Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/150912 
Year of Publication: 
2011
Series/Report no.: 
SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research No. 367
Publisher: 
Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), Berlin
Abstract: 
Substantial research on the relationship between family structures and child outcomes represents a considerable part of the literature. However, family structure provides a rather static view of the relationship of children's living arrangements and their well-being, revealing hardly anything about the stability of a family for a longer period. This paper focuses on the impact of family instability on children. In light of human capital accumulation, we hypothesize that a stable family (either a two parent or a single parent family) might be beneficial for child outcomes, in particular for non-cognitive skills. We use skills, such as socio-emotional behavior or locus of control, as our primary measure of child outcomes. The paper focuses on the potential impact of family instability occurring at different childhood stages on non-cognitive skills of preschoolers (aged five to six) and of adolescents (aged seventeen). Our analysis is based on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP). Family instability is defined by yearly observed maternal partnership variations. Our results suggest that differences in family stability account for some of the gradient in social-behavioral difficulties for preschool children. By using sibling differences for our adolescents' sample, we find that multiple partnership transitions experienced early in life are negatively correlated with non-cognitive skills in adolescence, e.g., such adolescents are less likely to be active or self-determined in life.
Subjects: 
Child development
family dynamics
locus of control
non-cognitive skills
JEL: 
J10
J12
J13
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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