Measures Of Family Structure Research Articles

Family Structure, Family Processes, and Adolescent Smoking and Drinking.

This study examined whether family structure was associated with adolescent risk behaviors, including smoking and drinking. Family living arrangements have become increasingly diverse, yet research on adolescent risk behaviors has typically relied on measures of family structure that do not adequately capture this diversity. Data from the 1994-95 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health were used to conduct logistic regression analyses that revealed adolescents in two biological married parent families were least likely to smoke or drink, whereas adolescents in cohabiting stepfamilies were most likely. Those in single-mother families and married stepfamilies were in between. Maternal socialization was related to reduced odds of smoking and drinking. Maternal modeling was positively associated with smoking and drinking. Family structure is indicative of distinct family processes that are linked to risky behaviors among adolescents.

ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN FAMILY STRUCTURE AND ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR: PARENTAL COHABITATION AND BLENDED HOUSEHOLDS*

In the last several decades, the American family has undergone considerable change, with less than half of all adolescents residing with two married biological parents. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we construct an elaborate measure of family structure and find considerable heterogeneity in the risk of antisocial and delinquent behavior among groups of youth who reside in what are traditionally dichotomized as intact and nonintact families. In particular, we find that youth in “intact” families differ in important ways depending on whether the two biological parents are married or cohabiting and on whether they have children from a previous relationship. In addition, we find that youth who reside with a single biological parent who cohabits with a nonbiological partner exhibit an unusually high rate of antisocial behavior, especially if the custodial parent is the biological father.

Variation in Family Structure Among Urban Adolescents and Its Effects on Drug Use

Family structure is one factor that can help explain drug use among adolescents. In 2005 a study was conducted with 255 ninth-grade students from an urban, predominantly Latino Los Angeles area high school. Students were 83% Latino, 58% female, and from mostly low SES households. Half of all students reported having ever used alcohol, 30% had ever smoked a cigarette, and 18% had ever used marijuana. Family structure was measured using a single open-ended question and logistic regression was employed to determine the effects of various family structures on the use of alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana. The presence of older siblings in the home was associated with alcohol and marijuana use, and living with a cousin was associated with marijuana use. Results suggest that influential others, including siblings and cousins, should be included in measures of family structure. Study limitations are noted.

What More than Parental Income? An Exploration of What Swedish Siblings Get from Their Parents

Sibling correlations are used as overall measures of the impact of family background and community influences on individual outcomes. While most correlation studies show that siblings are quite similar in terms of future achievement, we lack specific knowledge of what it is about family background that really matters. Studies on intergenerational income mobility show that parental income matters to some extent, but they also show that more than half of the family background and community influences that siblings share are not even correlated with parental income. In this paper, we employ a data set that contains rich information about families in order to explore what factors in addition to parental income can explain why siblings tend to have such similar outcomes. Our results show that measures of family structure and social problems account for very little of sibling similarities in adult income above and beyond that already accounted for by parental income. However, when we add a set of indicators for parental involvement and attitudes, the explanatory power of all our variables increased from about a third (using only traditional indicators of socio-economic status) to just over half. Interestingly, indicators of parents' patience, i.e., propensity to plan ahead and willingness to postpone benefits to the future, are particularly important.

Child well being in rich countries – Canada's ranking

To the Editor; The United Nations has published a report card for the top 21 countries in the ‘industrialized world’. This is the seventh report in a series from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Innocenti Research Centre . Canadian paediatricians and family physicians have a lot to consider after reading this report. First, some satisfaction will be found knowing that, overall, Canada ranks in the middle third with a numeric score of 11.8. This is considerably better than the scores for the United States and the United Kingdom, which have two of the worst scores; however, Canada’s score is still far lower than the top scoring countries – the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Spain and Switzerland. However, the aggregate scoring is not the most useful reflection of Canada’s performance. There are six dimensions recorded; on “Material Well Being”, Canada ranked six of 21 and on “Educational Well Being”, Canada ranked two of 21. A total of 40 measures made up the aggregate scores. However, “Family and Peer Relationships” ranked Canada at 18 of 21 nations. This dimension covers several measures that try to impact on the ‘quality of children’s relationships’. It uses measures of family structure (percentage of children from single parent families and percentage of children from step-families), family relationship (percentage of children who report eating a main meal with parents more than once a week and percentage of children who report that parents spend time ‘just talking to them’) and peer relationship (percentage of 11-, 13- and 15-year-old children who report finding their peers ‘kind and helpful’). These measures are assessed by questionnaires. Less than 50% of Canadian children (children older than 15 years of age), according to this report, have parents who spend time ‘just talking to them’ several times a week. Only 63% of young people, younger than 15 years of age, find their peers ‘kind and helpful’. For “Behaviours & Risk Taking”, Canada was ranked 17 of 21. On behaviours, such as smoking, being drunk more than twice, using cannabis by 15 years of age and having unprotected sex by 15 years of age, Canada performs poorly. Combined with these scores is the “Converse Health Behaviours” – such as the percentage of children who eat breakfast, fruit and are physically active – in which Canada is only ranked at 12 of 21. Four of seven days, Canadian children report physical activity for 1 h or more a week. Of the 13- and 15-year-old age group, 19% reported overweight violence; Canada reported 36% of 11-, 13- and 15-year-old children involved in bullying over the previous 12 months. Finally, in the dimension of “Subjective Well Being”, five measures place Canada at 16 of 21 countries. The percentage of young people rating their health as ‘fair or poor’ was 14%. Only 21% of children in Canada (11, 13 and 15 years of age) rated themselves as ‘liking school a lot’. However, it is true that Canadian children rated themselves above the ‘middle of the life’ satisfaction scale. The notions of preventive health in Canada must be re-examined for children in the light of this report. Complacency from overall material well-being (ignoring large worrying gaps) obscures some cold facts.

Effects of Diverse Forms of Family Structure on Female and Male Homicide

Utilizing 2000 data on 1,618 counties and seemingly unrelated regression, I assess whether family structure effects on homicide vary across family structure measures and gender. There is evidence of robust, multidimensional family structure effects across constructs reflecting the presence of two‐parent families: mother/father absence, shortages of employed men, and nonmarital/teen childbearing. Findings indicate mainly gender similarity in family structural sources of homicide, but subtle gender differences include stronger effects on male homicide patterns and female‐specific mediating effects of the care burden on homicide. Further exploration of diverse family constructs is warranted, but, methodologically, father absence is adequate as a control for family structure. Public policies and social programs aimed at strengthening families could lessen violence among both women and men.

An Evaluation of the Childhood Family Structure Measures from the Sixth Wave of the British Household Panel Survey

SummaryThe paper performs an evaluation of the data that were collected in the sixth wave of the British Household Panel Survey (BHPS) on childhood family structure. After comparing such data with a large number of studies by using external sources, we find that the BHPS data overestimate the proportion of people who report an experience of life in a non-intact family during childhood by about 10%. Although an explanation based on recall error that deteriorates with the age of the BHPS respondents is possible, the overestimation is likely to be accounted for by non-ignorable attrition that may affect most of the comparison studies based on longitudinal data. Conversely, comparisons with other independent measurements from the BHPS itself reveal that the wave 6 data underestimate the proportion of young people who have lived at least part of their childhood in a non-intact family by about 8%. The probability of disagreement between these two sets of measures is strongly associated with poor interview characteristics, which may affect the comparison measure more than the wave 6 measure. Despite such differences, there is therefore a substantial degree of similarity between the family structure information that was collected in the sixth wave of the BHPS and the host of highly diverse records against which it has been compared.

The moderating effects of peer substance use on the family structure–adolescent substance use association: Quantity versus quality of parenting

This study examines the association between family structure and adolescent substance use, specifically focusing on the potential conditioning effects of the level of exposure to substance-using peers. Using data from a statewide study of Florida students, tobacco, alcohol, marijuana, and other illicit drug use was regressed on measures of family structure, exposure to deviant peers, family process variables (including supervision, attachment, and discipline), and an array of salient predictors of adolescent substance use. Logistic regression analyses revealed that the level of exposure to substance-using peers moderates the relationship between family structure and substance use for three of the four dependent variables. The core finding is that living with two natural parents serves as a protective factor against using tobacco, alcohol, or other illicit drugs, but only under conditions when exposure to deviant peers is lowest. Under conditions when exposure to deviant peers is highest, teens residing in a traditional two-parent family are most likely to report substance use. However, some evidence suggests that this latter finding may be due to differences in the duration of exposure to deviant peers. These findings reinforce the need to continue to explore how the quantity of parenting may provide additional protection against adolescent substance use beyond quality of parenting factors.

Urban Disadvantage and Types of Race-Specific Homicide: Assessing the Diversity in Family Structures in the Urban Context

The family is a mechanism of social control and is essential for reducing crime in urban areas. Recent urban disadvantage and violence research has shifted attention to family disruption as a predictor of crime. Unexplored by this literature is the impact of diversity in family structures on violence. Because the family has taken on multiple forms in urban areas, the authors incorporate this literature into the study of types of race-specific homicide. They estimate constructs of family structure, separate from family disruption, on race-specific family-, acquaintance-, and stranger-related homicide rates. The results indicate that measures of family structure differ both theoretically and empirically from constructs of family disruption. Moreover, when controlling for urban disadvantage, family types do not contribute to homicide in the same manner as family disruption, with differences emerging along racial lines. The authors call for a more inclusive look at the family in the study of urban violence.

The Complexity and Endogeneity of Family Structure in Explaining Children's Misbehavior

This study examines the effects of family structure on child misbehavior, paying close attention to the complexity and endogeneity of family structure. We use longitudinal measures of childhood family structure to capture its complexity and fixed-effects models to control for the unobserved, time-invariant family and child characteristics, which contribute to the endogeneity of family structure. Our results suggest that, other things being equal, stability of intact, step-, and single-mother families is beneficial in lowering the risk of misbehavior, with a weaker effect for single-mother families. This finding challenges the consensus about a detrimental effect of alternative family structures and the incomplete institution thesis regarding step-families. Our analysis also provides two methodological findings: (1) duration of different types of current family structure is superior to other longitudinal measures, which, in turn, are superior to snapshot measures of family structure, and (2) conventional OLS models tend to produce downward bias for the effects of family structure on child misbehavior.

Race Differences in Family Experience and Early Sexual Initiation: Dynamic Models of Family Structure and Family Change

We examine the effects of family structure on age at first sexual intercourse before marriage for a recent cohort of women. Previous research on the linkage between family structure and sexual initiation has employed relatively crude measures of family structure—typically a snapshot of the respondent's family structure at age 14. We use retrospective parent histories from the 1979–1987 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to construct dynamic measures of family structure, using information on the number and types of parents in the respondent's household between birth and age 18. We use these measures in proportional hazard models to test the effects of prolonged exposure to a single‐mother family, prolonged absence of a biological father, parental presence during adolescence, and family turbulence. For White women, age‐specific rates of first sexual intercourse are significantly and positively associated with the number of family transitions; for Black women, age‐specific rates are significantly and positively associated with having resided in a mother‐only or father‐only family during adolescence. Net of other effects of family structure, we find no significant effects for White or Black women of being born out of wedlock, prolonged exposure to a single‐mother family, or prolonged absence of a biological father. Our results for White women are consistent with a turbulence hypothesis, whereas for Black women our results suggest the importance of family structure during adolescence. For neither White nor Black women are our results consistent with hypotheses positing earlier initiation of sexual activity for women with prolonged exposure to a single‐mother or father‐absent family.

Triangulation and adolescent development in the U.S. and Japan.

Using an indirect measure of family structure, relationships between parents and adolescents were studied in 99 U. S. and 60 Japanese families. As two-person relationships tend toward instability under stress, a third person may be drawn in to stabilize the system. Parents, for example, may avoid the tension in the marital relationship by focusing together on an adolescent's problem, or pull the adolescent into a coalition with one parent. Either way the parents are said to have "triangled" the adolescent. In this study, a relationship is found between parents avoiding tension in their own relationship and their tendency to triangle an adolescent. Triangled daughters, in both cultures, had lower scores on ego development, supporting the hypothesis that such patterns can be detrimental to the adolescent's personal development. The discussion includes comments on cross-cultural research.

Physical Aggression and Sexual Behavior Among Siblings: A Retrospective Study

Retrospective recall of physical aggression and sexual behavior among siblings was investigated. Participants described behaviors between themselves and siblings in the family, their estimation of the appropriateness of the behavior, and their current relationship with their siblings. Additionally, participants completed measures of family structure and stress. Results indicated that rates of physical aggression among siblings was high, with varying severity. Rates of sexual behavior were lower. For both physical and sexual behaviors, participants were more likely to believe that the behaviors were abusive in retrospect than when they actually occurred. No differences were found in family structure among abusive and nonabusive siblings, but siblings who reported physical or sexual behaviors also reported higher levels of intrafamilial stress. Certain types of stressors may predict particular sibling relationships.

Family Structure versus Family Relationships for Predicting to Substance Use/Abuse and Illegal Behavior

ABSTRACT This is a report on a court-adjudicated, inner-city, low SES, sample of African-American adolescent males (N = 326), to determine the degree to which their family structure (e.g., single parent vs. two-parent families) vs. the nature of the family relationships, predict to the sons' involvement in substance use/abuse and in illegal behavior. Some of the family relationship measures, but none of the family structure measures, were found to predict to substance use/abuse, illegal behavior and drug trafficking. Of 33 family relationships measures analyzed, three predicted at the .01 level of significance, to the degree of recent substance use/abuse, and two predicted to the recent frequency of drug trafficking. If the subject considered his mother to have an alcohol problem, this was found to be the strongest single predictor to the degree of the son's substance use/abuse, for this sample.

Family structure and race in a sample of criminal offenders

Seen through social control and social learning perspectives, family structure is assumed to have little effect on criminal behavior, while family functioning factors have comparatively strong effects. This investigation posited that family structure, when measured dichotomously (“intact” versus “broken” homes), misrepresents contemporary family arrangements, especially with regard to racial and cultural differences. The study utilized a multidimensional measurement of family structure and relates it to several categories of criminal behavior. Research findings suggested that traditional measures of family structure relate more to the criminal patterns of Caucasians than to those of African Americans or Hispanics.

The Relationship of Family Bonds to Family Structure and Function Across Cultures

This study, using a contextual approach, explores the relationship of family bonds to family structure and function across five cultures: Greece, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Britain, and Germany. Its long-term goal is the construction of measures of family structure and functioning that are useful in cross-cultural research. Differences in emotional closeness, geographic proximity to relatives, and frequency of telephone contacts and meetings were not found among the five cultures with respect to members of the nuclear family. Differences between Greece and Cyprus, selected as relatively collectivist cultures, and Britain, the Netherlands, Germany, individualist cultures, on these variables were found with respect to members of the extended family. By showing a pattern of cross-cultural similarity and differences, although moderate, among extended family members, this study shows that family structure and function are context variables that can explain variability between psychological variables and thus add to the explanatory power of cross-cultural psychology.

Family structure and the risk of nursing home admission.

Given the high costs associated with institutionalization, understanding factors related to nursing home admissions is of considerable interest. The family is particularly relevant to a discussion of nursing home admission, given its critical role in providing care to older disabled persons. Using data from the New Haven EPESE, we examine the relationship between family structure and the risk of first nursing home admission. Family structure is defined more broadly than in most previous studies and includes not only the spouse, but also sons, daughters, and siblings. Because of the relatively lengthy follow-up period of the EPESE, we are able to depart from previous methodological conventions, adopting a continuous time survival model with age at admission as the outcome and time-varying measures of family structure and health. Results show that married older persons have about half the risk of nursing home admission of unmarried persons, and that having at least one daughter or sibling reduces an older person's chance of admission by about one-fourth.

Assessing the Importance of Family Structure in Understanding Birth Outcomes

In this study, we address the effect of family structure on adequacy of prenatal care and resultant birth outcomes by examining data for 18,594 women who experienced either a live birth, fetal death, or infant death in 1988. Using Kotelchuck's adequacy of care index, we find major differences in the effect offamily structure across racial/ethnic groups. For Hispanics, women living with the father of the expected child, as opposed to living alone or in an extended family, have substantially higher probabilities of receiving adequate prenatal care. The effect of family structure is less important for black or white women and its effect on infant birth weight and mortality for all women is modest. We argue for richer measures of family structure than are often available in large secondary data sets.

Childhood Family Structure and Entry into First Marriage

The present study uses data from the National Survey of Families and Households to examine socialization and stress hypotheses which link family structure during childhood with entry into first marriage. Results from logistic regressions show evidence for both hypotheses. The findings show that years lived with mother only during early childhood and change from both biological parents to mother-only families significantly increase chances for delayed marriage for whites. One other factor, being born into a mother-only family, increased chances for early marriage. Thus, for whites, we found counteracting influences of family structure during childhood on marriage. For blacks, the family structure measures, overall, show little effect on entry into marriage. Finally, we found that family structure had a stronger impact for those born in the 1940s than for those born later.

Investigating the age effects of family structure on adolescent Marijuana use

This study examines differences among older and younger adolescents in the influence of family structure, family relations, and peer relations on marijuana use. Data from a longitudinal sample of adolescents from the United States were stratified by age and used to assess these potential differences. Precise measures of family structure were constructed to account for the various manifestations of family forms. Multivariate analyses indicate that a recent divorce attenuates attachment among younger adolescents and leads to less family involvement among older adolescents. Moreover, older adolescents from stepparent families are less attached to their families. Changes in these family relationship variables influence associations with drug using peers, but these processes differ for the two age groups. Finally, less family involvement and greater drug using peer associations lead to greater marijuana use among younger adolescents, while only peer associations directly affect use among older adolescents.