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New Estimates on the Effect of Parental Separation on Child Health

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Causal Analysis in Population Studies

Part of the book series: The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis ((PSDE,volume 23))

While marriage remains the most common foundation of family life in the U.S., the prominence of the traditional process of family formation, namely marriage before having children, is diminishing. Today, more than one-third of all births in the U.S. occur outside of marriage (Martin et al. 2006). Although most unmarried parents are romantically involved when their child is born (Carlson et al. 2004), many separate before their child reaches age three (Osborne and McLanahan 2006). While the consequences of marital dissolution on children have been studied extensively,1 the effect of separation of never-married parents on child wellbeing has rarely been examined.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, University of Miami, P.O.Box 248126, Coral Gables FL, USA

    Shirley H. Liu

  2. Department of Economics and Center for Demography and Population Health, Florida State University, 32306-2180 Tallahassee, FL, USA

    Frank Heiland

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  1. Shirley H. Liu
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Correspondence to Shirley H. Liu .

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  1. Universität Bamberg LS for Bevölkerungswissenschaft, Lichtenhaidestr.11 D, 96045 Bamberg, Germany

    Henriette Engelhardt

  2. Dept. Sociology Population Studies Center, University of Pennsylvania, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

    Hans-Peter Kohler

  3. Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Inst. Demographie, Wohllebengasse 12-14, 1040 Wien, Austria

    Alexia Fürnkranz-Prskawetz

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Liu, S.H., Heiland, F. (2009). New Estimates on the Effect of Parental Separation on Child Health. In: Engelhardt, H., Kohler, HP., Fürnkranz-Prskawetz, A. (eds) Causal Analysis in Population Studies. The Springer Series on Demographic Methods and Population Analysis, vol 23. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9967-0_8

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