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
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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
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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
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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?
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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
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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.
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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.
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Estimating Effects
Of Parental Separation
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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
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Children who have (not) experienced widowhood (children who experienced separation/divorce excluded)Slide26
STEP 3: Estimating
the cohabitation effect
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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
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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
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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!
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