National Survey Of Families And Households Research Articles

A Cohort Comparison of Midlife Marital Quality: A Quarter Century of Change.

Marital quality has been declining among recent cohorts, but whether this pattern characterizes middle-aged and older married adults is largely unknown. The doubling of the divorce rate among persons over the age of 50 years foretells poorer quality marriages for today's midlife adults than a generation ago. Combining data on married individuals aged 50-65 years from the 1987-88 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) and the 2013 Families and Relationships Study, we conduct a cohort comparison of five dimensions of midlife marital quality. Today's older adults report more marital disagreement and instability as well as less fairness and interaction with their spouses than their counterparts did a generation ago. The two cohorts report comparable levels of marital happiness. Consistent with the upward trend in divorce during the second half of life, the quality of midlife marriages appears to have declined over the past quarter century.

Time Availability: Assessing Causal Ordering in the Performance of Paid Labor and Unpaid Housework

Key to understanding gender inequality in families, the time availability hypothesis implies that one’s time in paid work negatively affects one’s time in unpaid housework. Although dozens of studies have demonstrated an association between husbands’ and wives’ time in the paid labor force and their performance of housework, most suffer from numerous limitations, especially the use of unidirectional modeling and cross-sectional data. This is problematic since these methods cannot assess causal directionality and since human capital theory suggests that housework responsibilities affect time in paid work. Using structural equation modeling and two stage least squares regression—two methods that can help parse causal ordering—and data from the 1987–88 and 1992–94 waves of the U.S. National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) this study finds no support for the time availability hypothesis regarding the association between paid work hours and unpaid housework. Consistent with human capital theory, husbands’ housework time affects their own time in paid work. No association is found among wives.

Relationships Between (Step)Parents and Adult (Step)Children: Explaining Influences on Life Satisfaction and Marital Quality

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study was to examine important influences of adult (step)children’s relationships with their biological fathers, biological mothers, and resident stepparents on their life satisfaction and marital quality and the moderating role of stepparent gender. The sample (N = 215) was from Wave 3 of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). Results illustrate that (a) biological mothers and stepparents positively influenced life satisfaction among adult (step)children regardless of stepfamily type; and (b) that the influence of parent–child relationship quality on the adult child’s marital quality did vary as a function of stepfamily type. Specifically, there was a positive link between current stepmother–child relationship quality and the focal child’s current marital quality. The opposite link was found for those reared in stepfather households.

HAPPY IN THE HOOD? THE IMPACT OF RESIDENTIAL SEGREGATION ON SELF‐REPORTED HAPPINESS

ABSTRACTPrevious research consistently finds that racially based residential segregation is associated with poor economic, health, and social outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between residential segregation and self‐reported happiness. Using panel data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), we begin by estimating ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions of happiness on a measure of MSA‐level segregation, controlling for a rich set of individual, neighborhood, regional, and state characteristics. The OLS results suggest that increased segregation is associated with a reduction in happiness among blacks. To deal more appropriately with the potential endogeneity of location choice, we extend the methodology to fully exploit the panel structure of the NSFH and incorporate individual fixed effects into the happiness equation. Contrary to the OLS results, our fixed effects estimates imply that blacks are happier in more segregated metropolitan areas. The paper discusses the implications of these results within the context of current integration policies.

The earned income tax credit, mental health, and happiness

We study the impact of the earned income tax credit (EITC) on various measures of subjective well-being (SWB) using the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to estimate intent-to-treat effects of the EITC expansion embedded in the 1990 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. We use a difference-in-differences framework that compares the pre-and post-expansion SWB-changes of women likely eligible for the EITC (low-skilled mothers of working age) to the SWB-changes of a comparison group that is likely ineligible (low-skilled, childless women of working age). Our results suggest that the EITC expansion generated sizeable SWB-improvements in the three major categories of SWB identified in the literature. The NSFH is one of few datasets containing all three major categories of SWB. Subgroup analyses by marital status suggest that improvements accrued more to married than unmarried mothers. Relative to their childless counterparts, married mothers experienced a 15.7% decrease in depression symptomatology (experiential SWB), a 4.4% increase in happiness (evaluative SWB), and a 10.1% increase in self-esteem (eudemonic SWB). We also present specification checks that increase confidence that the observed SWB-effects are explained by the OBRA90 EITC expansion. Lastly, we explore mechanisms that may explain the differential impact of the EITC expansion by marital status.

Happy in the Hood? The Impact of Residential Segregation on Self-Reported Happiness

Previous research consistently finds that racially-based residential segregation is associated with poor economic, health, and social outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between residential segregation and self-reported happiness. Using panel data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), we begin by estimating ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions of happiness on a measure of MSA-level segregation, controlling for a rich set of individual, neighborhood, and state characteristics. The OLS results suggest that increased segregation is associated with a reduction in happiness among blacks. To deal more appropriately with the potential endogeneity of location choice, we extend the methodology to fully exploit the panel structure of the NSFH and incorporate individual fixed effects into the happiness equation. Contrary to the OLS results, our fixed effects estimates imply that blacks are happier in more segregated metropolitan areas. The paper discusses the implications of these results within the context of current integration policies.

Effects of art therapy for family caregivers of cancer patients: a systematic review protocol

Effects of art therapy for family caregivers of cancer patients: a systematic review protocol

Proximity and Co-residence of Adult Children and their Parents in the United States: Descriptions and Correlates

In this paper we provide an overview of the patterns of intergenerational proximity and coresidence of adult children and their mothers in the U.S., using data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) and the U.S. Census. We highlight the importance of three specification and sample choices in the analysis.First, most previous studies consider coresidence to be the limiting case of proximity, using Tobit, ordered logit, or ordered probit specifications. We argue that proximity and coresidence are qualitatively different, and show that the multinomial logit provides a better representation of the patterns in the data. Second, we argue that substantial differences in the correlates of proximity by gender and marital status indicate the importance of modeling these categories separately. Third, the NSFH allows us to consider the proximity of couples to both his mother and her mother. This information is rarely available in survey data but is important for complete analyses.Our results show that education and age are the most robust predictors of proximity: college graduates are less likely to live near their mothers and older children live further from their mothers. Other demographic variables such as race, ethnicity and only child status also affect the probability of close proximity and coresidence. However, characteristics indicating adult children's current need for transfers (e.g. grandchildren) are not correlated with either close proximity or coresidence, while characteristics indicating mothers' current needs for transfers (e.g., disability) are correlated with coresidence but not close proximity.

Proximity and Coresidence of Adult Children and Their Parents in the United States: Description and Correlates

In this paper we provide an overview of the patterns of intergenerational proximity and coresidence of adult children and their mothers in the U.S., using data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) and the U.S. Census. We highlight the importance of three specification and sample choices in the analysis.First, most previous studies consider coresidence to be the limiting case of proximity, using Tobit, ordered logit, or ordered probit specifications. We argue that proximity and coresidence are qualitatively different, and show that the multinomial logit provides a better representation of the patterns in the data. Second, we argue that substantial differences in the correlates of proximity by gender and marital status indicate the importance of modeling these categories separately. Third, the NSFH allows us to consider the proximity of couples to both his mother and her mother. This information is rarely available in survey data but is important for complete analyses.Our results show that education and age are the most robust predictors of proximity: college graduates are less likely to live near their mothers and older children live further from their mothers. Other demographic variables such as race, ethnicity and only child status also affect the probability of close proximity and coresidence. However, characteristics indicating adult children's current need for transfers (e.g. grandchildren) are not correlated with either close proximity or coresidence, while characteristics indicating mothers' current needs for transfers (e.g., disability) are correlated with coresidence but not close proximity.

Housework: Who Did, Does or Will Do It, and How Much Does It Matter?

“Is Anyone Doing the Housework?” (Bianchi et al. 2000) was motivated, like much of the research on housework, by a desire to better understand gender inequality and social change in the work and family arena in the United States. During the 1990s, Arlie Hochschild’s (1989) influential book, The Second Shift, provided the dominant assessment of the gender division of labor in the home (Konigsberg 2011): men were unwilling to share the burden of work in the home and thus employed women came home to a “second shift” of housework and childcare, increasing gender inequality. Her rich qualitative study was based on a small sample of unknown generalizability, however (Milkie, Raley, & Bianchi 2009). The collection and release of the large and nationally representative 1987–88 National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) unleashed a flurry of housework articles in the quantitative sociological literature. The NSFH had the advantage of reports of housework from both members of a couple and husbands’ and wives’ assessments of fairness in the household division of labor, but these data could not provide the trend analysis critical to the understanding of social change that time diary data collections allowed. “Is Anyone Doing the Housework?” used the NSFH but also presented analysis of the only nationally representative data available – time diaries – with which to assess trends in housework and broaden the discussion of how women and men might be reallocating time in the home during a period of rapid change in women’s work outside the home. The citation count in Google Scholar stands at 910 citations (as of April 20, 2012), with those citations continuing to the present.1 In the article, we showed that the gender division of labor in housework became more equal over this period, in part because men increased their time in housework but more importantly because women dramatically decreased the time they spent in these activities. Men increased their propensity to do housework and the increase was not a result of change in population composition, whereas for women it was a mix of decreased likelihood of doing housework but also an increase in the proportion of women least likely to spend time in housework (e.g., employed women). We compared time diary data to the NSFH, demonstrating that the NSFH survey questions resulted in estimates that were about 50 percent higher than time diary estimates but that both data sources yielded similar conclusions about the gender gap in housework. Finally, using the NSFH data, we provided a multivariate description of the correlates of wives’ housework time, husbands’ housework time and the gender gap in housework time of married couples. The findings remain relevant today, save the need for the update of trends provided here. Using time diary data for 1965, 1975, 1985 and 1995, our observation window on housework was one in which the pressure on women to “shed load” to accommodate increased market work was high and in which the pressure on men to “pick up some of the slack” was perhaps also high. Our data analysis spanned the 1970–90 period of greatest labor force increases for U.S. women, particularly married women with young children. Subsequent trend analyses of women’s labor force participation, housework and childcare in the 1990s showed much less increase and a leveling off in rates by the end of the 20th century (Sayer 2005; Sayer, Bianchi, & Robinson 2004), causing some to argue that the gender revolution was over (Cotter, Hermsen, & Vanneman 2011).

Estimating the Effect of Premarital Cohabitation on Timing of Marital Disruption

In this article, we extend the propensity score method by matching on multiple groups. Using data from first wave (1987–1988) and third wave (2001–2003) of National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), we match married individuals with no premarital cohabitation, single premarital cohabitation with the spouse, and serial premarital cohabitations, and apply Cox proportional hazards models to explore how premarital cohabitation history affects marital disruption. Our results indicate that both selection and causation help explain the relationship. The selection effect played a large role in 1987–88 when cohabitation was uncommon but disappeared in 2001–03 when cohabitation became prevalent. Postmatching results demonstrate that the causal effect of cohabitation on marital disruption was strong among serial cohabitors and weak among one-time cohabitors with the spouse. The imputation-based sensitivity analysis shows that our conclusion is robust even with the presence of unobserved characteristics that have a moderate association with cohabitation and marital disruption.

Rethinking marital status: Partnership history and intergenerational relationships in American families

Abstract Demographic analyses have demonstrated that Americans are increasingly likely to experience multiple transitions into and out of marital and nonmarital unions. Despite this, relatively little research to date has examined how this complexity has influenced the relationships between generations within families. Utilizing data from the third wave of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), I assess the extent of partnership complexity in the United States and estimate the effect of partnership history on intergenerational relationships. Results suggest that partnership history is a more robust predictor of intergenerational solidarity than discrete marital transitions. Overall, those individuals with a history of multiple marriages and cohabiting unions have consistently lower levels of solidarity relative to those who have one marriage. The results of the study suggest that future research consider the complexity of family members’ marital and nonmarital union histories.

The Role of Grandparents in the Lives of Youth.

Recent demographic trends suggest that grandparents may play influential roles in the lives of their grandchildren. Despite this, the role of grandparents in the lives of youth remains an understudied topic. Using data from a nationally-representative group of youth aged 14-19 from the 1992 Wave Two National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), this study seeks to better understand the role of grandparents in the lives of grandchildren by examining which factors predict the quality of the grandparent-grandchild relationship, and what the implications of this relationship are for youth. Key factors influencing the quality of the grandparent-grandchild relationship are distance, the parent's relationship with both the grandparent and the child, and age of both the child and parent. Results do not support the hypothesis that grandparents influence the dimensions of youth well-being examined here.

Wives’ Work Hours and Marital Dissolution: Differential Effects across Marital Duration

In this article, I ask: Does the effect of wives’ work hours on marital dissolution change across marital duration? Using the first two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), I find only weak evidence that wives’ work hours are associated with higher marital dissolution. The effect, however, is more positive and significant among long-term marriages. In addition, this study also tests whether couples’ gender ideology and marital interaction explain this differential effect of wives’ work hours. The results suggest that couples’ gender ideology does not account for this differential effect of wives’ work hours. The more positive effect among long-term marriages, however, is reduced to insignificance as soon as a marital interaction measure is introduced into the model. This study contributes to broader research in two ways. Despite the weak effect of wives’ work hours on marital dissolution, the buffering effect of marital duration challenges the prior assumption that the effect of wives’ work hours is invariant across marital duration. Second, this study suggests that the more positive effect of wives’ work hours on marital dissolution among long-term marriages can be attributed to couples’ marital interaction in these marriages becoming more important in mediating the effect of wives’ work hours. Given these results, this study suggests that future research should consider the buffering effect of marital duration in understanding the determinants of marital dissolution.

Does Conservative Protestantism Moderate the Association Between Corporal Punishment and Child Outcomes?

Using longitudinal data from a sample of 456 focal children in the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), this study examined two research questions: (a) Does corporal punishment of young children (ages 2-4 at baseline) predict increases in levels of externalizing and internalizing problems over a 5‐year study period? (b) Does the religion of the mother--specifically, her conservative Protestant affiliation and conservative beliefs about the Bible--moderate the estimated net effects of corporal punishment? Results revealed that early spanking alone was not associated with adjustment difficulties, but spanking that persisted into or began in middle childhood was associated with difficulties. In contrast to their counterparts from other (or no) religious backgrounds, children whose mothers belonged to conservative Protestant groups exhibited minimal adverse effects of corporal punishment. Several conclusions, limitations, and promising directions for future research are identified.

The Well-Being of Children Living with Interethnic Parents: Are They at a Disadvantage?

An increasing number of U.S. children are living with interethnic parents, yet we know relatively little about how they are faring. Using data from the first wave (1987-1988) of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), this study examines differences in child well-being between children living with interethnic parents and those living with same-ethnic parents. Results provide only limited evidence that child well-being is lower among children living with interethnic parents. Compared with children in same-ethnic families, children living with interethnic parents exhibited higher levels of negative affect, and this difference could not be explained by differences in background or family characteristics, levels of parents relationship stressors, or parenting quality. At the same time, however, no differences were found in global well-being, positive affect, or behavior problems. Children living with interethnic parents may face some greater difficulties that warrant concern, but they do not appear to face pervasive disadvantages.

The Long-term Effects of Father Role Meanings on Men's Psychological Well-being in the U.S.

This study aims to explore the men's perceived meanings attached to the father role and to investigate the relationship between the father role meanings and men's psychological well-being. Using two waves of data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) across 5 years, this study estimated the influences of the father role meanings at T1 on psychological well-being of fathers at T2 with hierarchical Ordinary Least Square (OLS) regression models. Findings showed that the majority of fathers felt the father roles interesting, appreciated, sociable, and well-done. However, stepfathers reported significantly more negative meanings of the father role than fathers having biological children. Positive role meanings attached to the father role in terms of interesting and well-done were Significantly associated with men's psychological well-being. Although this study has some limitations by using the secondary survey data (NSFH), this study has an advantage in exploring the association between fatherhood experiences and men's psychological well-being from men's own perspectives. Also, this study has strength in a sense that long-term effects of the father role meanings were investigated and empirically provide findings in consistent with role identity.

Motherhood and Marriage: A Response

Key Words: equity, marital satisfaction, motherhood, religion, socioeconomic status, work. We are grateful for the thought-provoking commentary and critique of our study of marriage and the transition to motherhood (Dew & Wilcox, 2011) provided by Milkie (2011); Clements, Martin, Cassil, and Soliman (201 1); and PerryJenkins and Claxton (2011). Indeed, we hope that their commentary will spur further research and reflection on this important topic. To wit, we heartily agree with Milkie (201 1) that contemporary scholarship (and journalism) spends too much time focusing on the modest dip in marital happiness experienced by a large minority of wives (40% according to our study) rather than on a broader array of psychological outcomes associated with the transition to motherhood - from the ' 'deep and profound meaning most gain from becoming mothers to the reduced risk of depression mothers face as compared to childless women (Nomaguchi & Milkie, 2003). We also acknowledge, as Clements et al. (201 1) point out, that our study used blunt measures of marital quality and no direct measures of emotional intimacy, and it did not focus on variations in wives' experience of the transition to motherhood by race, ethnicity, and nativity (see also Perry-Jenkins & Claxton, 2011). For those reasons, among others, we welcome their call for more nuanced and fine-grained research on this important topic. Moreover, Perry- Jenkins and Claxton (2011) were right to point out that our study did not address husbands' experience of the transition to fatherhood; this is an important oversight because fathers now spend more time in child care and housework than they used to (see also Milkie, 2011) and because husbands' marital happiness across the transition to parenthood is bound to affect their wives' marital happiness across the transition to parenthood. We hope that future research on the transition to parenthood will address these important limitations in our own study. CHANGE VERSUS INITIAL LEVELS We were particularly struck, however, by our commentators' desire to have us consider the effect of baseline differences in religion and socioeconomic status on wives' transitions to motherhood and by their reflections on the possible impact of work for the marriages of new mothers. Accordingly, we reanalyzed data from the first two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) to determine whether baseline religion and socioeconomic status moderates the impact of the transition to motherhood for wives and to determine whether mothers who are employed full-time with young children are more likely to avoid a decline in marital happiness than mothers who are employed part-time or who are stay-athome mothers. These new analyses also enable us to speak to issues of social isolation or solidarity, stratification, and gender equity that the commentators raised. Specifically, Clements et al. (201 1) and PerryJenkins and Claxton (2011) both suggest that we explore the main effects of initial levels of potentially important variables, such as religious attendance and socioeconomic status. Likewise, Milkie (2011) hypothesizes that higher status women might have access to more resources - both in terms of money and in terms of help from friends and family - that would make the transition to motherhood easier for them. Moreover, we think that the social and emotional support religious institutions provide to families and mothers in particular (Manning, 1999; Wilcox, 2004) may make the transition to motherhood easier for women who regularly attend religious services. Accordingly, in this commentary, we explore the possibility that religious attendance and an important marker of socioeconomic status - education - moderate wives' experience of the transition to motherhood. Milkie (201 1) and Perry- Jenkins and Claxton (2011) also reflect on the role that labor-force participation may play in the lives of new mothers. …

Proximity and Coresidence of Adult Children and their Parents: Description and Correlates

The ability of family members to engage in intergenerational transfers of hands-on care requires close proximity or coresidence. In this paper we describe and analyze the patterns of proximity and coresidence involving adult children and their mothers using data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) and the U.S. Census. Although intergenerational coresidence has been declining in the United States, most Americans live within 25 miles of their mothers. In both the raw data and in regression analyses, the most robust predictor of proximity of adult children to their mothers is education. Individuals are less likely to live near their mothers if they have a college degree. Virtually all previous studies have considered coresidence alone, or else treat coresidence as a limiting case of close proximity. We show that this treatment is misleading. We find substantial differences in the correlates of proximity by gender and marital status, indicating the need to model these categories separately. Other demographic variables such as age, race and ethnicity also affect the probability of coresidence and close proximity, but characteristics indicating a current need for transfers (e.g., disability) are not correlated with close proximity.

Characteristics of Women With Children Who Divorce in Midlife Compared to Those Who Remain Married

This study evaluated characteristics that distinguish women who end a first marriage in midlife from those who remain married. The sample consisted of 459 married and 180 divorced women who had participated in 3 waves of the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH). Discriminant analyses were used to assess differences that occurred between the two groups in financial and psychological well-being in the 10 years between NSFH Waves 2 and 3. The major finding was that midlife divorce appears to have long-term financial consequences for women, especially in regard to wealth accumulation. The findings provide some initial information about the long-term effects of midlife divorce that will be useful to professionals working with women who are considering divorce at this stage of life.