Journal of Family Issues

Volume 29 Number 11
November 2008 1492-1519
© 2008 Sage Publications
Family Structure and 10.1177/0192513X08320188
http://jfi.sagepub.com

Children’s Health and hosted at

http://online.sagepub.com

Behavior
Data From the 1999 National Survey
of America’s Families
Ming Wen
The University of Utah, Salt Lake City

Using data from the 1999 National Survey of America’s Families, this research
investigates the association and pathways between family structure and child
well-being among children age 6 to 17. Three indicators of child well-being are
examined: parent-rated health, limiting health conditions, and child behavior.
Results show that both stepfamilies and intact families are advantageous rela-
tive to single-parent families. Family socioeconomic status (SES) and social
capital are important factors of child well-being and help explain family struc-
ture effects. Family SES seems to have a stronger mediating effect than social
capital. However, after simultaneously modeling these hypothesized mediators,
significant differences in aspects of child well-being across family types persist
in most cases. Findings support the idea that differences in child well-being
across family types are considerably but not entirely accounted for by family
SES, parental participation in religious services, parent–child relationship, and
child engagement in extracurricular activities.

Keywords: family structure; single-parent; child health; child behavior;

adolescent development

T he past two decades have witnessed a persistently high prevalence of

out-of-marriage childbearing and marital dissolution, which often
result in single-parent households and stepfamilies (Dawson, 1991; Fields
& Casper, 2001). Family is an important life setting where much of young
children’s care and socialization takes place. For older children and adoles-
cents, family environment and resources directly affect their emotional
processes, relational experiences, and overall life chances. A great deal of
sociological work has been dedicated to documenting the association

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 Wen / Family Structure and Children’s Behavior 1493

between family structure and child well-being. This research generally points
to the disadvantages for children from single-parent families and stepfami-
lies relative to those from two-parent families (Barrett & Turner, 2005;
Hoffmann, 2006; McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994).1
However, there has been less research in and less agreement about the mech-
anisms that explain the lower levels of health and well-being among children
from single-parent families. Many single-parent families live in poverty. Do
lower levels of well-being among children in single-parent families simply
reflect their higher poverty rate or lower socioeconomic status (SES)? Or net of
family SES, are there other family-related pathways contributing to the link
between family structure and child outcomes? Do these factors vary in their
explanatory power according to children’s developmental stages or different
types of family? And how do these mechanisms function for different measures
of child well-being? Faced with the high prevalence of single-parent families
and stepfamilies in our society, these questions have come to occupy an impor-
tant position in sociological and public health inquiry.
This study aims to contribute to our understanding of the links and path-
ways between family structure and child well-being. I emphasize three of the
most prevalent types of family structure: the single-parent family, stepfamily,
and two-parent family. I examine how children from these families differ in
child health and behavior and what mechanisms may explain these associa-
tions. Using a large-scale national sample of American children, this study
extends past research by presenting recent evidence on the link between
family structure and child health and behavior across three family types, by
exploring the relative contribution of family SES versus social capital indica-
tors to the link between family structure and child development, and by pre-
senting interaction effects of key factors of child well-being with stages of
child development (i.e., mid-childhood vs. adolescence).

Background

The detrimental effect of single-parent family structure on child well-being

is multifaceted. For example, adolescents from single-parent families are

Author’s Note: This work was supported by an Annie E. Casey Foundation Small Research
Grant administered by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. A previ-
ous version of this article was presented at the 2005 American Sociological Association annual
meeting in Philadelphia. I thank the three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.
Please address correspondence to Ming Wen, PhD, Department of Sociology, The University
of Utah, 380 S 1530 E RM 301, Salt Lake City, UT 84112; e-mail: ming.wen@soc.utah.edu.

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1494 Journal of Family Issues

more likely than their peers from two-parent families to engage in risky
behaviors (Blum et al., 2000; Garnesfski & Diekstra, 1997) and suffer health
problems (Bronte-Tinkew & DeJong, 2004; Lalloo, Sheiham, & Nazroo,
2003; Newacheck & Halfon, 1998). Meanwhile, children in stepfamilies are
also disadvantaged compared to those from two-parent families in outcomes
such as academic performance, behavior, injury, and health (Brown, 2004;
McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994; Thomson, Hanson, & McLanahan, 1994).
Evidence on how children in stepfamilies differ from those in single-parent
families is mixed, with stepfamilies more advantageous in some outcomes
and comparable or more injurious in others (Dawson, 1991; Garnesfski &
Diekstra, 1997; McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994; Spruijt & de Goede, 1997).
Hence, although the link between family structure and child development is
confirmed, the nature of the link seems to depend on specific outcomes,
family types, and child developmental stages.
The next step is to understand why family structure is a persistent pre-
dictor of youth developmental outcomes. Although coresidence of both
parents can have an independent effect, family structure may also affect
children’s health and well-being via indirect pathways. For example, it is
possible that children raised in different types of families undergo various
environmental processes and in turn exhibit different developmental pat-
terns. Presumably, single-parent families cannot compete with two-parent
families in terms of parental social, economic, and psychological resources
that potentially contribute to harmonious and constructive family processes.
In fact, family socioeconomic resources and social capital within and out-
side the family have been proposed to be key determinants of child devel-
opmental outcomes (Coleman, 1988; McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994).

Family SES
A key resource that children receive from their parents is money and, of
course, things that can be purchased with money to meet basic and
advanced needs. Children from affluent families tend to live in better con-
ditions, including but not limited to spacious and healthy housing environ-
ments, physically and socially desirable neighborhoods, and optimal
medical care. They may also be more likely to have better educated parents,
attend high-quality schools, and participate in extracurricular activities, all
of which provide the potential for a cognitive environment that aids in
developing human capital and promoting overall quality of life.
Economic resources in single-parent families are not comparable to
those in two-parent families. According to the 2000 census, the poverty rate

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 Wen / Family Structure and Children’s Behavior 1495

in female-headed single-parent families is 26.4%, versus 6.4% for two-

parent families. A considerable body of research has shown that economic
resources in the family substantially account for family structure effects,
but in many cases some family structure effect remains even after control-
ling for economic status (Barrett & Turner, 2005; McLanahan, 1997;
Spruijt & de Goede, 1997; Thomson et al., 1994). Moreover, family SES
cannot explain the differences between stepfamilies and two-parent families
because the median household income of stepchildren younger than age 18
is even slightly higher than that of children living with both biological
parents in the United States (Kreider, 2003).
Certainly, it is conceivable that low income, often acting as an undeni-
able stressor, can be one cause for frequent parental disputes and family
disruption. Cross-sectional analysis may thus overestimate the effect of
family structure on family income. However, although divorce and never-
married rates are indeed higher among lower SES parents, we lack longitu-
dinal evidence to confirm that lower SES families are more likely to
experience disruption. For example, data from the Panel Study of Income
Dynamics show that among Whites, parents of adolescent children who
separated or divorced had slightly higher family income prior to their mar-
ital dissolution than those who stayed together, whereas among Blacks, as
expected, families with lower income exhibited greater risks of disruption
years later (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). Therefore, the reverse causa-
tion from low income to family disruption may be ambiguous and depend
on other social factors such as race/ethnicity.
In sum, cumulated evidence suggests that declines in income typically
follow marital dissolution and that family SES is an important mediating
factor for the link between family structure and child well-being; neverthe-
less, some reverse causation from family SES to family structure may exist,
and additional pathways net of the effect of family SES probably also con-
tribute to the observed differences in child development across different
types of family.

Family Structure, Parenting

Styles, and Parent–Child Conflict
Single parents raising children alone are often stressed by economic
strain and social pressure (Barrett & Turner, 2005). Both mental well-being
and physical health may subsequently be impaired. Higher levels of
parental distress are linked to negative parenting behaviors such as rejection
and harsh discipline, which in turn are associated with children’s poor goal

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1496 Journal of Family Issues

orientation, low levels of self-adequacy and social competence, and mental

and behavioral problems (Conger et al., 1992; Elder, Nguyen, & Caspi,
1985; Lempers, Clark-Lempers, & Simons, 1989).
Indeed, single parents are notably disadvantaged with respect to mental
well-being (Demo & Acock, 1996; McLanahan & Booth, 1989). Such
deficits may lead to problematic parental socialization with children.
Compared to parents in two-parent families, single parents—crippled by life
strains from various sources—cannot afford as much time and attention for
their children (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994) and tend to provide lower lev-
els of parental support and supervision (Thomson et al., 1994). For example,
single motherhood is associated with less parental involvement in school
work, less supervision, less encouragement, and less parental control and
influence (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). These suboptimal parenting styles
may lead to heightened levels of parent–child conflict, which presumably
undermine parent–child trust. Parent–child conflict may also result from a
sense of betrayal and resentment in children whose parents have divorced.
Although less research has specifically compared stepparents with biological
parents, there is evidence to show that stepparents tend to be less emotionally
attached to the child and less committed to the child’s development, provide
less warmth, and report less frequent activities with and positive responses to
children than do biological parents (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994;
Thomson, McLanahan, & Curtin, 1992). Stepparents may also be more likely
than biological parents to be rejected by the child because of lingering mis-
trust associated with the stepparent role. However, compared to the single-
parent family, the stepfamily may still be advantaged due to its economic
resources and the presence of one more adult in the family.

Family Structure and Social Capital

The lack of parental socializing resources in single-parent families has
also been conceptualized as a deficit in what James Coleman (1988, 1990)
calls social capital. Such a deficit, typically manifested in a lack of com-
mitment, reciprocity, and trust in a child’s social relationships, can under-
mine a child’s trust in people in general, increase his or her risk of
behavioral problems, and impair the child’s development in the long run.
Coleman (1988, 1990) argues that social capital in the family is extremely
important for the child because it is a key pathway through which financial
and human capital in the family, typically measured by family income and
parental education, can be appropriated for promoting child well-being.
Without social capital conducive to child development—namely, constructive
and efficient parent–child interaction in Coleman’s framework—money and

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 Wen / Family Structure and Children’s Behavior 1497

parental human capital are not directly beneficial to the child’s achievement.
Thus, according to Coleman, one straightforward measure of the social cap-
ital of the family is the relationship between children and parents. As men-
tioned above, due to different parental resources and parenting styles in
different types of families, children in single-parent families are likely to suf-
fer a deficiency in social capital within the family compared to two-parent
and blended families (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994).
The social capital that has value for child development can be found out-
side the family as well, for instance, in the community consisting of social
relationships and institutions. One particular form of community social
capital is intergenerational closure that facilitates smooth information flow
among parents (Coleman, 1988; Sampson, Morenoff, & Earls, 1999).
Simply put, in a community characteristic of strong intergenerational clo-
sure, wherein the parents’ friends are the parents of their children’s friends,
effective communications and sanctions that can monitor and guide youth
behavior are easily established, and a quantity of social capital is made
available to each parent in raising his or her children.
Perhaps due to purposeful disengagement from old ties following marital
dissolution, high levels of residential mobility, and anxiety and depression
associated with overwhelming demands to simultaneously fulfill multiple
roles without adequate support in or outside the family, single parents tend to
have fewer social interactions than parents in two-parent families (McLanahan
& Sandefur, 1994). They may also be less likely to engage in volunteer work
and religious services. These activities, often occurring in the community
(e.g., volunteering in local schools and helping in local churches), plausibly
boost a parent’s stock of social capital in the community. Getting to know
neighbors and making connections with local people through community
activities is normally an efficient way to establish and maintain social net-
works and to access local social support and information. In fact, both fre-
quency of attending religious services and extent of volunteerism have been
used as indicators of community social capital that potentially benefits human
development across the life course (Coleman, 1988, 1990; Putnam, 2000). If
single parents are less involved in these activities, they may miss convenient
opportunities to get acquainted with other parents or adults nearby. As a
result, they benefit less from community social capital.
Another way for parents to get to know other parents is through enrolling
their children in various after-school programs. Parents easily meet one
another at skating centers, swimming pools, art classes, sport games, chess
clubs, and music lessons where they often volunteer or chat while watching
their children participating in these activities. It is conceivable that partici-
pation in extracurricular activities promotes child well-being, for in general

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1498 Journal of Family Issues

these activities help broaden a child’s horizon, enhance the quantity and
quality of social relationships, encourage a sense of self-esteem and self-
efficacy, lead to better health, and foster desirable behaviors. Children par-
ticipating in these extracurricular activities are also more likely to make
friends and have more opportunities to communicate and play with other
children in the community. Because of the lack of financial resources and the
fact that single parents are often exhausted by having to deal with so many
demands in life, children in single-parent families may have less family sup-
port for participating in extracurricular activities and are consequently less
exposed to social capital and other psychosocial benefits accrued through
participation in these activities.
How the stepfamily compares to other family types in terms of access to
community social capital and investment in child human capital develop-
ment is less known and warrants more research attention. Compared to two-
parent families, stepfamilies on average have comparable economic
resources but less social capital within the family due to their complex kin
relationships. To the extent that child participation in extracurricular activ-
ities partly reflects parental commitment in the child’s development,
children in stepfamilies may be less engaged in these activities than those
in two-parent families. Nonetheless, compared to single-parent families,
stepfamilies, equipped with more economic and human resources in gen-
eral, may yet have certain advantages considering that children’s engage-
ment in extracurricular activities can be costly and usually entails parental
help in the form of advice and transportation.

Family SES and Social Capital

Research on the pathways linking family structure to child well-being
has focused on economic resources and social capital as two key features
of family life (Coleman, 1988, 1990; Thomson et al., 1994). Although
these two features are conceptually and empirically linked (McLeod &
Shanahan, 1993), they represent distinct aspects of family life. Affluent
parents do not necessarily possess constructive parenting styles; for
example, they may be busy and successful yet chronically absent parents.
And families in poverty can have a rich stock of social and cultural capital
that is beneficial to child well-being; for example, they may be newly
arrived and poor yet well-educated and highly motivated immigrant
parents. With few exceptions, the relative contribution of economic
resources and social capital to family structure effects on child well-being
has not been well examined. One study reports a stronger mediating effect
of economic resources than that of parental behaviors for family effects on

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 Wen / Family Structure and Children’s Behavior 1499

child academic performance and school behavior problems (Thomson et al.,

1994). But it is not known whether this pattern can be extended to overall
child behavior and health as important child developmental outcomes.

Hypotheses

Based on previous theoretical perspectives and empirical findings, I

hypothesize the following: First, compared to two-parent families and step-
families, the single-parent family structure has a deleterious effect on child
well-being after accounting for demographic background. Second, this
effect can be partially but not entirely explained by the deficiency in eco-
nomic resources that often goes hand in hand with single parenthood.
Third, family structure may affect child well-being partly via its negative
impact on parental participation in volunteer work and religious services,
the parent–child relationship, and child engagement in extracurricular
activities. Fourth, family SES and social capital indicators can jointly
explain a portion of the family structure effect on child well-being,
although residual effects of family structure likely still exist. As to the rel-
ative contributions of family SES and social capital factors to family struc-
ture effects on child well-being, a hypothesis cannot be reasonably
determined a priori due to theoretical ambiguity and lack of evidence.

Method

Data
I use data from the 1999 National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF)
to test these hypotheses. The NSAF is nationally representative of the non-
institutionalized civilian population of persons younger than age 65 in the
United States. Data on one child between ages 6 and 17 were gathered from
the “most knowledgeable adult” in the household. In nearly all cases, this
adult is a biological, adoptive, or stepparent and typically a mother; conse-
quently, I refer to this person as a parent. This data set is one of the largest
and most recent nationally representative surveys of U.S. children and their
parents, affording an excellent opportunity to comprehensively study the
well-being of American children in different racial and ethnic groups. A
detailed survey description of the 1999 NSAF has been published else-
where (Converse, Safir, Scheuren, Steinbach, & Wang, 2001).

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1500 Journal of Family Issues

Measures
Dependent variables. I use two health measures to index child health
and well-being. General health status is measured by a parent-rated health
item. Parents were asked, “In general, would you say (CHILD’s) health is
excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor?” This variable taps the child’s
general health status as perceived by the parent. The distribution of this
variable is highly skewed. I dichotomize this variable into fair or poor ver-
sus excellent, very good, or good.
More severe health problems are tapped by a limiting health condition
variable that is based on parental responses to the question asking specifi-
cally whether the child has a physical, learning, or mental health condition
that limits his or her participation in the usual kinds of activities done by
most children his or her age or limits his or her ability to do regular school
work. The variable is dichotomized, with a value of 1 indicating children
with a limiting health condition.
The behavioral dimension of child well-being is captured by a behavioral
index. Six items are used to construct the index concerning the parent’s per-
ceptions about the child’s behavioral and emotional status in the past month.
Items of the scale for the younger group include questions asking how true the
following statements are: The child does not get along with other kids; cannot
concentrate or pay attention for long; has been unhappy, sad, or depressed;
feels worthless or inferior; has been nervous, high-strung, or tense; and acts
younger than his or her age. Items of the scale for adolescents include ques-
tions asking how true the following statements are: The adolescent does not
get along with other kids; cannot concentrate or pay attention for long; has
been unhappy, sad, or depressed; has trouble sleeping; lies or cheats; and does
poorly at schoolwork. The response categories include often true, sometimes
true, and never true. Responses are totaled, creating a scale score ranging from
6 to 18. The psychometric properties of these measures are quite good, as dis-
cussed in NSAF Methodology Report 6 (Ehrle & Moore, 1999).

Independent variables. The family structure variable used in this study

has three categories: (a) The child lives with two biological or adoptive
parents (married or unmarried/cohabitating); (b) the child lives with one
biological or adoptive parent and one stepparent (parents must be married);
and (c) the child lives with a single biological or adoptive parent (the house-
hold may contain this parent’s unmarried partner). Cohabitating family and
other family types are not further distinguished.2
Controls for children’s own characteristics include an adolescence/mid-
childhood indicator based on the child’s age (age 6 to 11 vs. age 12 to 17),

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 Wen / Family Structure and Children’s Behavior 1501

gender, and race or ethnicity (non-Latino Whites, non-Latino Blacks,

Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans).
Family income is measured by the total amount of income received in
1998 by all persons age 15 years or older in the sampled family. Various
sources of income are considered. This measure of family income is highly
inclusive, not limited by employment earnings but including earnings from
financial (e.g., bonds) and physical (e.g., real estate) assets, thereby tapping
the level of family wealth accumulated over time.
Financial hardship captures food and/or housing insecurity. The variable
is coded 1 if the children’s family had to worry whether food would run out
or food bought would not last, had to cut or skip meals for the lack of
money, were unable to pay rent in the last year, or had to move in with other
people during the last 12 months.
Parental education is measured by the level of schooling of the parent
who answered the questions about the child. There are 12 categories in this
variable ranging from eighth grade or less (1) to graduate/professional
degree (12). I further collapsed these categories into five levels: no or some
schooling but no high school diploma, high school diploma, some college,
bachelor degree, and graduate education. This variable is treated as an ordi-
nal variable in the analysis.
Parental participation in volunteer work is measured by a single item
asking, “About how often in the past year have you participated in volun-
teer activities through a religious, school, or community group?” Parental
participation in religious services is measured by a single item asking, “In
the past 12 months, about how often have you attended a religious service?”
Responses to the two items include never (1), a few times a year (2), a few
times a month (3), and once a week or more (4). The two measures are fur-
ther dichotomized to indicate parental participation in any volunteer or reli-
gious work versus no participation in these activities.
Parent–child conflict is tapped by a dichotomous item asking, “In the
last 12 months, did you and your (child/children) argue a lot?” This vari-
able asked the respondent whether yelling, shouting, swearing, name call-
ing, and/or door slamming occurred regularly between at least one parent
and at least one child. Missing values of this variable3 were imputed based
on the child’s demographic factors and parental socioeconomic and psy-
chological characteristics.
Finally, child extracurricular development is measured by a scale rating
the extent of the child’s extracurricular activities. This index enumerates the
number of activities a child has been involved in during the last year. A
dichotomized variable is constructed to indicate the child’s participation in
any activity versus no participation in extracurricular activities.

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1502 Journal of Family Issues

Analytical Strategy
Weighted logit regression models are used to examine parent-rated
fair/poor health and limiting health conditions. Weighted ordinary least
squares regression models are used to examine child behavior. Taking the
complex design of the NSAF into account, all the analyses produce infer-
ences applicable to American children nationwide.
I first examine the effect of family structure on child well-being after
controlling for the child’s age group, gender, and race/ethnicity. I then test
the residual effect of family structure in the presence of family SES factors.
Next, I explore the mediating role of social capital indicators including
parental participation in volunteer work and religious services, parent–child
argument, and child engagement in extracurricular activities. Then, I test an
additive model that includes all the control variables and the key covariates.
Last, I examine a model that includes significant interaction effects of
social factors with two age groups (mid-childhood vs. adolescence). No
alarming collinearity problem was found in the analytical models. None of
the variance inflation factor was greater than 1.5 (Weisberg, 1980).

Results

The sample includes 12,517 children in two-parent families, 2,243

children in stepfamilies, and 5,907 children in single-parent families. Table
1 presents unweighted sample statistics by family structure categorized into
two-parent family, stepfamily, and single-parent family. Overall, there seems
to be a gradient relationship between family structure and children’s health
and behavior, with children from two-parent families most advantaged and
those from single-parent families most disadvantaged. The percentage of
children having fair/poor health ranges from 3.0% for children in two-parent
families to 7.2% for those in single-parent families.4 The percentage of
children with limiting health conditions is the highest in single-parent
families (15.2%), followed by stepfamilies (13.6%), and then by two-parent
families (8.9%). Children’s behavioral well-being follows the same gradient pat-
tern. In addition, it seems that stepfamilies are comparable to two-parent families
in parent-rated health but are similar to single-parent families in limiting
health conditions or behavior. The same gradient relationship also holds for
most of the socioeconomic and social capital variables.
Before examining the mediating effects of family and community factors,
I tested whether these factors were significantly correlated with both family
structure and the dependent variables.5 Consistent with the descriptive patterns

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 Wen / Family Structure and Children’s Behavior 1503

Table 1
Unweighted Sample Statistics by Family Structure
Two-Parent Single-Parent
Families Stepfamilies Families
Variable (n = 12,517) (n = 2,243) (n = 5,907)

Parent-rated fair/poor health 0.030 0.037 0.072

Limiting health condition 0.089 0.136 0.152
Behavioral Problems Index 16.303 15.567 15.512
score (higher scores (1.876) (2.333) (2.294)
indicate better behavior)
Age 11.220 12.173 11.472
(3.565) (3.363) (3.481)
Male 0.513 0.510 0.514
White 0.793 0.737 0.555
Black 0.056 0.120 0.252
Latino 0.113 0.122 0.163
Asian 0.030 0.011 0.012
Native American 0.008 0.011 0.017
Family income (as % of 3.247 3.126 2.125
federal poverty line)a (1.028) (1.053) (1.213)
Financial hardship (food 0.213 0.331 0.526
and/or rent; yes/no)
Parental educationb 3.046 2.752 2.602
(1.173) (1.109) (1.144)
Volunteer work 0.821 0.753 0.653
(once a week)c
Religious service 0.865 0.812 0.777
(once a week)d
Parent and child argue 0.098 0.133 0.146
a lot (yes/no)
Extracurricular activities 0.883 0.831 0.781
(any vs. none)e

Note: Standard deviations appear in parentheses for nondichotomized variables. Except for
gender, all variables are significantly different across the three family types at the 5% level.
Source: National Survey of America’s Families (1999).
a. The federal poverty line is the poverty threshold revised each year by the Census Bureau for
different family sizes and composition.
b. Parental education is measured by five levels: no or some schooling but no high school
diploma, high school diploma, some college, bachelor’s degree, and graduate education.
c. Volunteer work is measured by a dichotomous variable indicating parental participation in
any volunteer work versus no participation in volunteer work.
d. Religious service is measured by a dichotomous variable indicating parental participation
in any religious service versus no participation in religious services.
e. Children’s participation in extracurricular activities is measured by a dichotomized variable indi-
cating the child’s participation in any activity versus no participation in extracurricular activities.

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1504 Journal of Family Issues

shown in Table 1, the results indicated that compared to children in single-

parent families those in two-parent families and stepfamilies had higher family
income and parental education, lower rates of financial hardship, higher levels
of parental participation in volunteer work and religious services, and less
parent–child argument. Except for the difference between single-parent
families and stepfamilies in parent–child argument, all correlations were sta-
tistically significant at the 5% level. Moreover, family SES and social capital
indicators were all negatively linked with health and behavioral problems.
Although these association tests cannot determine causality of any direction,
the significant results of these tests suggest that these social factors are likely
to operate as pathways linking family structure to child well-being.
Tables 2, 3, and 4 present the analytical results testing the hypotheses for
the three indicators of child health and behavioral well-being. The first four
models in each table have the same specification. The fifth model presents
significant interaction effects of key social factors with age group; it has
different model specification for different dependent variables. No signifi-
cant interaction effect was detected for parent-rated health. All models are
adjusted for age group, sex, and race/ethnicity. Model 1 is the reference
model that examines the baseline effects of family structure. Model 2 adds
family SES indicators to the baseline model. Model 3 adds family and com-
munity social capital indicators to the baseline model without including
family SES indicators. Model 4 simultaneously tests the role of family SES
and social capital in contributing to family structure effects on child well-
being. And for limiting health condition and child behavior, Model 5 is a
full model with both additive and interactive effects included.
Table 2 presents the results of modeling fair or poor parent-rated general
health status for children age 6 to 17. Model 2.1 (Model 1 in Table 2) shows
that children from stepfamilies or two-parent families have lower risks of
having fair/poor health than those from single-parent families. Stepfamilies
appear slightly more protective of health than two-parent families. Relative
to children of single-parent families, children of stepfamilies are 136%6 less
likely to have fair/poor health, and the reduction of risk is 111% for
children of two-parent families. These family structure effects can be partly
explained by family SES (Model 2.2) and social capital indicators (Model
2.3). However, the effects of stepfamily and two-parent family are reduced
more by family SES (39%-57%) than by social capital (12%-18%). In fact,
simultaneously testing all the social factors, Model 2.4 shows that social
capital indicators do not add much to the explanatory power of family SES.
Among social capital indicators, child engagement in extracurricular activ-
ities is a protective factor and parent–child conflict is associated with higher
risk of child poor or fair health. Parental participation in volunteer work is

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 Table 2
Logistic Regression of Child Fair/Poor Health on Family Structure and Hypothesized Mediators,
Unstandardized Coefficient (Standard Error), Children Age 6 to 17
Variable (1) (2) (3) (4)

Family structure
Stepfamilya –0.858*** –0.524** –0.759*** –0.502**
(0.256) (0.252) (0.248) (0.251)
Two-parent familya –0.745*** –0.318* –0.613*** –0.271
(0.160) (0.166) (0.157) (0.165)
Age, gender, and ethnicity
Adolescence versus mid-childhood 0.471*** 0.537*** 0.455*** 0.523***
(0.136) (0.138) (0.132) (0.135)
Male 0.062 0.074 0.082 0.081
(0.149) (0.156) (0.149) (0.155)
Blackb 1.091*** 0.765*** 1.030*** 0.764***
(0.212) (0.218) (0.198) (0.207)
Latinob 1.522*** 1.081*** 1.379*** 1.058***
(0.160) (0.167) (0.164) (0.165)
Asianb 1.041* 1.231* 1.002 1.182*
(0.596) (0.625) (0.616) (0.645)
Native Americanb 1.603** 1.187* 1.549** 1.213*
(0.675) (0.694) (0.710) (0.713)

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Family socioeconomic status
Family income (as % of poverty line)c –0.196** –0.174*
(0.090) (0.090)
Financial hardship (in food and/or rent) 0.839*** 0.791***
(0.141) (0.147)

1505
(continued)
 Table 2 (continued)
Variable (1) (2) (3) (4)

1506
Parental educationd –0.195*** –0.155**
(0.069) (0.069)
Access to community and family social capital
Volunteer worke –0.281** –0.179
(0.139) (0.142)
Religious servicesf 0.165 0.165
(0.217) (0.209)
Parent and child argue a lot 0.652*** 0.525**
(0.193) (0.201)
Extracurricular activitiesg –0.579*** –0.383**
(0.161) (0.174)
% of the stepfamily coefficient explained –39% –12% –41%
% of the two-parent family coefficient explained –57% –18% –64%

Note: N = 20,667. Standard errors appear in parentheses.

Source: National Survey of America’s Families (1999).
a. Single-parent families = reference group.
b. White = reference group.
c. The federal poverty line is the poverty threshold revised each year by the Census Bureau for different family sizes and composition.
d. Parental education is measured by five levels: no or some schooling but no high school diploma, high school diploma, some college, bachelor’s
degree, and graduate education.

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e. Volunteer work is measured by a dichotomous variable indicating parental participation in any volunteer work versus no participation in volunteer
work.
f. Religious service is measured by a dichotomous variable indicating parental participation in any religious service versus no participation in religious
services.
g. Children’s participation in extracurricular activities is measured by a dichotomized variable indicating the child’s participation in any activity ver-
sus no participation in extracurricular activities.
*p ≤ .10. **p ≤ .05. ***p ≤ .01.
 Wen / Family Structure and Children’s Behavior 1507

also protective, but its effect is no longer statistically significant with family
SES variables present in the model (Models 2.3 and 2.4). On parent-rated
health, there is no interaction effect between social factors and age group
(i.e., adolescence vs. mid-childhood). In the end, 59% of the stepfamily
effect and 36% of the two-parent family effect in the baseline model remain
unexplained (Model 2.4).
Table 3 provides the results of modeling serious health conditions for
children age 6 to 17. Children from stepfamilies or two-parent families
have lower risks of having severe health conditions compared to those from
single-parent families, although the strength of the stepfamily effect is mar-
ginal (p = .06) in the baseline model (Model 3.1, or Model 1 in Table 3).
Again, family SES has a stronger explanatory power than social capital for
the family structure effects. They respectively explain 82% and 35% of the
stepfamily effects and 51% and 26% of the two-parent family effects
(Models 3.2 and 3.3). Model 3.4 shows that together family SES and social
capital can explain 96% of the stepfamily effect and 63% of the two-parent
effect. Three of the four social capital indicators tested are significant cor-
relates of child limiting health conditions including parental participation in
religious services, parent–child conflict, and child engagement in extracur-
ricular activities (Models 3.3, 3.4, and 3.5). The effects of family income
somewhat differ in adolescence versus mid-childhood (Model 3.5). Family
income has a significant and protective effect against severe health condi-
tions in mid-childhood, but the protective effect is weaker in adolescence.
The interaction effect of family income with age group is marginally sig-
nificant at the 10% level. Little of the stepfamily effect and 37% of the two-
parent family effect in the baseline model (Model 3.1) are left unexplained
in Model 3.5.
Table 4 shows the results of modeling behavioral and emotional well-
being among children age 6 to 17. Both the stepfamily and the two-parent
family are advantageous compared to the single-parent family, but again the
positive effect of the stepfamily is only marginally significant (p = .07;
Model 4.1, or Model 1 in Table 4). The contribution of family SES to the
family structure effects is still slightly greater than that of social capital
although the difference is less remarkable than that for the health outcomes.
Family SES explains 79% of the stepfamily effect and 31% of the two-
parent family effect (Model 4.2). Social capital accounts for 60% of the
stepfamily effect and 25% of the two-parent family effect (Model 4.3). As
found for child limiting health conditions, parental participation in religious
services, parent–child relationship, and child engagement in extracurricular
activities are all protective factors against child problematic behaviors
(text continues on page 1512)

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 Table 3
Logistic Regression of Child Limiting Health Condition on Family Structure and Hypothesized Mediators,

1508
Unstandardized Coefficient (Standard Error), Children Age 6 to 17
Variable (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Family structure
Stepfamilya –0.301* –0.054 –0.196 –0.012 –0.013
(0.156) (0.173) (0.166) (0.180) (0.179)
Two-parent familya –0.698*** –0.343*** –0.515*** –0.259** –0.257**
(0.100) (0.116) (0.098) (0.116) (0.115)
Age, gender, and ethnicity
Adolescence versus mid-childhood 0.281*** 0.330*** 0.272*** 0.321*** 0.038
(0.077) (0.075) (0.076) (0.077) (0.184)
Male 0.673*** 0.685*** 0.695*** 0.697*** 0.700***
(0.087) (0.089) (0.089) (0.090) (0.090)
Blackb 0.289* 0.043 0.298** 0.114 0.114
(0.160) (0.160) (0.144) (0.147) (0.145)
Latinob 0.052 –0.279** –0.067 –0.271* –0.269*
(0.130) (0.137) (0.139) (0.143) (0.143)
Asianb –0.563** –0.452 –0.658** –0.565* –0.561*
(0.271) (0.272) (0.283) (0.288) (0.288)
Native Americanb 0.762* 0.450 0.711 0.476 0.481
(0.447) (0.445) (0.488) (0.476) (0.472)

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Family socioeconomic status
Family income (as % of poverty line)c –0.145*** –0.114** –0.177**
(0.051) (0.054) (0.067)
Financial hardship (in food and/or rent) 0.685*** 0.621*** 0.621***
(0.078) (0.085) (0.085)
Parental educationd –0.109** –0.052 –0.052
(0.047) (0.045) (0.046)

(continued)
 Table 3 (continued)
Variable (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Access to community and family social capital

Volunteer worke –0.109 –0.047 –0.051
(0.107) (0.106) (0.106)
Religious servicesf –0.318*** –0.314*** –0.307***
(0.114) (0.115) (0.114)
Parent and child argue a lot 0.726*** 0.620*** 0.626***
(0.115) (0.116) (0.117)
Extracurricular activitiesg –0.706*** –0.559*** –0.545***
(0.104) (0.110) (0.111)
Interaction with ageh
Adolescence × Family Income (as % of poverty line) 0.118*
(0.068)
% of the stepfamily coefficient explained –82% –35% –96% –96%
% of the two-parent family coefficient explained –51% –26% –63% –63%

Note: N = 20,667. Standard errors appear in parentheses.

Source: National Survey of America’s Families (1999).
a. Single-parent families = reference group.
b. White = reference group.
c. The federal poverty line is the poverty threshold revised each year by the Census Bureau for different family sizes and composition.
d. Parental education is measured by five levels: no or some schooling but no high school diploma, high school diploma, some college, bachelor’s
degree, and graduate education.

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e. Volunteer work is measured by a dichotomous variable indicating parental participation in any volunteer work versus no participation in volunteer
work.
f. Religious service is measured by a dichotomous variable indicating parental participation in any religious service versus no participation in religious
services.
g. Children’s participation in extracurricular activities is measured by a dichotomous variable indicating the child’s participation in any activity versus
no participation in extracurricular activities.

1509
h. Age is dichotomized into two groups: children age 6 to 11 (mid-childhood) and children age 12 to 17 (adolescence).
*p ≤ .10. **p ≤ .05. ***p ≤ .01.
 Table 4
Ordinary Least Squares Regression of Child Behavior on Family Structure and
Hypothesized Mediators, Unstandardized Coefficient (Standard Error), Children Age 6 to 17

1510
Variable (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Family structure
Stepfamilya 0.200* 0.043 0.080 –0.014 –0.013
(0.107) (0.107) (0.103) (0.102) (0.102)
Two-parent familya 0.822*** 0.569*** 0.618*** 0.460*** 0.447***
(0.074) (0.069) (0.069) (0.067) (0.066)
Age, gender, and ethnicity
Adolescence versus mid-childhood –0.078 –0.095* –0.046 –0.057 –0.241**
(0.049) (0.048) (0.047) (0.047) (0.117)
Male –0.345*** –0.337*** –0.344*** –0.336*** –0.332***
(0.054) (0.053) (0.049) (0.049) (0.048)
Blackb –0.125 0.072 –0.158 –0.017 –0.011
(0.126) (0.126) (0.105) (0.107) (0.110)
Latinob –0.130* 0.106 –0.046 0.096 0.106
(0.073) (0.073) (0.070) (0.070) (0.069)
Asianb 0.175 0.115 0.214 0.174 0.163
(0.129) (0.125) (0.131) (0.133) (0.128)
Native Americanb –0.583 –0.330 –0.531 –0.357 –0.376
(0.405) (0.374) (0.423) (0.393) (0.398)
Family socioeconomic status

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Family income (as % of poverty line)c 0.007 –0.017 –0.012
(0.029) (0.030) (0.030)
Financial hardship (in food and/or rent) –0.844*** –0.705*** –0.706***
(0.063) (0.062) (0.062)
Parental educationd 0.070*** 0.031 0.034
(0.023) (0.024) (0.024)

(continued)
 Table 4 (continued)
Variable (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

Access to community and family social capital

Volunteer worke 0.142* 0.113 0.100
(0.079) (0.080) (0.081)
Religious servicesf 0.219*** 0.207*** 0.208***
(0.074) (0.073) (0.075)
Parent and child argue a lot –1.625*** –1.520*** –1.028***
(0.096) (0.095) (0.139)
Extracurricular activitiesg 0.522*** 0.435*** 0.264**
(0.081) (0.081) (0.100)
Interaction with ageh
Adolescence × Parent and Child Argue a Lot –0.982***
(0.185)
Adolescence × Extracurricular Activities 0.354***
(0.125)
% of the stepfamily coefficient explained –79% –60% –107% –107%
% of the two-parent family coefficient explained –31% –25% –44% –46%

Note: N = 20,667. Standard errors appear in parentheses.

Source: National Survey of America’s Families (1999).
a. Single-parent families = reference group.
b. White = reference group.
c. The federal poverty line is the poverty threshold revised each year by the Census Bureau for different family sizes and composition.

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d. Parental education is measured by five levels: no or some schooling but no high school diploma, high school diploma, some college, bachelor’s
degree, and graduate education.
e. Volunteer work is measured by a dichotomous variable indicating parental participation in volunteer work at least once a week versus less frequent
or no participation in volunteer work.
f. Religious service is measured by a dichotomous variable indicating parental participation in religious services at least once a week versus less fre-
quent or no participation in religious services.

1511
g. Children’s participation in extracurricular activities is measured by a dichotomous variable indicating the child’s participation in any activity versus
no participation in extracurricular activities.
h. Age is dichotomized into two groups: children age 6 to 11 (mid-childhood) and children age 12 to 17 (adolescence).
*p ≤ .10. **p ≤ .05. ***p ≤ .01.
1512 Journal of Family Issues

(Models 4.3, 4.4, and 4.5). No interaction effects are found for family SES
and age groups, whereas the effects of parent–child conflict and child par-
ticipation in extracurricular activities interact with age in their impacts on
child behavior (Model 4.5). Parent–child conflict is associated with more
behavioral problems for children of all ages, but it is more detrimental for
adolescents. Child engagement in extracurricular activities promotes posi-
tive behavior across age groups, but its effect is significantly stronger for
adolescents. In the final model (Model 4.5), family SES and social capital
together can explain the entire stepfamily effect and about half of the two-
family effect remains unexplained.

Discussion

In this article, I have observed differences in child health and behavioral

well-being across family types. Both stepfamilies and two-parent families are
advantageous relative to single-parent families, with two-parent families
often offering stronger protective effects for children and adolescents. I then
find that family SES and the social capital available to the child are important
factors of child well-being and help explain the link between family structure
and child well-being. However, after simultaneously modeling these hypoth-
esized mediators, substantial differences in aspects of child well-being persist
in most cases. These findings support the idea that differences in child well-
being across family types are considerably but not entirely accounted for by
family SES, parental participation in religious services, parent–child rela-
tionship, and child engagement in extracurricular activities.
In predicting child health and behavior, parental education seems less
important than experienced financial hardship in food and housing security
(p < .0001). This finding suggests that meeting the basic living needs—such
as having enough food and a secured place to live—exerts a more direct
effect on child well-being than the human capital present in the family. This
pattern would not have been captured had family income been used as the
only marker of family financial resources. Many analyses of the association
between family structure and child well-being do not distinguish human
capital and economic capital when investigating the role of SES. The cur-
rent research lends support to the notion that examining specific socioeco-
nomic factors rather than relying on a composite scale of SES is more
revealing when studying SES effects on health because different measures
of SES represent different aspects of social status and their correlations are
typically not high enough to justify using one indicator of SES (e.g., edu-
cation) as a proxy for another (e.g., income; Braveman et al., 2005).

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 Wen / Family Structure and Children’s Behavior 1513

The protective effects of family SES on child health are not entirely con-
sistent across stages of child development. Family income, as measured by
percentage of the federal poverty line, is more protective against limiting
health conditions for younger children in their mid-childhood than for ado-
lescents. It is possible that material deprivation may be especially harmful
for younger children who are physically more vulnerable than adolescents.
These speculations should be tested with longitudinal data in future work.
Independent of family SES effects, social capital indicators including
parental participation in religious work, the parent–child relationship, and
child engagement in extracurricular activities are also significantly associ-
ated with child health and behavior. However, the strength of some social
capital effects on child behavior differs between mid-childhood and ado-
lescence. The beneficial effect of extracurricular activities is significantly
stronger for adolescents, although it also promotes positive behaviors for
younger children. Perhaps the constructive time use during non–school
hours, positive socialization, goal orientation, and competency building that
are emphasized in these activities are particularly important for adoles-
cents’ developmental outcomes.
This research also finds significant and detrimental effects of
parent–child conflict on all three measures of child health and behavioral
well-being. The parent–child relationship is an important aspect of family
socialization processes. Frequent parent–child argument signals relational
tension in the parent–child relationship and sometimes reflects lower
parental affection and support for the child. Consistent with previous work
that has found beneficial effects of parental affection on child well-being
(Barber, 1992; Moore & Halle, 2001), the research shows that a tensional
parent–child relationship is deleterious to positive behaviors and health
status for children and adolescents. Indeed, it is conceivable that frequent
parent–child conflict may easily drive an adolescent further away from nor-
mative behavior because of the rebellious and self-reassuring nature of typ-
ical adolescence. Parent–child relational tension is also harmful for
younger children’s behavior, but to a lesser extent. The weaker harmful
effect of parent–child conflict for children in mid-childhood may have
something to do with the fact that inequality in the parent–child relation-
ship is more acceptable for younger children, and harsh parental discipline
may thus appear less emotionally rejecting and relationally damaging than
it would appear for adolescents, who often tend to assume an adult role,
requesting parents’ respect and autonomy. The research thus demonstrates
the need to test interactive models that include interaction effects of key
social factors of child well-being with stages of child development.

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1514 Journal of Family Issues

Parental participation in religious services is another aspect of social

capital beneficial to child health and behavior, but parental involvement in
volunteer work is not directly related to child well-being. The positive
effect of parental participation in religious services may be partly due to the
social capital involved in the process of parental or family engagement in
religious services and partly due to the benefits of religious belief itself.
This research cannot distinguish mechanisms underlying these effects. In
any event, findings from this research suggest that participating in religious
services may act as a buffer against life hardship, offer an opportunity to
access social capital in the community, and enhance child well-being for
single-parent families.
Moreover, separately testing the role of family economic resources and
social capital in family structure effects shows that family SES factors
account for a greater proportion of disadvantages found in single-parent
families than social capital. Further testing (not presented) shows that SES
variables (particularly financial hardship) generally have stronger effects
than social capital variables, although both are significantly relevant for
child well-being. In other words, despite the significance of family and
community social capital in promoting child well-being, poverty or lacking
parental socioeconomic resources seems to be a more powerful key to
understanding why children in single-parent families tend to have lower
levels of health and positive behaviors than those in stepfamilies and two-
parent families. Although this finding is consistent with the results of
Thomson and colleagues’ work (1994) on the link between family structure
and child academic performance and school behavior, more research is
needed to further unfold the relative strengths of economic versus
social/behavioral explanations.
This work focuses mainly on how the single-parent family differs from
the stepfamily and two-parent family in terms of child well-being. As the
literature and the descriptive statistics (Table 1) indicate, the stepfamily is
also disadvantaged compared to the two-parent family. Additional regres-
sion analysis (data not shown) shows that the stepfamily is primarily dis-
advantaged to the two-parent family in child behavior, and the family SES
and social capital indicators examined in this study can account for only a
small proportion of the difference between the stepfamily and two-parent
family in child behavior (24%). Clearly, for some developmental outcomes
such as child behavior, having a stepparent does not necessarily provide the
same advantage as having a biological parent. The differences between the
stepfamily and the two-parent family in their impacts on youth develop-
ment warrant further investigation.

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 Wen / Family Structure and Children’s Behavior 1515

Several limitations of this work are noteworthy. Both the conceptual

framework and analytical approach are based on the assumption that there
is a causal effect of family structure on several mechanisms, and then on
child health and behaviors. This assumption cannot be examined in this
cross-sectional study. The causal ordering of family structure and mecha-
nisms such as economic resources and the parent–child relationship is not
entirely clear. The cross-sectional nature of this research also precludes an
investigation of how changes in family structure are associated with
changes in child well-being, which is a much needed direction in future
research.
The social capital measures used in this study are crude and indirect. For
example, as mentioned above, parental participation in religious services
may capture not social capital but rather religious beliefs. More specific
measures of family and community social capital are desirable, such as
parent–child closeness and neighborhood solidarity, but they are not avail-
able in the NSAF. Future work should also use more sophisticated measures
of extracurricular involvement that tap a wider range of activities and incor-
porate length and frequency of participation.
Another limitation is that the two health measures used in this study are
based on parents’ reports rather than physicians’ health evaluations. The
research would be strengthened if more objective health measures were to
be used and the same patterns emerged. Although self-rated health is a fre-
quently used health measure whose validity and reliability has been thor-
oughly examined and corroborated (Gallo & Matthews, 2003; Idler &
Benyamini, 1997), parent-rated health for children as a survey instrument
has not been subject to rigorous psychometric testing.
Taken together, the findings from this study indicate that the persistent
link between family structure and child health and behavior is partly due to
differences in family economic resources, parental participation in religious
work, the parent–child relationship, and child engagement in extracurricu-
lar activities. However, in most cases, a considerable portion of the baseline
family structure effects remain in the final full model, indicating that family
structure affects child well-being via other pathways not examined in this
study, and the impact may also occur directly because the fact of missing
one parent in the child’s daily life can be harmful in its own right. In a sep-
arate analysis, I found that residual family structure effects could be further
explained by parental psychological resources and attitudes toward parent-
ing. I did not present these analyses because of a concern with the particu-
larly plausible reverse causation problem from poor child well-being to
poor parental mental health and parents’ frustration in and negative views

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1516 Journal of Family Issues

toward parenting. However, these preliminary results suggest that parental

psychological resources may function as a crucial mechanism underlying
the prospective effects of family structure on child well-being, which can
only be tested using longitudinal data.
In the end, it comes down to the question of whether we should develop
practical strategies to deal with processes linking family structure with child
well-being or whether we should tackle the source of the problem—the demo-
graphic trend toward marital dissolution or out-of-marriage childbearing that
results in growing numbers of children raised in single-parent families. Based
on the finding that the effects of the structure of family of origin on mental
health among young adults are “explained away” by several mediators, Barret
and Turner (2005) argue that preventive interventions should focus on efforts
to modify these mechanisms, say, by strengthening constructive family
processes and reducing the high levels of stress among disadvantaged groups.
Alternatively, one could argue that different mechanisms come and go, oper-
ating at different times and for different outcomes, and if we do not address
the source of the problem, our efforts in reducing disparities by family types
in child development are not likely to be fruitful. Moreover, the absence of one
parent may have a direct effect on child development independently of all pro-
posed mechanisms simply because it is fundamentally distressing that a child
is not able to live with both parents and enjoy a “normal” childhood. For
example, the lack of physical touch with one parent may be frustrating to the
child and may exert long-term effects on the child’s physical, emotional, psy-
chological, and cognitive well-being in many subtle ways. If such direct
impacts indeed exist, then interventions targeted to tackle processes linking
family structure and child well-being may be less effective than expected.
This debate mirrors the one regarding SES effects on health. In their sem-
inal article, Link and Phelan (1995) argue that SES effects are fundamental,
will not go away, and can be effectively resolved only if we get to the source
of the problem—the unequal distribution of resources, power, and prestige
across social strata. But realizing the difficulty (if not impossibility) of sur-
gically changing the social, economic, and political system within a fore-
seeable time frame, scholars and policy makers have turned their attention
to the mechanisms underlying the SES effects such as individual health
practices and health care provision. Evidence from the United States and
elsewhere has shown, however, that these efforts have not been very suc-
cessful (Feinstein, 1993). Obviously, there is no easy solution to social dis-
parities in health and well-being across the life course. Focusing on
processes linking family structure to well-being or targeting single-parent
family structure per se, researchers and policy makers should mull over what

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 Wen / Family Structure and Children’s Behavior 1517

we can do to cost-effectively remedy the injurious effects of single-parent

family structure on youth well-being before hastily making any policy rec-
ommendation. More causal evidence is urgently needed to refine our think-
ing and to inform the design of efficacious preventive interventions.

Notes
1. Throughout the article, I use the term “two-parent family” for children who were living
with both biological or adoptive parents at the time of the survey.
2. Families with cohabitating biological/adoptive parents constitute only 1% of the entire
sample. I chose not to further distinguish them from other family types to keep the research
focused.
3. This “parent and child argue a lot” item has a substantial amount of cases missing.
Although excluding this variable is the easiest way to deal with this problem, this variable
measures an important dimension of within-family social capital, and imputation did not
change the main results. I thus kept this variable in the analysis. No other variable in the analy-
sis was imputed. Missing cases in other variables were excluded from the analysis.
4. Few published data are available to check whether the prevalence rates of parent-rated
child fair/poor health found in this study are consistent with other findings from national sur-
veys. I found one article that presented prevalence rates of parent-rated child poor/fair health
using data from the National Health Interview Survey (NHIS; Montgomery, Kiely, & Pappas,
1996). The data presented in that study were collected from 1989 through 1991, whereas data
from this study were collected in 1999. Although the current study focuses only on children
ages 6 to 17, the National Survey of America’s Families (NSAF) collected data on all children
younger than age 17. This makes it possible to compare the NSAF estimates with those based
on the NHIS. Overall, the NSAF estimates of parent-rated fair/poor health are higher. Perhaps
this discrepancy partly reflects the fact that the NSAF oversampled children from disadvan-
taged family backgrounds (below poverty line, on welfare assistance, etc.) and partly reflects
a temporal trend during the 1990s. More research is needed to confirm whether parent-rated
fair/poor child health has increased over the years.
5. When appropriate for the specific variables involved, ordinary least squares regression,
chi-square, correlation, and t-test analyses were performed to test the bivariate associations
between child well-being indicators and social factors and between family structure and social
factors. The results of these analyses are not shown but are available by request.
6. The coefficient of stepfamily is −0.858. The odds ratio corresponding to this coefficient
is 1/exp(−0.858) = 2.36. Therefore, relative to children of single-parent families, children of
stepfamilies are 136% less likely to have fair/poor health.

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