Family Structure and Child Health: a Longitudinal Model using the Millennium Cohort Study (Abstract)

Résumé 0

Objectives: An increasing number of children are born to unmarried parents due to an increase in lone parenthood and unmarried cohabitation. A number of studies, particularly in the US, have shown that children growing with two continuously married parents do better on a range of cognitive, emotional and developmental outcomes, both in childhood and adulthood. Less literature is available from the UK, and we do not known if there is also a link with child’s physical health. Methods: The Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally representative study, follows about 18,000 children born in the UK between 2000 and 2001. This paper will look at a range of physical health outcomes including respiratory illnesses, BMI and waist circumference, and unintentional accidents, over the first 5 years of life. A longitudinal model will explore the relative importance of socio-economic disadvantage, parental mental health and parenting behaviours in producing these outcomes. The paper will also explore how to capture longitudinal change in these types of variables. Results: I will show that children living with continuously married parents do best, followed by those living with continuously cohabiting parents, while those living with a lone parent do worst (for example, 11.8% of children living with continuously married parents had asthma by age 5, compared to 22.2% of those always living with a lone parent and 14.4% of those living with continuously cohabiting parents). Those who experience changes in family structure are a heterogeneous group with diverse experiences. Of this group, households that experience both lone parenthood and cohabitation do worst (20.8% of children report asthma) while lone parents who marry do best (12.1%). I will argue that socio-economic disadvantage is the most important factor driving these results. Conclusions: Children living with married parents, both looked at cross-sectionally and longitudinally, have the best physical health outcomes. Children living with lone parents appear to do worst and those living with cohabiting parents are in between. Those who experience a change in family structure in the first 5 years of life are a diverse group and do not have uniformly poor outcomes. Socio-economic factors are important drivers of these effects.