This is a proposal to study the influence of the parental family on the well-being of children under the auspices of the Family and Child Well- being Research network. The individual research plan will investigate the influence of the first generation family on several dimensions of second generation well-being, including self-esteem, parent-child relationships, and entrances into sexual unions. Several determinants of children's well-being will be examined in this individual research plan. One determinant of children's well-being to be investigated is the marital experience of the children's parents, including the quality of the parents' marriage and their experience with marital dissolution and remarriage. A second dimension of the parental family to be studied is the degree of integration of parent and child activities within the family. A third determinant is the childbearing of the parents, including the number, timing, and planning statuses of births. Fourth are the economic resources and standard of living of the family. Fifth is religious participation and commitment. The final family factor includes the attitudes and values of parents. The cooperative research plan proposes to investigate the familial determinants of educational, occupational, and financial well-being. In addition, we propose to examine how the parental family influences the second generation's initiation into marriage and childbearing, factors that are closely intertwined with several dimensions of children's well- being. The cooperative plan also proposes to extend the analysis of the parental determinants of children's well-being from adolescence to adulthood itself. The empirical analyses for the individual research plan will be conducted using an eight-wave thirty-one year intergenerational panel study, which includes a mother-child pair in each of the participating families. The data set includes eight waves of information collected from the mothers across the entire thirty-one years of the children's lives. Also included in the data set are three waves of information collected from the children when they were ages 18, 23, and 31. This data set contains multiple measures of the parental variables and the children's well-being. These data will also make valuable contributions to the cooperative research plan.
| Barber, J S; Axinn, W G; Thornton, A (1999) Unwanted childbearing, health, and mother-child relationships. J Health Soc Behav 40:231-57 |
| Axinn, W G; Barber, J S; Thornton, A (1998) The long-term impact of parents' childbearing decisions on children's self-esteem. Demography 35:435-43 |
| Axinn, W G; Thornton, A (1996) The influence of parents' martial dissolutions on children's attitudes toward family formation. Demography 33:66-81 |
