Research

Odds of instability lower when mom and dad are married

Children whose parents live together but aren't married are twice as likely to face their parents' break-up as children born to married couples, a new study finds.

The study, based on a national sample of more than 6,000 children, appears in the current issue of Population Research Policy and Review.

By age 1, 15 percent of children born to cohabiting parents saw their parents part company, and by age 5, half their parents had separated. Children born to married parents experienced a much greater level of domestic stability; by age 1, only 4 percent saw their parents break up, and by age 5, about 15 percent had parents who had separated.

"Our findings appear to strengthen the case for marriage," says sociologist Pamela Smock, co-author of the article and associate director of the Institute for Social Research (ISR). "Quite clearly, children born into first marriages, rather than to cohabiting parents, enjoy much higher chances of growing up in two-parent families."

By age 1, 15 percent of children born to cohabiting parents saw their parents part company.

But the findings also challenge the case for marriage, at least for children of color, Smock says. "For never-married cohabiting Hispanic and Black mothers, marriage after the birth of a child does not provide an advantage in terms of stability," she says. "Black and Hispanic children born to cohabiting parents who later marry face statistically similar odds of instability as children born to parents who continue to cohabit but don't marry."

In general, children born to cohabiting parents had 148 percent higher odds of experiencing parental separation than children born to married parents, says the article's lead author, Bowling Green University sociologist Wendy Manning. Slightly less than13 percent of the children were born to unmarried parents who lived together, while about 87 percent were born to married couples.

In light of recent policy discussions about welfare, the findings suggest that efforts to encourage marriage among low-income parents, many of whom already are living together, may not be an effective strategy for assuring child well-being, the researchers concluded.

In addition to Manning and Smock, the article was co-authored by Southwest Texas State University sociologist Debarun Majumdar.

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