Assessing the New Federalism Discussion Paper No. 04-01
The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
About the Series
Assessing the New Federalism is a multiyear Urban Institute project designed to analyze the devolution of responsibility for social programs from the federal government to the states. It focuses primarily on health care, income security, employment and training programs, and social services. Researchers monitor program changes and fiscal developments. Alan Weil is the project director. In collaboration with Child Trends, the project studies changes in family well-being. The project provides timely, nonpartisan information to inform public debate and to help state and local decisionmakers carry out their new responsibilities more effectively.
Key components of the project include a household survey, studies of policies in 13 states, and a database with information on all states and the District of Columbia. Publications and database are available free of charge on the Urban Institute's web site: http://www.urban.org. This paper is one in a series of discussion papers analyzing information from these and other sources.
This project was funded in part by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families under grant 90PA0002/01 and in part by the Assessing the New Federalism project. The Assessing the New Federalism project is currently supported by The Annie E. Casey Foundation, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and The Ford Foundation.
Introduction
During the 1990s, the number of cohabiting households increased by over 70 percent (Simmons and O'Neill 2001). Further, the share of children living in cohabiting families grew from 4.6 to 5.9 percent between 1997 and 2002 (Acs and Nelson 2003), and by some estimates, four out of every 10 children will spend some time in a cohabiting family before they reach their 16th birthdays (Bumpass and Lu 2000). This rise in the share of children living with cohabitors is a source of concern for policymakers and analysts because previous research demonstrates that living with cohabitors is not as beneficial to children as living with married parents.1
The advantages married couples and their children have over those in other living arrangements have led policymakers to propose several significant initiatives to promote "healthy marriages." For example, the G.W. Bush administration is contemplating spending $1.5 billion dollars over the coming years on marriage promotion (New York Times, 1/14/04, page A1). Clearly, cohabiting couples are logical targets for these marriage promotion initiatives.2 Before evaluating the benefits of marriage promotion programs, it is important to begin with a realistic assessment of just what increasing marriage rates could accomplish. Indeed, research shows that cohabitors and married couples have very different characteristics.
This paper uses data from the 2002 round of the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) to compare the characteristics of cohabiting families with children to those of married couples with children. It then uses regression-based simulations to assess the extent to which the well-being of children in cohabiting families would improve if the cohabiting adults were to marry. We find that about two-thirds of the gap in poverty, low-income status, and food insecurity between cohabiting and married couple families can be accounted for solely by differences in the measured characteristics of these families. These characteristics include such factors as parental education, age, and work effort. Measured characteristics account for less than one-half of the difference in parental aggravation and poor mental health between married-parent and cohabiting families. Unmeasured and unmeasurable characteristics as well as the intrinsic benefits of marriage are responsible for the rest of the difference.
Even highly successful marriage promotion programs cannot change the measurable characteristics of cohabiting couples, at least in the short run. At best, they can confer the intrinsic benefits of marriage to these couples. Our findings suggest that successful marriage promotion efforts aimed at cohabiting parents could improve the outcomes for children, but only to a limited extent.
Background
Beginning with 1996's federal welfare reform, which included promoting marriage as an explicit goal, and continuing with President G.W. Bush's declaration that, "my administration will give unprecedented support to strengthening marriages," the idea of using government policies to actively promote marriage as a means of reducing poverty and improving the well-being of children and families has gained currency (Ooms 2002). For example, under its Strengthening Families agenda, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is funding the development and evaluation of multiple marriage promotion programs (http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/opre/rd&e.htm).
Among the most logical candidates for marriage promotion activities are cohabiting couples, especially those with children. Unlike unattached single parents, cohabitors already demonstrate a certain level of commitment to one another, and they and their children may well benefit from the material and psychosocial advantages that accrue to married-parent families.
Previous research demonstrates that children living with cohabitors fare worse than children living with married parents, and in some cases no better than children living with single parents, on a host of outcome measures (Acs and Nelson 2002, 2003; Nelson, Clark, and Acs 2001; Manning and Brown 2003; Manning and Lichter 1996). Specifically, when compared with children living with their married biological or adoptive parents, children living with cohabitors are more likely to experience material hardships such as poverty, food insecurity, and housing insecurity, more likely to exhibit behavioral problems or problems in school, and less likely to have positive interactions with their parents (such as being read to frequently).
There are several potential explanations for why children living with cohabitors do not fare as well as children living with married parents. For example, cohabiting couples may devote fewer resources to the their children than married couples because cohabiting relationships are less committed and do not last as long as marriages (Brines and Joyner 1999). Winkler (1997) shows that married couples are more likely to pool their income than cohabitors. In addition, only about half of children in cohabiting families live with both their biological or adoptive parents; the other half live with one parent and that parent's current partner who is unrelated to the child. In contrast, about eight out of nine children in married families lives with their two parents and only one of nine live in stepparent families. Research shows that even in married families, children fare worse in stepparent families (McLanahan and Sandefur 1994). The disproportionate share of children in cohabiting families living with one adult who is not a biological parent compared with children in married families likely lowers their average outcomes. It also points out the importance of distinguishing between children living with their two biological/adoptive parents and children living with one parent and one stepparent.
Another potential explanation for the differences between cohabiting and married families is that the characteristics of cohabiting and married couples differ substantially. Fields and Casper (2001) find that couples in which women are more educated and earn appreciably more than their male partners are more common among unmarried couples than married couples. Unmarried couples are also more likely interracial than their married counterparts. In addition, Manning and Brown (2003) show that compared with children in married-couple families, those living in cohabiting families are more likely to be nonwhite and have less educated parents. In fact, Manning and Brown find that the apparent advantage of marriage over cohabitation is largely accounted for by differences in race, ethnicity, education, and work effort.
Finally, well-being may be higher in married-parent families than in cohabiting families because there are intrinsic benefits to marriage. Waite and Gallagher (2000) note that married couples enjoy an advantage in emotional health over cohabiting couples. Not only may this contribute to better parent-child interactions in married-couple families, but it may allow married men and women to be more productive at work, increasing their material well-being. Lerman (2002) suggests that marriages are more stable than cohabiting unions, making it easier for married couples to make long-term investments in their skills and assets. Further, extended family networks may be more inclined to offer material and in-kind assistance to married couples than cohabitors.
Getting married will not change the characteristics of cohabiting couples, at least in the short term. However, to the extent that intrinsic benefits to marriage exist, one can expect these benefits may well accrue to cohabiting couples that do marry.
This paper compares the well-being and characteristics of cohabiting and married families and assesses the extent to which differences in well-being are explained by differences in characteristics. As such, it establishes an upper bound of sorts for the potential benefits of marriage promotion for cohabiting families.
It builds on and extends existing research in several important ways. First, it uses recent data from the 2002 round of the National Survey of America's Families. Second, it uses detailed household rosters in the NSAF to distinguish between two biological/adoptive parent families and stepparent families. Finally, the paper considers multiple measures of well-being: in addition to examining child poverty, low-income status, and food insecurity, it also considers how marriage is related to parental aggravation and mental health.
Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
1 Numerous studies demonstrate this finding, including Acs and Nelson (2002, 2003), Carlson and Danziger (1999), Manning and Brown (2003), Manning and Lichter (1996), and Nelson, Clark, and Acs (2001).
2 Parents who live apart but are romantically involved (fragile families) are also promising candidates for marriage promotion activities.
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