Consequences of Young Mothers' Marital Histories for Children's Cognitive Development

Bibliographic Data

ID2589786
AuthorsElizabeth C Cooksey (0000-0001-6919-8375, corresponding author)
Year1997
Volume59
Issue2
Pages245
Publication date1997-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Marriage and the Family (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-2445 • E-ISSN: 1741-3737
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/353468
OpenAlexW2168901226
LanguageEN
Citations received34
References cited33

The research attention paid to adolescent parents and their children stems, in part, from a concern over potentially missed opportunities and hence curtailed achievement for young parents and a worry that this will increase odds of poor developmental outcomes for children. Using data from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this article focuses on marital histories of young mothers and whether family structure into which children of young mothers are born and stability of that arrangement during child's life affect his or her academic abilities during early school years. Is marital bond important for children? Do changes in a mother's marital status influence child development? And most importantly, if so, what is process through which marital history affects child cognitive development? Results suggest children of young mothers are affected by marital histories, although children born and raised within continuously married families do not always show significantly better academic outcomes. Nonmarital childbearing is negatively associated with cognitive performance but affects children primarily through human, economic, and social resources. Key Words: children's cognitive development, mother's marital histories. As recent research of Smith and his colleagues underscores, one of greatest changes in family background of new cohorts of Americans is their parents' marital status at their (Smith, Morgan, & Koropeckyj-Cox, 1996). This holds true especially for children of young mothers. Back in late 1950s, for example, more than 85% of teen mothers were married by time they gave birth. In 1990, 59% of births to White women and 89% of those to Black women aged 15-19 were out of wedlock (U.S. Bureau of Census, 1990). Despite declining birthrates among American teenagers since peak years of late 1950s (Nathanson, 1991), close to half a million teenage women give birth each year in United States. The birthrate among American teens is also much higher than in other comparable Westernized democracies. In 1992, for example, U.S. teen birthrate was 61 per 1,000 in comparison with a mere 6 per 1,000 in Netherlands, 9 in France, 15 in Norway, and 32 in Great Britain (Moore, 1995). The way in which young women choose to resolve their pregnancies has implications for future familial organization (Cooksey, 1990). So too do their subsequent marital decisions because a mother being married at her child's birth does not ensure presence of two parents throughout childhood, especially when couples marry at young ages (Castro Martin & Bumpass, 1989). Namboodiri (1987) describes early adulthood as the floundering phase of life course, and first marriage, divorce, and remarriage rates are all disproportionately concentrated in these young adult years (Rindfuss, 1991). For significant numbers of children, especially those of very young mothers, these types of marital transitions impact their lives heavily because they not only translate into changes in their family and household composition, but also result in changed levels of resources available in their home environment (Menaghan & Parcel, 1995). Further research then shows that a child's home environment can have a profound effect on his or her cognitive development. (See, for example, Bradley & Caldwell, 1984,1987; Parcel & Menaghan, 1990.) Given demographic trends of changing marriage, divorce, and remarriage rates and rising levels of cohabitation and out-of-wedlock childbearing, recent research has looked at effects of family composition and family change on various aspects of children's lives. (See, for example, Amato, 1993; Amato & Keith, 1991; Baydar, 1988; Cherlin & Furstenberg, 1994; Cooksey & Fondell, 1996; Demo & Acock, 1988; Furstenberg & Cherlin, 1991; Furstenberg, Morgan, & Allison, 1987; McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994; Mott, 1993, 1994; Seltzer, 1994; Thomson, Hanson, & McLanahan, 1994

Affect (linguistics · Cognition · Cognitive development · Developmental psychology · Logistic regression · Odds · Sociology · Worry · Cognitive Abilities and Testing · Demography · Family Dynamics and Relationships · Intergenerational Family Dynamics and Caregiving · Medicine · Psychology

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