Family Crisis
Stable Income, Stable Family
Isaac Swensen, Jason Lindo & Krishna Regmi
NBER Working Paper, August 2020
Abstract:
We document the effect of unemployment insurance generosity on divorce and fertility, using an identification strategy that leverages state-level changes in maximum benefits over time and comparisons across workers who have been laid off and those that have not been laid off. The results indicate that higher benefit levels reduce the probability of divorce and increase the probability of having children for laid-off men. In contrast, for laid-off women we find little evidence of effects of unemployment insurance generosity on divorce and we find suggestive evidence that it reduces their fertility.
Ethnicity and Parental Discipline Practices: A Cross‐National Comparison
Florencia Silveira et al.
Journal of Marriage and Family, forthcoming
Methods: We use the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study‐Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS‐K) for the United States and the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) for the United Kingdom. The samples include parents of children aged 7–11 years old (ECLS‐K N = 13,008, MCS N = 11,113). Using logistic regression, we model the associations between parental ethnicity and five disciplinary strategies (spanking, yelling, sending to timeout, discussing, and withdrawing privileges).
Results: Black parents in the United States were more likely to use harsh physical discipline, whereas all ethnic minorities in the United Kingdom exhibited higher odds of using harsh physical discipline than did White parents. By contrast, Hispanic parents and parents from a general Other ethnic category were less likely to use harsh verbal discipline in the United States than White parents are, and Black and Asian parents were less likely than White parents to use harsh verbal discipline in the United Kingdom. White parents were more likely than other ethnic groups to use timeout across countries. Black and Asian parents were less likely to discuss with children in the United Kingdom; compared to White and Asian parents in the United States had lower odds of using discussion as discipline, but Hispanic parents had higher odds.
Local Distortions in Parental Beliefs over Child Skill
Josh Kinsler & Ronni Pavan
Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming
Abstract:
Using data from the ECLS-K, we show that parental beliefs about a child’s cognitive skill relative to children of the same age is distorted by a child’s cognitive skill relative to children in the same school. Parents of children attending schools with low (high) average skills tend to believe their child is higher (lower) in the overall skill distribution than they actually are. Teacher evaluations of child skill also exhibit local distortions, providing a channel through which parental biases might arise. Finally, we relate parental beliefs and investment, providing insight on how local distortions may impact the skill distribution.
The Genes We Inherit and Those We Don’t: Maternal Genetic Nurture and Child BMI Trajectories
Justin Tubbs et al.
Behavior Genetics, September 2020, Pages 310–319
Abstract:
Recently, methods have been introduced using polygenic scores (PGS) to estimate the effects of genetic nurture, the environmentally-mediated effects of parental genotypes on the phenotype of their child above and beyond the effects of the alleles which are transmitted to the child. We introduce a simplified model for estimating genetic nurture effects and show, through simulation and analytical derivation, that our method provides unbiased estimates and offers an increase in power to detect genetic nurture of up to 1/3 greater than that of previous methods. Subsequently, we apply this method to data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children to estimate the effects of maternal genetic nurture on childhood body mass index (BMI) trajectories. Through mixed modeling, we observe a statistically significant age-dependent effect of maternal PGS on child BMI, such that the influence of maternal genetic nurture appears to increase throughout development.
Intimate partner violence (IPV) and family dispute resolution: A randomized controlled trial comparing shuttle mediation, videoconferencing mediation, and litigation
Amy Holtzworth-Munroe et al.
Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, forthcoming
Abstract:
This randomized controlled trial, involving parents seeking to resolve their separation- or divorce-related disputes and reporting high levels of intimate partner violence (IPV), compared return-to-court (traditional litigation, n = 67 cases) to 2 mediation approaches designed to protect parent safety (i.e., shuttle, n = 64 cases; videoconferencing, n = 65 cases) at a court-annexed mediation division. We present immediate outcomes, which showed some favorable results for mediation. Both mediation approaches were perceived as safe by mediators, and parents felt safer in mediation than in traditional litigation. Parents in mediation were also more satisfied with the process than parents in traditional litigation. Return-to-court cases took 3 times as long to reach final resolution as mediation cases. Mediators tended to prefer shuttle over videoconferencing, and videoconferencing cases were half as likely to reach agreement as cases in shuttle. Through coding the content of the document that resolved case issues, we found no statistically significant group differences in legal custody, physical custody, or parenting time arrangements, and few differences in the likelihood of the document specifying a variety of arrangements (e.g., how to handle missed parenting time) or including safety provisions (e.g., supervised child exchanges). We conclude that in cases with parents reporting concerning levels of IPV, when both parents are independently willing to mediate, mediation designed with strong safety protocols and carried out in a protected environment by well-trained staff may be an appropriate alternative to court.