are Faring under the
Second Demographic Transition," Demography 41 (2004): 606–27.
16. Lawrence L. Wu, Larry L. Bumpass, and Kelly Musick, "Historical
and Life Course Trajectories of Nonmarital Childbearing," in Out
of Wedlock: Causes and Consequences of Nonmarital Fertility,
edited by Lawrence L. Wu and Barbara Wolfe (New York: Russell Sage
Foundation, 2001), pp. 3–48.
17. Brown, "Family Structure and Child Well-Being" (see note 13).
18. The Add Health study was designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S.
Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris and funded by grant R01-HD31921
from the NICHD, with cooperative funding from seventeen other
agencies. Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle provided
assistance in the original study design. The analysis was conducted
for this paper.
19. Amato and Keith, "Consequences of Parental Divorce" (see note
5).
20. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see
note 7).
21. Amato and Keith, "Separation from a Parent" (see note 8).
22. Amato, "Parental Absence" (see note 8).
23. David Mechanic and Stephen Hansell, "Divorce, Family Conflict,
and Adolescents' Well-Being," Journal of Health and Social
Behavior 30 (1989): 105–16; James L. Peterson and Nichola Zill,
"Marital Disruption, Parent-Child Relationships, and Behavior
Problems in Children," Journal of Marriage and the Family 49
(1986): 295–307.
24. Amato and Booth, A Generation at Risk (see note 7); Booth
and Amato, "Parental Predivorce Relations" (see note 7); Susan M.
Jekielek, "Parental Conflict, Marital Disruption and Children's
Emotional Well-Being," Social Forces 76 (1998): 905–35;
Thomas L. Hanson, "Does Parental Conflict Explain Why Divorce Is
Negatively Associated with Child Welfare?" Social Forces 77
(1999):1283–316.
25. Amato and Booth, A Generation at Risk (see note 7); Booth
and Amato, "Parental Predivorce Relations" (see note 7); Paul R.
Amato, "Good Enough Marriages: Parental Discord, Divorce, and
Children's Well-Being," Virginia Journal of Social Policy and the
Law 9 (2002): 71–94.
26. Paul R. Amato, "The Implications of Research on Children in
Stepfamilies," in Stepfamilies: Who Benefits? Who Does Not?
edited by Alan Booth and Judy Dunn (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence
Erlbaum, 1994); E. Mavis Hetherington and W. Glenn Clingempeel,
"Coping with Marital Transitions," Monographs of the Society for
Research in Child Development, vol. 57, nos. 2–3 (University of
Chicago Press, 1992); E. Mavis Hetherington and K. M. Jodl,
"Stepfamilies as Settings for Child Development," in
Stepfamilies: Who Benefits? Who Does Not? edited by Alan Booth
and Judy Dunn (Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 1994), pp. 55–79.
27. For a discussion of how stepchildren view stepparents, see E.
Mavis Hetherington and John Kelly, For Better or for Worse: Divorce
Reconsidered (New York: Norton, 2002).
28. Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, "Child Abuse and Other Risks of
Not Living with Both Biological Parents," Ethology and
Sociobiology 6 (1985): 197–220; Leslie Margolin and John L.
Craft, "Child Sexual Abuse by Caretakers," 38 (1989): 450–55.
29. Richard Gelles and John W. Harrop, "The Risk of Abusive Violence
among Children with Nongenetic Caretakers," Family Relations
40 (1991): 78–83.
30. Phyllis Bronstein and others, "Fathering after Separation or
Divorce: Factors Predicting Children's Adjustment," Family
Relations 43 (1994): 469–79; Margaret Crosbie-Burnett and Jean
Giles-Sims, "Adolescent Adjustment and Stepparenting Styles,"
Family Relations 43 (1994): 394–99; Lynn White and Joan G.
Gilbreth, "When Children Have Two Fathers: Effects of Relationships
with Stepfathers and Noncustodial Fathers on Adolescent Outcomes,"
Journal of Marriage and Family 63 (2001): 155–67.
31. Christine M. Buchanan, Eleanor E. Maccoby, and Sanford M.
Dornbusch, Adolescents after Divorce (Harvard University
Press, 1996).
32. Mignon R. Moore and P. L. Chase-Lansdale, "Sexual Intercourse
and Pregnancy among African-American Girls in High-Poverty
Neighborhoods: The Role of Family and Perceived Community
Environment," Journal of Marriage and the Family 63 (2001):
1146–57; Sandi Nelson, Rebecca L. Clark, and Gregory Acs, Beyond the
Two-Parent Family: How Teenagers Fare in Cohabiting Couple and
Blended Families, series B, no. B-31 (Washington: Urban Institute,
2001).
33. Brown, "The Effect of Union Type" (see note 12).
34. Hetherington, Cox, and Cox, "Effects of Divorce" (see note 3).
35. Amato and Keith, "Consequences of Parental Divorce" (see note
5).
36. Amato, "Children of Divorce" (see note 6).
37. E. Mavis Hetherington, K. A. Camara, and David L. Featherman,
"Achievement and Intellectual Functioning of Children in One-Parent
Households," in Achievement and Achievement Motives, edited
by J. T. Spence (San Francisco: W. H. Freeman, 1983).
38. Amato and Keith, "Separation from a Parent" (see note 8).
39. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see
note 7).
40. Amato, "Parental Absence" (see note 8).
41. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent (see
note 7).
42. Moore and Chase-Lansdale, "Sexual Intercourse and Pregnancy"
(see note 32).
43. Nelson, Clark, and Acs, Beyond the Two-Parent Family (see note
32).
44. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent
(see note 7); Robert H. Aseltine, "Pathways Linking Parental Divorce
with Adolescent Depression," Journal of Health and Social
Behavior 37 (1996): 133–48; Donna R. Morrison and Andrew J.
Cherlin, "The Divorce Process and Young Children's Well-Being: A
Prospective Analysis," Journal of Marriage and the Family 57
(1995): 800–12; Ronald L. Simons and Associates, Understanding
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45. Valarie King, "Nonresident Father Involvement and Child
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15 (1994): 78–96; Sara McLanahan and others, "Child Support
Enforcement and Child Well-Being: Greater Security or Greater
Conflict?" in Child Support and Child Well-Being, edited by
Irwin Garfinkel, Sara McLanahan, and Philip K. Robins (Washington:
Urban Institute Press, 1996), pp. 239–56.
46. Hetherington and Clingempeel, "Coping with Marital Transitions"
(see note 26); Simons and Associates, Understanding Differences
(see note 44); Nan Astone and Sara S. McLanahan, "Family Structure,
Parental Practices, and High School Completion," American
Sociological Review 56 (1991): 309–20; Elizabeth Thomson and
others, "Family Structure, Gender, and Parental Socialization,"
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47. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent
(see note 7); Hetherington and Clingempeel, "Coping with Marital
Transition" (see note 26); Buchanan, Maccoby, and Dornbusch,
Adolescents after Divorce (see note 31); Simons and Associates,
Understanding Differences (see note 44).
48. Paul R. Amato and Joan Gilbreth, "Nonresident Fathers and
Children's Well-Being: A Meta-Analysis," Journal of Marriage
and the Family 61 (1999): 557–73.
49. Paul R. Amato and Juliana Sobolewski, "The Effects of Divorce on
Fathers and Children: Nonresidential Fathers and Stepfathers," in
The Role of the Father in Child Development, edited by Michael
Lamb, 4th ed. (Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 2003), pp. 341–67.
50. W. V. Fabricius, "Listening to Children of Divorce: New Findings
that Diverge from Wallerstein, Lewis, and Blakeslee," Family
Relations 52 (2003): 385–94.
51. Frank F. Furstenberg and Andrew Cherlin, Divided Families:
What Happens to Children When Parents Part (Harvard University
Press, 1991).
52. L. I. Pearlin and others, "The Stress Process," Journal of
Health and Social Behavior 22 (1981): 337–56; Peggy A. Thoits,
"Stress, Coping, and Social Support Processes: Where Are We? What
Next?" Journal of Health and Social Behavior, extra issue
(1995): 53–79.
53. Buchanan, Maccoby, and Dornbusch, Adolescents after Divorce
(see note 31); Jeanne M. Tschann and others, "Conflict, Loss, Change
and Parent-Child Relationships: Predicting Children's Adjustment
during Divorce," Journal of Divorce and Remarriage 13 (1999):
1–22; Elizabeth A. Vandewater and Jennifer E. Lansford, "Influences
of Family Structure and Parental Conflict on Children's Well-Being,"
Family Relations 47 (1998): 323–30.|
54. Buchanan, Maccoby, and Dornbusch, Adolescents after Divorce
(see note 31).
55. Patrick T. Davies and E. Mark Cummings, "Marital Conflict and
Child Adjustment: An Emotional Security Hypothesis,"
Psychological Bulletin 116 (1994): 387–411.
56. McLanahan and Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent
(see note 7); Aseltine, "Pathways" (see note 44); Simons and
Associates, Understanding Differences (see note 44);
Buchanan, Maccoby, and Dornbusch, Adolescents after Divorce
(see note 31); Michael S. Ellwood and Arnold L. Stolberg, "The
Effects of Family Composition, Family Health, Parenting Behavior and
Environmental Stress on Children's Divorce Adjustment," Journal
of Child and Family Studies 2 (1993): 23–36; Irwin Sandler and
others, "Stability and Quality of Life Events and Psychological
Symptomatology in Children of Divorce," American Journal of
Community Psychology 19 (1991): 501–20; Jay D. Teachman,
Kathleen Paasch, and Karen Carver, "Social Capital and Dropping Out
of School Early," Journal of Marriage and the Family 58
(1996): 773–83.
57. Wu and Martinson, "Family Structure" (see note 7); Paul R.
Amato, "Reconciling Divergent Perspectives: Judith Wallerstein,
Quantitative Family Research, and Children of Divorce," Family
Relations 52 (2003): 332–39; Bryan Rodgers and Jan Pryor,
Divorce and Separation: The Outcomes for Children (York,
England: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1998).
58. M. McGue and D. T. Lykken, "Genetic Influence on Risk of
Divorce," Psychological Science 3 (1992): 368–73; V. Jockin,
M. McGue, and D. T. Lykken, "Personality and Divorce: A Genetic
Analysis," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 71
(1996): 288–99. For a strong statement of this position, see Judith
Harris, The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way
They Do (New York: Touchstone, 1999).
59. Simons and Associates, Understanding Differences (see
note 44); Amato, "Reconciling Divergent Perspectives" (see note 57).
60. See note 7. Cherlin and others used a fixed-effects model, which
eliminates all unmeasured variables that do not change over time.
McLanahan and Sandefur relied on biprobit analysis, a method that
makes it possible to correlate error terms across equations, which
is equivalent to adjusting for unmeasured variables that could
affect family structure as well as children's outcomes.
61. David Brodzinsky, Jennifer C. Hitt, and Daniel Smith, "Impact of
Parental Separation and Divorce on Adopted and Nonadopted Children,"
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 63 (1993): 451–61; Thomas
G. O'Connor and others, "Are Associations between Parental Divorce
and Children's Adjustment Genetically Mediated? An Adoption Study,"
Developmental Psychology 36 (2000): 429–37.
62. K. S. Kendler and others, "Childhood Parental Loss and Adult
Psychopathology in Women," Archives of General Psychiatry 49
(1992): 109–16.
63. In this analysis, I considered adoptive parents to be the same
as biological parents. The "one parent" category includes
adolescents living with one biological parent and a stepparent (or a
cohabiting partner of the parent). This category also includes a
small percentage of children living with neither parent at the time
of the interview. I used logistic regression analysis to adjust the
percentages in table 1 for variables that could be associated with
family structure as well as child outcomes: mother's education,
father's education, child's race (white, black, Latino, or other),
child's age, child's gender, and whether the child was born in the
United States. All of the differences reported in table 1 were
statistically significant at p < .01.
64. The margin of error for these estimates, based on a 95 percent
confidence interval, is about 1 percent.
65. To estimate the percentage of adolescents between the ages of
thirteen and eighteen living with two biological parents in 1980,
1970, and 1960, I relied on retrospective data from the 1988 wave of
the National Survey of Families and Households. The resulting
figures are 64 percent, 74 percent, and 77 percent, respectively.
The margin of error for these estimates, based on a 95 percent
confidence interval, is about 2 percent. For details on the National
Survey of Families and Households, see James Sweet, Larry Bumpass,
and Vaughn Call, "The Design and Content of the National Survey of
Families and Households," NSFH Working Paper 1 (Center for
Demography and Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1988).
These estimates should not be equated with levels of program
"effectiveness," because it is naive to assume that specific,
short-term interventions could reverse family trends so strongly. It
is possible, however, that a range of interventions, combined with a
shift in the larger culture, could result in substantial changes in
family structure over a decade or longer. Moreover, the figures used
in table 1 are not completely unrealistic, because they correspond
to levels of family stability that actually existed in recent U.S.
history. Note also that these estimates are based only on changes in
family structure and assume no changes in marital quality in
two-parent families. If future policies also are capable of
improving the quality of existing marriages, then the figures in
tables 1 and 2 are underestimates of the total benefit to children.
66. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, High Blood
Cholesterol: What You Need to Know, NIH Publication 01-3290 (May
2001). See also F. B. Hu, J. E. Manson, and W. C. Willett, "Types of
Dietary Fat and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease: A Critical Review,"
Journal of the American College of Nutrition 20 (2001): 5–19;
S. Lewington and S. MacMahon, "Blood Pressure, Cholesterol, and
Common Causes of Death: A Review," American Journal of
Hypertension 12 (1999): 96S–98S.
67. The estimates for ten-year risk of a heart attack vary with age
and gender. The link between cholesterol and cardiovascular disease
is stronger for men than for women, and stronger for older
individuals than for younger individuals. The margin of error for
these estimates, based on a 95 percent confidence interval, is about
1 percent.
68. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United
States (Government Printing Office, 2003), table 11.