Routes to Children's Economic Recovery after Divorce: Are Cohabitation and Remarriage Equivalent?

By D. Morrison, A. Ritualo. American Sociological Review, 2000

111 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Are maternal cohabitation and remarriage equivalent routes to the economic recovery of children and their mothers following parental divorce and separation? Unlike previous studies that have been primarily cross-sectional in design, this study uses panel data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth-Child Supplement to make both absolute and relative comparisons of potential economic returns. Also investigated is how income from spouses and partners is combined with income from other sources to support children, and the extent to which economic hardship over time relates to mothers’ union experiences. Findings show that while in absolute terms, remarriage is economically more advantageous than cohabitation, cohabitation and remarriage are equivalent in their ability to restore family income to prior levels. Cohabiting mothers start off in a weaker economic position prior to divorce, however, and continue to rely on income from employment and AFDC to a greater extent than do remarried mothers. Over time, cohabitation, even when it results in a stable union, is a comparatively poor mechanism for maintaining economic recovery for the children of divorce. The extent of economic difficulties experienced by children whose mothers “unstably” remarry is also demonstrated.

Subfields: Demography, Gender Studies, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2f891493e105c2671871e5e32c3b646542513227

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In Demography

1. Wendy D. Manning
2. P. Smock
3. Constance T. Gager
4. Debarun Majumdar
5. S. Yabiku
6. K. Guzzo

In Gender Studies

1. Wendy D. Manning
2. Debarun Majumdar
3. P. Smock
4. Constance T. Gager
5. S. Yabiku
6. K. Guzzo

In Sociology and Political Science

1. Wendy D. Manning
2. P. Smock
3. Constance T. Gager
4. Debarun Majumdar
5. S. Yabiku
6. K. Guzzo

Citations in the corpus

• Sexual Frequency and the Stability of Marital and Cohabiting Unions (2009, background): “In general, cohabitors do not pool together financial resources to the same degree as married partners (Morrison & Ritualo, 2000).”
• The relative stability of cohabiting and marital unions for children (2004, background): “…whites, and research shows that, in comparison to marriage, cohabitation tends to be more prevalent among the less advantaged (Bumpass & Lu 2000; Morrison & Ritualo 2000; Clarkberg 1999; Cohen 1999; Smock & Manning 1997; Hao 1996; Manning & Lichter 1996; Nock 1995; Thornton et al. 1995; Waite…”