New Irish study shows family structure matters after all
by David Quinn, Iona Institute:
It seems family structure matters after all. An important new paper from the ESRI devotes a chapter to this question, and after controlling for factors like poverty, it nonetheless finds that being raised in a two parent household as distinct from a one parent household can confer certain advantages on children.
The paper is called ‘Cherishing All the Children Equally’ and chapter 4 of the paper is entitled ‘Is Family Structure a Source of Inequality in Children’s Lives’? The chapter uses data based on the ‘Growing Up in Ireland’ longitudinal study and looks at children aged 9 and 13 to find out whether the answer to the chapter’s question is ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It finds out that the answer is yes, family structure is a source of inequality in children’s lives.
The authors do their very best to try and explain the different outcomes for children raised in different family structures in other ways. They ask whether socio-economic background makes a difference, and it does.
They ask whether the mental health of the mother makes a difference, and it does. But even after controlling for these two things, the authors still end up drawing the conclusion “that family structure does indeed represent a source of inequality in children’s lives, and places children in single parent households at risk of poorer developmental outcomes” compared with children raised in two parent households.
This conclusion is extremely important because for years Irish academics, among others, have been extremely slow to say family structure affects children. This is probably because of the way in which single parent families were stigmatised in the past.
See also
Hijacking science: How the “No Differences” consensus about same sex households and children works, by Mark Regnerus, Public Discourse
Children of absent parents more likely to smoke and drink – study, by Nicola Davis, Guardian
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