ABSTRACT

Zill (this volume, chap. 10) uses data from several major United States data sets to summarize very clearly the evidence that variations in current family composition are linked to variations in current child outcomes. He considers both academic performance and behavior problems and presents evidence that children living with their two biological parents currently fare better on average than children in other common family arrangements—including mother–stepfather families and mothers rearing children alone. He draws attention to the need to control background factors that may be correlated with family income and investigates several mediating pathways by which these family composition differences in child outcomes are produced. In explaining mediating factors, Zill mentions parental conflict and parents’ emotional adjustment but devotes most of his discussion to family income and parent–child interaction; he argues that although the poorer economic circumstances of mother-only families help to explain some of the observed differences in child outcomes, these income differences do not go far in explaining the worse outcomes of mother–stepfather families. Zill emphasizes the need to consider the extent to which differences in family interaction patterns, parental investments, and parental involvement may account for differences in family outcomes; he summarizes national evidence suggesting both that families with varying composition differ, on average, on parent-child relationships and parental involvement in school-related activities and that these factors are important in affecting children’s outcomes.