Since 2014
The Influence of Family Structure on Child Outcomes: Evidence for Ireland
The Economic and Social Review
View Archive Info| Field | Value | |
| Title |
The Influence of Family Structure on Child Outcomes: Evidence for Ireland
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| Creator |
Hannan, Carmel
Halpin, Brendan |
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| Subject |
family; children; Ireland
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| Description |
A large body of international literature has documented a correlation between nontraditional family structure and poorer child outcomes, yet researchers continue to disagree as to whether the association represents a true causal effect. This article extends this literature by employing propensity score matching using the first wave of data from the Growing up in Ireland child cohort study. We argue that the Irish case is of particular interest given the highly selective nature of non-marriage. We find that, on average, non-marriage has negative effects on a child educational development at age 9 but the effects are smaller in relation to health outcomes and the child’s self-concept. However, selection effects account for a non-trivial proportion of the differences in child outcomes across lone-mother and cohabiting families although hidden bias remains an important issue. This has important implications for policies which promote marriage as the key to child development as it appears that much of the benefits of marriage are not related to marriage per se but to the socio-economic background of mothers.
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| Publisher |
The Economic and Social Review
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| Contributor |
—
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| Date |
2014-03-30
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| Type |
info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion Peer-reviewed Article |
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| Format |
application/pdf
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| Identifier |
http://www.esr.ie/article/view/106
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| Source |
The Economic and Social Review; Vol 45, No 1, Spring (2014): with Policy Papers from 'Future Directions of the Irish Economy' Conference, 10 January 2014; 1-24
0012-9984 |
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| Language |
eng
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| Relation |
http://www.esr.ie/article/view/106/74
http://www.esr.ie/article/downloadSuppFile/106/16 |
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| Rights |
Copyright (c) 2015 The Economic and Social Review
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