/
LEAVING MUM ALONE? LEAVING MUM ALONE?

LEAVING MUM ALONE? - PowerPoint Presentation

kittie-lecroy
kittie-lecroy . @kittie-lecroy
Follow
401 views
Uploaded On 2016-03-26

LEAVING MUM ALONE? - PPT Presentation

THE EFFECT OF POSTDIVORCE SINGLEMOTHERHOOD ON CHILDREN LEAVING HOME DECISIONS Letizia Mencarini University of Turin Collegio Carlo Alberto amp CHILD Elena Meroni University of Padua amp Dondena Centre ID: 269874

children divorce parental leaving divorce children leaving parental effect family step amp effects parents experienced mother single leave separation

Share:

Link:

Embed:

Download Presentation from below link

Download Presentation The PPT/PDF document "LEAVING MUM ALONE?" is the property of its rightful owner. Permission is granted to download and print the materials on this web site for personal, non-commercial use only, and to display it on your personal computer provided you do not modify the materials and that you retain all copyright notices contained in the materials. By downloading content from our website, you accept the terms of this agreement.


Presentation Transcript

Slide1

LEAVING MUM ALONE?

THE EFFECT OF POST-DIVORCE SINGLE-MOTHERHOOD ON CHILDREN LEAVING HOME DECISIONS

Letizia Mencarini

University of Turin, Collegio Carlo Alberto & CHILDElena Meroni University of Padua & Dondena CentreChiara Pronzato Dondena Centre at Bocconi University & CHILDSlide2

Aim

of our paper

1Slide3

State of

the Art

There is a growing literature considering the relationship between parental divorce and children’s life-course patterns. There is

no general consensus on whether parental separation accelerates or postpones children’s transition to adulthood2Slide4

THE AIM OF THE PAPER IS TO...

to add to this literature by analyzing the effect of parental divorce on the timing of nest-leaving of young adults

The analysis touches on several important issues, many of which are related to self-selection. to assess the extent to which the associations between divorce and nest-leaving timing are masked by different effects

The selection effect concerns the fact that children of divorced parents may have different socio-economic background, which makes them in any case leave the parental home at a different rate. 3Slide5

KEY MOTIVATIONS

to better understand the leaving home process

since there are huge variations in timing within and across European countries to provide insights on how increasing divorce rates may affect the way young people decide to live together with their parents or apart

since the phenomenon of family disruption is in great increase and long spells of single motherhood family living arrangement will be the reality of an increasing number of children

4Slide6

PARENTAL SEPARATION AND LEAVING HOME

The Theoretical Perspective

5Slide7

Literature on

Parental divorce &children

Especially in North American context (McLanahan 1985 and 1988; McLanahan and Bumpass 1988; McLanahan and

Garfinkel 1989; Astone and McLanahan 1994; McLanahan and Sandefur 1994; McLanahan and Percheski 2008) Much less in the European one

(a part from O’Connor 2003; Bernhardt et al. 2005;

Ongaro

and

Mazzuco

2009).

Wider literature on the effects that parental divorce

It seems beyond doubt that

parental divorce diminishes children’s chances for well-being

.

Several studies have examined the relationship between home leaving and family structure

individuals coming from dissolved families leave home earlier

(

Aquilino

1991, Tang 1996, Kiernan 1992,

Goldscheider

and

Goldscheider 1989, 1998, 1999; Bernhardt et al 2005),

6Slide8

Literature on

Nest-Leaving for Children in Disrupted

Families Indirect effects:those referring to selection effects of disruptive families

Family backgroundconsequences on children cognitive and non-cognitive skills formation of being grown up in a disruptive family during the childhoodEconomic hardshipParent-child conflict

“Role model” explanation

7Slide9

Literature on

Nest-Leaving for Children in Disrupted

Families Direct effects: those linked to the changes in family structure that produce incentives or disincentives to leave home

quantity and quality of contact with, at least, the non-co resident parentPush effect of:Step-parent (effect stronger for girls than for sons)

Presence of half- or step-siblingMore problematic parent-child relations in remarried households

Conversely, home-leaving in single-parent families has received less attention than in stepfamilies

8Slide10

Research Questions

A part from the selection effect …

Do children of divorced parents develop different own characteristics that affect their human capital construction and their socialization, which in turn make them leave the parental home a different rate?

Do children of divorced people leave parental home at a different age also depending on the new family structurei.e. step-family or single-parent family, because, for instance in the latter situation, the mother would be alone at home in case they leave?

9Slide11

Data, Sample

Characteristcs

& the Contextual Diversity 10Slide12

data

Longitudinal retrospective family histories data from

1st wave of Gender and Generations Surveys (GGS) Six European countries

Bulgaria, France, Georgia, Hungary, Italy, and Russia 11Slide13

Median age at leaving home

for GIRLS of intact/non intact families (with post-divorce/widow single-mothers)

12Slide14

Median age at leaving home

for BOYS of intact/non intact families (with post-divorce/widow single-mothers)

13Slide15

Descriptive statistics (1)

14Slide16

Descriptive statistics (2)

15Slide17

Methodological

Analysis Strategy

& Research Hypotheses16Slide18

Hypotheses

We assume that the leaving home decision depends on parental divorce and other characteristics of the young person and his or her family

Leave home = f(divorce; other characteristics) (1)  We hypothesize that the effect of parental divorce on nest-leaving timing works

through 3 channelsLeave home = f(selection, development, cohabitation; other characteristics) (2)17Slide19

Methodological Strategy

We calculate the effect of living with a lone mother in different groups of young children:

those with separated/divorced parents; those with the father died during childhoodthose with the father died after childhood.

Comparing the effect of living with the lone mother among these different groups, we try to identify the three net effects of our hypotheses. Our investigation requires, therefore, the estimation on three successive modelsComplementary log-log models with random effects at household’s level

18Slide20

1st step

We compare the leaving home decisions of children of divorced and not-divorced parents, by simply including a time-varying dummy variable “divorce” in the following hazard rate equation

That is, the hazard is a function of the characteristics of the child (X), of the household (

H), of parental divorce (D), of the time spent at home after age 17 (T). The coefficient & gives us the gross effect of divorce without telling us what is causing what.

19Slide21

2nd step

we compare the leaving home decisions of children whose parents have been alive and together all along with the leaving home decisions of children who experienced the death of the father (more random than the decision of divorce)

we clean the gross divorce effect estimated by (3) from the selection effect for divorcewe consider this different sample and include a dummy variable “death” in the following equation:

The coefficient gives us the effect of growing and residing with only the mother. The different between and is then informative of the

selectio

20Slide22

3rd step

we compare the leaving home decisions of children whose parents have been alive and together all the time children were staying at home with the decisions of children who experience the death of one parent, but only after age 18.

The latter group of children grow up with both parents but the home leaving decision involves leaving the mother alone. We therefore consider this sub-sample and include a time-varying dummy variable “death” in the following equation

The coefficient gives an estimate of the cohabitation effect, and allows us to clean the effect estimated by (4). The difference between and is then informative of the development effect.

21Slide23

Estimating Effects

Of Parental Separation

22Slide24

STEP 1 : Estimating

the Gross post-divorce

single-motherhood effect23

Children who have (not) experienced parental separation or divorce (children who experienced parental death are excluded)Slide25

STEP 2: Estimating

the Joint development and cohabitation effects

24

Children who have (not) experienced widowhood (children who experienced separation/divorce excluded)Slide26

STEP 3: Estimating

the cohabitation effect

25

Children who have (not) experienced widowhood after age 18 (children who experienced separation or divorce, or parental death before 18, excluded)Slide27

Summary of the results

26Slide28

Conclusion &

open issues

27Slide29

Conclusions

The positive association often found, between divorce and timing of nest-leaving, can mask diverging effects

living with a lone mother slows the process“development effect”, i.e. individual features developed as consequence of family disruption, accelerates the process

being only-child or last child at home slows the process

28Slide30

Implications

Implication for transition to adulthood research

parental family histories have to be taken into great consideration when the demographic behavior of young people is analysedImplication for predicting trends&policyhow the increase of divorce rate will affect the timing young people decide to leave parental home?

highly context-dependent: welfare measures (i.e. the economical help to lonely-mother poorer household)specific propensity of divorce people to have further unions after divorce and form step-families

Example of Italy!

29