Cohabitation, Family Transitions, and Young Children’s Cognitive Development

• In Event: 026 - Regular Session. Family and Kinship

Abstract

Previous research on cohabitation and child well-being has typically focused on the deficits children in cohabiting families face vis-à-vis their counterparts in married families. Yet we know little about children’s developmental growth within cohabiting families, and how their cognitive development may be intertwined with access to parental resources and family transitions to marriage or single parent households. In this paper, we use the Kindergarten Cohort of the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-K) to study children who resided in cohabiting families at kindergarten, tracing their cognitive growth between kindergarten and eighth grade using growth curve models. Initial models show no effect of time-varying indicators of family transitions among cohabiting children – there is no distinction in cognitive development between children who stay in cohabiting families, whose mothers marry, whose mothers become single, or who experience multiple (2+) family transitions. However, analyses suggest that the effect of multiple transitions on cognitive development is moderated by income change. Those who experience income growth over the time period have significantly higher math and reading trajectories compared to those who experience income decline. This paper suggests that – at least for children in cohabiting families – multiple transitions may not be detrimental, and that income growth can serve as a buffer for children in the face of family instability.

Authors

• Julie E. Artis, DePaul University

• Kristen Schultz Lee, State University of New York-Buffalo