parental reports of adolescent well-being

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Parental Reports of Adolescent Well-BeingMarion C. Willetts PhD a & Nick G. Maroules JD, PhD aa Department ofSociology and Anthropology , Illinois StateUniversity , Campus Box 4660, Normal, IL, 61790-4660, USAPublished online: 23 Sep 2008.

To cite this article: Marion C. Willetts PhD & Nick G. Maroules JD, PhD (2005) Parental Reportsof Adolescent Well-Being, Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 43:1-2, 129-148, DOI: 10.1300/J087v43n01_07

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Parental Reportsof Adolescent Well-Being:

Does Marital Status Matter?

Marion C. WillettsNick G. Maroules

ABSTRACT. We analyze data from the 1999 wave of the National Sur-vey of America’s Families (NSAF) to compare parental reports of the psy-chological well-being and attitudes toward school of 12- to 17-year-oldadolescents residing with a cohabiting versus a remarried mother (mater-nal stepfamilies), and those residing with a cohabiting versus a remarriedfather (paternal stepfamilies). In maternal stepfamilies, cohabiting stepfa-thers report more positive adolescent attitudes toward school than do re-married mothers, cohabiting mothers, and remarried stepfathers. Nodifferences in parental reports of adolescent psychological well-being orattitudes toward school are found in paternal cohabiting and marriedstepfamilies. Instead, in both cohabiting and married stepfamilies, thewell-being of the parent is important in predicting his/her report of thepsychological well-being of adolescents, and parental reports of problemswith the adolescent and the adolescent’s participation in extracurricularactivities predict both adolescent psychological well-being and attitudestoward school. Adolescents in cohabiting and married stepfamilies arenot affected differentially by the Most Knowledgeable Adult’s (MKA)

Marion C. Willetts, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Sociology (E-mail: [email protected]) and Nick G. Maroules, JD, PhD, is Department Chair and Associate Profes-sor of Sociology (E-mail: [email protected]), both at Illinois State University, De-partment of Sociology and Anthropology, Campus Box 4660, Normal, IL 61790-4660.

Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, Vol. 43(1/2) 2005Available online at http://www.haworthpress.com/web/JDR

© 2005 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.Digital Object Identifier: 10.1300/J087v43n01_07 129

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well-being, problems with the adolescent, and participation in extracur-ricular activities. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Docu-ment Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2005 byThe Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

KEYWORDS. Adolescent well-being, cohabitation, remarriage

INTRODUCTION

Remarriage always has been practiced in the U.S. Prior to the 1970s,remarriage occurred after the death of a spouse; since then, however, re-marriage more commonly follows divorce (Cherlin, 1992). Indeed, by1987, the vast majority (91%) of men and women who were remarryingwere doing so after divorce (Cherlin), and approximately half of U.S.marriages are remarriages for either one or both spouses (Bumpass,Sweet, & Martin, 1990).

According to Cherlin (1992), the remarriage rate has fallen and re-mained relatively stable, however, since its peak in the 1970s. And,while the majority of divorced men and women do remarry eventually(three-fourths and two-thirds, respectively), many are instead cohabit-ing as an alternative to legal remarriage (Bumpass, Raley, & Sweet,1995; Bumpass, Sweet, & Cherlin, 1991). Indeed, cohabitation hascompletely offset declining rates of remarriage (Bumpass et al., 1991).As a result, we may be witnessing “a trend toward the deinstitutional-ization of remarriage” (Cherlin & Furstenberg, 1994, p. 362).

These social developments subsequently have contributed to a con-cern among some social observers (e.g., The National Marriage Project,1999; Popenoe, 2001a, 2001b; Popenoe & Whitehead, 2002; Waite &Gallagher, 2000; Wilson, 2002) that the institution of legal marriage(both first and higher-order marriage) is under assault. These research-ers assert that marriage “is losing much of its status and authority as asocial institution” (The National Marriage Project, 1999), as “unencum-bered individualism and self-fulfillment” (Popenoe, 2001b) have re-sulted in a “growing plurality of intimate relationships . . . buryingmarriage within this general category” (The National Marriage Project,1999). These commentators argue that marriage is a much more sociallybeneficial union, however, as “marriage, unlike cohabitation, producesinvestments” (Wilson, 2002, p. 5). That is, because dissolving a mar-

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riage (or remarriage) is legally time-consuming and costly, whereas dis-solving a cohabiting union is relatively easy, couples will invest moreheavily in a marital union, precisely due to the “heightened costs ofexit” from marriage (Wilson, 2002, p. 5).

EFFECTS OF COHABITATIONAND REMARRIAGE ON CHILDREN

These commentators are concerned in particular with how the de-cline of (re)marriage may affect children. Prior research has found thatchildren in two-parent families (whether married or unmarried) inwhich only one parent is related biologically to the child(ren) exhibitlower levels of well-being (defined largely in terms of school perfor-mance, school behavioral problems, and economic well-being) than dochildren in families in which both parents are biologically related to thechildren and are married. The majority of past research, however, hascompared adolescents in intact versus non-intact (including divorced,mother-stepfather, father-stepmother, and biological parent-nonrela-tive) families, without differentiating among the various forms of non-intact families (e.g., Jang, 1999; Miller & Volk, 2002). Studies that havecompared children in intact and remarried families have found thatthose who live with a parent who remarries (approximately nine percentof all children in the U.S.; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2002) are morelikely than those living in intact families to drop out of high school(McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994), to exhibit lower academic perfor-mance (Astone & McLanahan, 1991), to have greater behavioral andemotional problems (Hanson, McLanahan, & Thomson, 1996), andteenage girls are more likely to become pregnant (though substantively,the differences are not large; McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994).

In addition, prior research indicates that children living with a cohab-iting parent and his/her partner (approximately 5 percent of all childrenin the U.S.; U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2002) fare worse in certain re-spects than do those living with intact parents. Compared to childrenliving in intact families, those living with a cohabiting mother and herpartner (the typical form of a cohabiting parental household) exhibitlower levels of academic performance and more problems in school(Thomson, Hanson, & McLanahan, 1994), though they do not differstatistically from children in intact families with regard to behavioraland emotional problems (Clark & Nelson, 2000; Dunifon & Kawaleski-Jones, 2000; Hanson, McLanahan, & Thomson, 1997). Also, children

Marion C. Willetts and Nick G. Maroules 131

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living with a cohabiting mother and her partner are just as likely to bepoor as are those living with a single mother (Manning & Lichter, 1996).

Various theoretical rationales have been proposed to explain the del-eterious effects on children of residing in stepfamilies (cohabiting ormarried) versus intact families. According to Coleman and colleagues(Coleman, Ganong, & Fine, 2000), these rationales may be conceptual-ized as variations on stress models, parenting style, parental involve-ment, and selection.

According to stress model theories, adolescent well-being is lower instepfamilies due to additional stresses placed on children in these fami-lies, which include changes in residence, adjusting to new householdmembers, cumulative changes in the custodial parent’s relationship sta-tus, conflict between divorced parents, economic stress, and ill-definedrights and responsibilities of stepfamily members that make interactionmore problematic (see Coleman et al., 2000, for a more thoroughdiscussion). An additional stress is the psychological well-being of theparents. Although children of depressed parents exhibit lower levelsof psychological well-being and more behavioral problems than dochildren of non-depressed parents regardless of family structure(Downey & Coyne, 1990; Welsh-Allis & Ye, 1988), depressed par-ents are more likely than are non-depressed parents to experience fam-ily disruption (Rutter & Quinton, 1984), making children of divorcemore likely than those in intact families to experience parental depres-sion. As a result, children in stepfamilies experience lower levels ofpsychological well-being than do children in intact families.

Parenting style may be conceptualized as one dimension of JamesColeman’s (1990) social capital theory, and refers to the quality of theemotional bond between the parents and children, as well as the extentto which parents are supportive of and/or strict with their children(Coleman et al., 2000). Adolescents who enjoy strong emotional bondsto their parents (which may be operationalized as a lack of conflict be-tween the parent and the adolescent) exhibit higher levels of well-beingthan do those with weak emotional bonds (De Li, 1999; Hirschi, 1969).Again, because the relationship between a stepparent and stepchild typi-cally is weaker emotionally than that between a biologically-relatedparent and child (Coleman et al., 2000), and due to the ill-defined natureof stepfamily relationships, according to social capital theory, the well-being of adolescents in stepfamilies is lower than that of adolescents inintact families.

Parental involvement, another dimension of Coleman’s (1990) so-cial capital theory, focuses on the transmission of resources (such as


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time and energy) that parents invest in their children. Prior research(Willetts & Maroules, 2004; Wright, Cullen, & Miller, 2001) that hasapplied this theory to explain adolescent delinquency has found thatparents who invest more social capital into their children are morelikely to have non-delinquent youth. Stepparents interact less withtheir stepchildren and devote fewer resources to them (Coleman et al.,2000). Thus, higher levels of social capital are transmitted from par-ents to their children in intact families than in stepfamilies, which re-sult in higher levels of well-being in intact versus cohabiting or marriedstepfamilies.

Finally, selection argues that certain children are predisposed to find-ing themselves in stepfamilies. More specifically, stepchildren experi-enced lower levels of well-being prior to becoming members of co-habiting or married stepfamilies, and they brought their pre-existingproblems with them into their parents’ new relationships (Coleman etal., 2000).

Well-being among adolescents residing in cohabiting stepfamiliesversus married stepfamilies has not been studied as extensively, and theresults of research that has been conducted are mixed. For example,some research (Thomson, McLanahan, & Curtin, 1992) has found thatcohabiting stepfathers spend less time with their stepchildren in orga-nized children’s activities outside of the home (but not inside the home)than do married stepfathers, whereas other research (Buchanan, Mac-coby, & Dornbusch, 1996) found no differences between cohabitingand married stepfathers with regard to activities with children. Also,Thomson and colleagues (Thomson et al., 1992) found that the childrenof cohabiting stepfamilies benefit from somewhat more parental super-vision than do the children of remarriages, although Buchanan and col-leagues (Buchanan et al., 1996) found no differences in terms ofparental supervision. Adolescents in cohabiting stepfamilies are morelikely to be suspended or expelled from school (Clark & Nelson, 2000),but may (Clark & Nelson, 2000) or may not (Hanson et al., 1997) expe-rience lower levels of academic achievement. Children in cohabitingstepfamilies also may be more likely to exhibit behavioral or emotionalproblems than are children in married stepfamilies (Brown, 2002),though other researchers (e.g., Hanson et al., 1997; Thomson et al.,1994; Willetts & Maroules, 2004) have found no differences, particu-larly once socioeconomic and parenting characteristics are controlled.Finally, some research (Buchanan et al., 1996) has found that the chil-dren of a cohabiting stepfather feel emotionally less close to that parentthan do the children of a married stepfather, and also express less accep-


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tance of the cohabiting stepfather’s authority, although cohabiting un-ions and remarriages are equally likely to dissolve, and both types ofunions exhibit greater instability than first marriages (Bumpass et al.,1995; Cherlin, 1992; Manning, 2002; Popenoe & Whitehead, 2002).

Differences in well-being between adolescents in cohabiting versusmarried stepfamilies may be due to socio-economic status and/or to theabsence of a legal bond tying the cohabiting parent with his/her partner.Although cohabitation is selective of couples of lower economic status,and household income is lower in cohabiting stepfamilies than in mar-ried stepfamilies (Manning, 2002), social class explains only some ofthe differences between family structure and child well-being (Brown,2002). Similar to remarriage, cohabitation is an “incomplete institu-tion” (Cherlin, 1978) because the social roles and responsibilities of co-habiting partners (as with remarried spouses) are not well defined(Nock, 1995). Furthermore, the lack of a legal tie between the cohabit-ing partners may exacerbate further the ambiguity of stepfamily rela-tionships, reducing the well-being of children in cohabiting stepfamiliesas a result. Thus, stresses, parental involvement, and parenting style arecritical to understanding whether and why children of cohabiting step-families fare worse than do children of married stepfamilies.

In this paper, we contribute to the research on remarriage by compar-ing parental reports of adolescent psychological well-being and atti-tudes toward school in maternal cohabiting and married stepfamilies, inaddition to comparing parental reports of adolescents in paternal cohab-iting and married stepfamilies (we compare maternal stepfamilies sepa-rately from paternal stepfamilies in order to control for differences inthe gender of the biological parent). The purpose of this research is todetermine whether there are benefits to adolescents in parental remar-riage versus cohabitation. We also explore how stresses (i.e., parentaldepression), parenting style (i.e., frequency of problems between theparent and the adolescent), and parental involvement (i.e., adolescentparticipation in extracurricular activities) contribute to parental reportsof adolescent psychological well-being and attitudes toward school (thedata preclude testing for selection), and whether these factors are expe-rienced differentially in cohabiting and married stepfamilies.

HYPOTHESES

Based on the literature reviewed above, we test the following hypoth-eses in this study. For both hypotheses, we predict that despite some


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mixed results comparing the well-being of adolescents residing in co-habiting versus married stepfamilies, the lack of a legal bond betweenthe cohabiting parent and his/her partner will result in parental reportsof lower levels of adolescent psychological well-being and more nega-tive attitudes toward school due to the weaker emotional bond betweena cohabiting stepparent and an adolescent (Buchanan et al., 1996). Aweaker bond results in less parental influence over the adolescent,which may result in parental reports of lower levels of adolescent psy-chological well-being and poorer attitudes toward school. We expect aweaker bond between a cohabiting stepparent and an adolescent regard-less of whether the adolescent is residing with his/her biological motheror biological father.

1. Cohabiting parents will report lower levels of adolescent psycho-logical well-being than will remarried parents.

2. Cohabiting parents will report poorer adolescent attitudes towardschool than will remarried parents.

DATA AND METHODS

Participants. Data for this study are from the 1999 wave of the Na-tional Survey of America’s Families (NSAF). The NSAF includes datafrom over 40,000 households, and is representative of the noninstitu-tionalized population under the age of 65 in the U.S. overall and in thefollowing 13 states in particular: Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida,Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, New Jersey, NewYork, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin. Most of the data were col-lected via telephone interviews; a supplementary area sample also wasincluded to collect data from households without telephones. Adoles-cent data were collected from the adult in the household who is mostknowledgeable of the adolescent (Most Knowledgeable Adult, orMKA); data concerning the parent and stepparent in the household werealso gathered from the MKA (Urban Institute, n.d.). Households below200% of the poverty line were oversampled, as were households in theabove 13 states, households with children, and those with telephones.

For the purposes of this project, we operationalize cohabiting motherhouseholds as those in which an adolescent’s biological mother is resid-ing with a male partner who is not the biological father of the adoles-cent, whereas remarried mother households are those in which anadolescent’s biological mother is residing with a husband who is not the


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biological father of the adolescent. We operationalize cohabiting fatherhouseholds as those in which an adolescent’s biological father is resid-ing with a female partner who is not the biological mother of the adoles-cent, whereas remarried father households are those in which anadolescent’s biological father is residing with a wife who is not the bio-logical mother of the adolescent. We restricted the sample to thosehouseholds with an adolescent between the ages of 12 to 17. These op-erational definitions resulted in a sample of 842 cohabiting-motherhouseholds, 2,057 remarried-mother households, 268 cohabiting-fatherhouseholds, and 898 remarried-father households.

The purpose of this project is to compare parental reports of well-beingand attitudes toward school among adolescents living in cohabiting andmarried stepfamilies, rather than to make projections about their repre-sentation in the population; thus, the data in all analyses are unweighted.Weighting the data would result in a smaller sample of adolescents in co-habiting-father stepfamilies in particular, thereby reducing the power ofthe statistical tests. Furthermore, according to Winship and Radbill(1994), when disproportionate sampling criterion is one of the independ-ent variables (i.e., parental marital status), weights are not necessary ordesirable.

Measures. Two additive indices serve as the dependent variables inthe analyses. First, parental reports of adolescent psychological well-being are measured by five items assessing the frequency at which theadolescent has trouble sleeping, lies, or cheats, doesn’t get along withother children, cannot concentrate, and is sad or depressed. The MostKnowledgeable Adult (MKA) reports on the frequency that the adoles-cent experiences each problem. Each item ranges from a value of 1, in-dicating that the adolescent often experiences the particular problem, toa value of 3, indicating that the adolescent never experiences that prob-lem. These five items were combined into an additive index (alpha =.69), ranging from a value of 5 to a value of 15.

The second additive index in the analysis measures parental reportsregarding their adolescents’ attitudes toward school. The Most Knowl-edgeable Adult (MKA) reports on the frequency at which the adolescentcares to do well in school (reverse coded), only does schoolwork whenforced, always does homework (reverse coded), and does a minimalamount of schoolwork. Each item ranges from a value of 1, indicatingthat the adolescent holds that particular attitude toward school all of thetime, to a value of 4, indicating that the adolescent holds that particularattitude toward school none of the time. These items were combined


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into an additive index (alpha = .80), ranging from a value of 4 to a valueof 16.

We include numerous independent variables in our analysis. First,we include an index measuring the psychological well-being of theMost Knowledgeable Adult (MKA) in order to measure the extent towhich stresses exist in the household that may affect the adolescent’swell-being and attitudes toward school. The MKA reports on how fre-quently in the past month he/she felt nervous, calm, or peaceful (reversecoded), downhearted, happy (reverse coded), and could not be cheeredup. Each item ranges from a value of 1, indicating that the MKA felt thatway all of the time, to a value of 4, indicating that the MKA felt that waynone of the time. These five items were combined into an additive index(alpha = .81) ranging from a value of 5 to a value of 20. Second, we in-clude an index measuring the extent of problems the MKA experienceswith the adolescent, in order to measure the extent to which parentalstyle has an impact on adolescent well-being and attitudes towardschool. The MKA reports on how often (using the same answer catego-ries as were employed for MKA psychological well-being) the childbothers the MKA, how often the MKA feels angry with the child, howfrequently the MKA and child argue, how frequently the MKA feelshe/she gives up a lot for the child, and how often the MKA feels thechild is much harder to raise than most others. These five items werecombined into an additive index (alpha = .68), ranging from a value of 5to a value of 20. Third, we include an additive index measuring whetherthe adolescent participated in extracurricular activities in the last year,defined as participation in sports, lessons, or clubs. This measure teststhe extent to which parental involvement is important in predicting ado-lescent well-being and attitudes toward school. A value of 1 on eachmeasure indicates that the adolescent did participate in that activity,whereas a value of 0 indicates that the adolescent did not participate inthat activity. The index ranges from a value of 0 to a value of 3. Al-though we expect the items within this index to be correlated, thesemeasures are designed to demonstrate the extent of participation in ex-tracurricular activities, rather than to demonstrate correlation. Thus, re-liability tests are not applicable.

We also include a series of demographic control variables in the anal-ysis. Number of relatives residing in the household and total householdincome are included as additional proxies for stresses. We also includeattendance at religious services (measured in days/year) as an additionalmeasure of parental involvement, the age of the adolescent, the age ofthe Most Knowledgeable Adult (MKA), the adolescent’s gender, the


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MKA’s gender, and the adolescent’s race (measured as 0 for Anglo and1 for Non-Anglo, due to a small number of adolescents residing with co-habiting fathers who are either African American or of other racial iden-tities).

Finally, because all of these measures may be experienced differen-tially by parents and adolescents in the various types of stepfamilies, weinclude interaction terms of parental marital status by each of the othermeasures in the analysis.

RESULTS

We first conducted t-tests to compare parental reports of adoles-cents residing in maternal cohabiting and married stepfamilies, andalso to compare parental reports of adolescents residing in paternal co-habiting and married stepfamilies (see Table 1). Compared to the MostKnowledgeable Adults (MKA) in maternal married stepfamilies, theMKAs in maternal cohabiting stepfamilies report that the adolescentexhibits poorer attitudes toward school, and also self-report lower lev-els of their own psychological well-being. Furthermore, the MKA re-ports a greater number of problems with the adolescent in maternalcohabiting stepfamilies as opposed to maternal married stepfamilies.Adolescents in maternal married stepfamilies are more likely to en-gage in extracurricular activities, reside with a greater number of rela-tives, attend religious services more frequently, and are slightly olderthan are adolescents residing in maternal cohabiting stepfamilies. TheMKA in maternal married stepfamilies is somewhat older than is theMKA in maternal cohabiting stepfamilies. Finally, the MKA is morelikely to be the biological mother in maternal cohabiting stepfamilies,compared to maternal married stepfamilies.

Fewer differences were found in paternal stepfamilies with regard toparental reports of adolescent well-being and attitudes toward school.According to the Most Knowledgeable Adult (MKA), adolescents re-siding with a remarried biological father and his wife live with a highernumber of relatives than do those living with a cohabiting biological fa-ther and his partner. The MKAs in paternal married stepfamilies reporta slightly higher frequency of attendance at religious services. TheMKA is more likely to be male in paternal cohabiting stepfamilies thanin paternal married stepfamilies; however, the adolescent is more likelyto be female. Adolescents in paternal cohabiting stepfamilies are morelikely to be Anglo than are adolescents in paternal married stepfamilies.


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ns

139

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In the following paragraphs, we discuss the results of the OLS regres-sion models. On the first step, we enter all variables into the model. Onsubsequent steps, we add a single interaction term to separate models(in order to avoid multicollinearity problems).

Maternal Stepfamilies: Psychological Well-Being. As noted above,the t-tests indicate that the Most Knowledgeable Adults (MKAs) in ma-ternal cohabiting and married stepfamilies report no significant differ-ences among adolescents in terms of their psychological well-being.When conducting an OLS regression with all variables (with the excep-tion of interaction terms) entered into the model, maternal marital statuscontinues to be nonsignificant (see Table 2, Psychological Well-BeingModel). The psychological well-being of the MKA is significant: MKAswith self-reported high levels of psychological well-being report thattheir adolescents also exhibit high levels of psychological well-being.The experience of problems between the MKA and the adolescent also issignificant: MKAs who report few problems with the adolescent also re-port high levels of adolescent psychological well-being. Participation inextracurricular activities also is important, in that high participation is as-sociated with high levels of adolescent psychological well-being. TheMKAs of older adolescents report higher levels of adolescent psycholog-ical well-being than do the MKAs of younger adolescents, and MKAswith daughters report higher levels of adolescent well-being than doMKAs with sons.

In subsequent models, none of the interaction terms attains signifi-cance (results not shown). These results indicate that the parental re-ports of psychological well-being of adolescents living in maternalcohabiting versus married stepfamilies are not affected differentially byMKA well-being, problems between the MKA and the adolescent, par-ticipation in extracurricular activities, or any of the demographic vari-ables.

Maternal Stepfamilies: Attitudes Toward School. As noted above,the t-tests indicated no significant difference in parental reports with re-gard to adolescent attitudes toward school between adolescents residingwith maternal cohabiting versus maternal married stepfamilies. Maternalmarital status continues to be nonsignificant in the OLS model with allvariables (with the exception of interaction terms) entered (see Table 2,Attitudes Toward School Model 1). The extent of problems between theadolescent and the Most Knowledgeable Adult (MKA) is significant,with those MKAs reporting few problems also reporting positive adoles-cent attitudes toward school. Furthermore, high levels of participation inextracurricular activities are associated with positive adolescent attitudes


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toward school. According to the MKA, older adolescents have poorer at-titudes toward school than do younger adolescents, and adolescent girlsexhibit more positive attitudes toward school than do adolescent boys.The age of the MKA is also important: Older MKAs report more positiveadolescent attitudes toward school than do younger MKAs.

One interaction term attained significance in a subsequent model.Maternal cohabiting stepfamilies in which the male partners are theMost Knowledgeable Adults (MKAs) report the most positive adoles-cent attitudes toward school, followed by remarried mothers who arealso the MKAs, closely followed by cohabiting mothers who are alsothe MKAs, and followed by remarried mothers in which the malespouses are the MKAs (it is important to note, however, that only 28MKAs in maternal cohabiting stepfamilies are male). These results sug-gest two possible interpretations. First, adolescents may thrive best aca-demically in a situation in which their biological mothers are cohabitingwith male partners who provide the information about the adolescent,whereas adolescents suffer the most academically in a situation inwhich their biological mothers are remarried to husbands who providethe information about the adolescent. More likely, however, since theMKA reports on the adolescent’s attitudes toward school, the male part-ners of cohabiting mothers are the most positive regarding the adoles-cents’ attitudes, whereas the male spouses of remarried mothers are themost negative.

Paternal Stepfamilies: Psychological Well-Being. As noted above,the t-tests indicated that parental reports show no significant differencesamong adolescents residing in paternal cohabiting versus paternal mar-ried stepfamilies with regard to adolescent psychological well-being.Paternal marital status continues to be nonsignificant in the OLS regres-sion model (see Table 2, Psychological Well-Being Model). The psy-chological well-being of the Most Knowledgeable Adult (MKA) issignificant: MKAs with high levels of self-reported psychological well-being report that their adolescents also exhibit high levels of psycholog-ical well-being. Furthermore, the extent of problems between the MKAand the adolescent is significant: the fewer the problems, the higher theadolescent’s psychological well-being. Participation in extracurricularactivities also is important, in that parents with adolescents who partici-pate in these activities report higher levels of adolescent psychologicalwell-being than do the parents of adolescents who do not participate.

None of the interaction terms attains significance in subsequent mod-els (results not shown).


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Paternal Stepfamilies: Attitudes Toward School. Recall that the t- testsindicated that parents report no differences between adolescents resid-ing in paternal cohabiting versus paternal married stepfamilies in termsof their attitudes toward school. Paternal marital status continues to benonsignificant in the OLS regression model (see Table 2, AcademicPerformance Model). Consistent with the models of maternal stepfami-lies, the psychological well-being of the Most Knowledgeable Adult(MKA) does not predict adolescent attitudes toward school. The extentof problems with the adolescent is significant: MKAs who report fewproblems with the adolescent also report more positive adolescent atti-tudes toward school. Furthermore, participation in extracurricular ac-tivities is again important: participation in such activities is associatedwith parental reports of more positive attitudes toward school amongadolescents. Again consistent with the maternal stepfamilies models,the age of the MKA is significant, in that older MKAs report more posi-tive attitudes toward school among adolescents than do younger MKAs.Gender of the adolescent is significant: parents of daughters report morepositive adolescent attitudes toward school than do parents of sons.Race also is important: parents of non-Anglo adolescents report morenegative adolescent attitudes toward school than do parents of Angloadolescents.

None of the interaction terms attains significance in subsequent mod-els (results not shown), indicating that parental reports of adolescent atti-tudes toward school are not affected differentially by whether the father iscohabiting or remarried.

DISCUSSION

This study compared parental reports of adolescent well-being andattitudes toward school among cohabiting versus remarried parents. Wehypothesized that the Most Knowledgeable Adult (MKA) in cohabitingstepfamilies would report lower levels of adolescent well-being andmore negative attitudes toward school compared to MKAs in marriedstepfamilies. We hypothesized this would be the case due to greaterstresses, a weaker parenting style, and less parental involvement that weexpected to be more common in cohabiting stepfamilies as a result of alack of a legal bond tying the parents together.

Our hypotheses were not supported. Indeed, with the exception ofone model, parental marital status never predicted parental reports ofadolescent psychological well-being or attitudes toward school (in the


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one exception, the male partners of cohabiting mothers reported morepositive adolescent attitudes toward school than did MKAs who wereremarried mothers, MKAs who were cohabiting mothers, and MKAswho were married to the adolescent’s biological mother). Instead, wefound that all three aspects of Coleman’s (1990) social capital theorywere supported. With regard to parenting style, MKA reports of prob-lems with the adolescent were the strongest predictor of parental reportsof adolescent psychological well-being and attitudes toward school inboth maternal and paternal stepfamilies, in that a high number of prob-lems were associated with lower levels of well-being and poorer atti-tudes toward school. In terms of parental stress, high levels of psycho-logical well-being among MKAs predicted MKA reports of high levelsof psychological well-being of adolescents in both maternal and pater-nal stepfamilies. And, with regard to parental involvement, MKA re-ports of frequent adolescent participation in extracurricular activitieswere associated with MKA reports of high levels of adolescent psycho-logical well-being and more positive attitudes toward school in bothmaternal and paternal stepfamilies. The MKA’s psychological well-be-ing more strongly predicted MKA reports of adolescent well-being inmaternal stepfamilies, whereas participation in extracurricular activi-ties more strongly predicted MKA reports of adolescent well-being inpaternal stepfamilies.

These results indicate that, at least in terms of parental reports of ado-lescent psychological well-being and attitudes toward school, remar-riage in and of itself provides no benefits over cohabitation. Instead,consistent with Willetts and Maroules (in press), stresses, parentingstyle, and parental involvement are important predictors of parental re-ports of adolescent psychological well-being and attitudes towardschool in both cohabiting and married stepfamilies. Thus, the quality ofparenting, rather than parental marital status, is important for adolescentwell-being–at least in terms of parental evaluations.

There are significant implications for public policy. Our results indi-cate that cohabitation is very much like remarriage in terms of parentalreports of adolescent well-being and attitudes toward school, suggest-ing that cohabitation may continue to erode rates of remarriage. Thismay be particularly the case since, as discussed earlier, cohabitation islegally easier to exit than is remarriage. Indeed, the rewards of cohabi-tation may be greater than the rewards of remarriage for adults, withsimilar costs in terms of parental reports of adolescent well-being andattitudes toward school. As (re)marriage continues to lose its culturalaura in U.S. society as the best method of coupling, challenges to exist-


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ing public policies that reward marriage and punish nonmarital forms ofcoupling may increase. For example, cohabitors may increasingly re-ceive the benefits of marriage that were accorded previously only to thelegally married, such as the ability to include a cohabiting partner andhis/her children under one’s health insurance policy, and similar rightsto inheritance.

There are several limitations to this study. Most importantly, ado-lescent well-being and attitudes toward school are measured only interms of the perceptions of the Most Knowledgeable Adult (MKA), asadolescents themselves are not surveyed. While it is likely that theMKA has an accurate perception of his/her adolescent’s well-beingand attitudes toward school, it is unlikely that the MKA perceptionsand the adolescent perceptions correlate perfectly. We chose to ana-lyze NSAF data, however, as it is the only data set known to the au-thors that includes enough cases to statistically analyze adolescents inpaternal cohabiting stepfamilies. Second, the NSAF does not includedata on complete parental union histories, so controlling for parentaltransitions into and out of various relationships and the length of thecurrent union was not possible (recall from earlier, however, that priorresearch indicates that cohabiting unions and remarriages are verysimilar with regard to stability). As a result, these data do not permit ananalysis of the importance of selection effects in predicting MKA re-ports of adolescent psychological well-being and attitudes towardschool. Third, the data set does not measure other dimensions of ado-lescent well-being, such as participation in delinquent activities andactual performance in school. Thus, these dimensions of adolescentwell-being remain unstudied in this research. Fourth, due to the sam-ple size of cohabiting fathers, racial/ethnic minorities were collapsedinto one category.

Despite these limitations, however, our research has contributed tothe current state of knowledge regarding the importance of parental co-habitation versus remarriage for adolescents by comparing parental re-ports of adolescent psychological well-being and attitudes towardschool among those in maternal cohabiting versus married stepfamilies,and those in paternal cohabiting versus married stepfamilies. Our re-search also emphasizes the importance of the quality of parenting forparental reports of adolescent well-being and attitudes toward school,regardless of parental marital status. In summary, our research has con-tributed to further exploration into the social importance of parenting,cohabitation, and remarriage.


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parental reports of adolescent well-being

Documents