Abstract
In “Cohabitation and Child Well-Being,” Wendy D. Manning, an associate professor in Bowling Green State University's Department of Sociology, summarizes what is known about cohabitation and its effects on children. She describes how some people view “cohabiting-couple” households (that is, unmarried couples cohabiting with a biological child of at least one of the adults) as a two-parent family form and that one of the major goals of the 1996 welfare reform law was to encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. The main sources of data she uses are the Current Population Survey (CPS), the Decennial Census, the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH), and the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG).
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Wendy D. Manning is an associate professor of sociology at Bowling Green State University and director of the Center for Family and Demographic Research. She is a family demographer whose research focuses on the role of cohabitation in the American family system in terms of marriage, childbearing, and child well-being.
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Manning, W.D. Cohabitation and child Well-Being. Gender Issues 23, 21–34 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03186775
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03186775