Is the Ring the Thing?

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Abstract

This paper assesses the extent to which children living in cohabiting families would benefit if their mothers were to marry. Children whose cohabiting mothers marry have higher math and reading scores than children whose mothers either continue to cohabit or who dissolve their cohabiting relationships; marriage is uncorrelated with behavioral outcomes of these children. Interestingly, much of the difference between the test scores of children whose cohabiting mothers marry and those who do not actually predates the marriage. This suggests that the benefits of marriage for children living with cohabiting couples are smaller than they initially appear.

Introduction

During the 1990s, the number of cohabiting households increased by over 70 percent (Simmons and O’Neill 2001). Further, the share of children living in cohabiting families grew from 4.6 to 5.9 percent between 1997 and 2002 (Acs and Nelson 2003), and by some estimates, four out of every 10 children will spend some time in a cohabiting family before they reach their 16th birthdays (Bumpass and Lu 2000). This rise in the share of children living with cohabitors is a source of concern for policymakers and analysts because previous research demonstrates that living with cohabitors is not as beneficial to children as living with married parents (e.g., Acs and Nelson 2002, 2003; Carlson and Danziger 1999; Manning and Brown 2003; Manning and Lichter 1996; Nelson, Clark, and Acs 2001).

The advantages married couples and their children have over those in other living arrangements have led policymakers to propose several significant initiatives to promote “healthy marriages.” For example, the G.W. Bush administration is contemplating spending $1.5 billion dollars over the coming years on marriage promotion (New York Times, 1/14/04, page A1). Clearly, cohabiting couples with children are logical targets for marriage promotion initiatives.

This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Mother-Child (NLSY-MC) files to assess the extent to which children living in cohabiting families would benefit if their mothers were to marry. Specifically, the paper begins with a sample of children living in cohabiting families at a given point in time and then compares the well-being of children whose mothers marry with those whose mothers either continue to cohabit or who breakup with their cohabiting partners. Further, the paper also examines the extent to which the apparent benefits of marriage reflect preexisting differences between children whose cohabiting mothers go on to marry their partners and those who do not.

The results indicate that marriage is not associated with better behavioral outcomes for children living in cohabiting families. Cognitive test scores, however, are higher among children whose cohabiting mothers marry than among those whose mothers do not. Much of the cognitive advantage enjoyed by these children is apparent even before their mothers’ marriages. These findings suggest that encouraging cohabitors with children to marry will have a limited impact, at best, on the well-being of children in these families.

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The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.

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