The Influence of Grandparents in Single-Mother Families.

This article examines whether children living with single mothers benefit when they also live with a grandparent, using data from the 1979 to 2002 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth merged mother-child file (N = 6,501). Results indicate that for White children, living with a single mother and a grandparent is associated with increased cognitive stimulation and higher reading recognition scores, compared to living with a single mother alone. For Black children, grandparent coresidence is associated with less cognitive stimulation. Thus, in some instances, living with a grandparent can benefit children, but the pattern of results differs by race. Key Words: children, family structure, grandparents, race, single parent. Considerable policy and research attention has examined the role of marriage in the lives of adults and children. In particular, policy activity associated with welfare reform has been influenced by research evidence (McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994; Waite & Gallagher, 2000), executive priorities, and popular opinion that a married family setting benefits children and the families in which they live, and that living with a single parent is harmful for children. All single-parent households are not alike, however. In particular, 13% of children living with a single parent also have a grandparent in the household (U.S. Census Bureau, 2005). It is currently not known whether living with a grandparent benefits these children, and whether such children fare as well as those living with married parents or whether they are more similar to children of single mothers living alone. The goal of this study is to examine these issues, focusing on the development of children living with a single mother and a grandparent. Understanding the role of grandparents in single-mother families is important at a time when federal expenditures on programs designed to promote marriage are on the rise (Dion, 2005). Such programs are based on the assumption that living with two married parents is better for children than living with a single mother. The results from this study will allow us to understand whether this assumption holds for the substantial subgroup of children who live with a single mother and a grandparent, thereby informing policy activity in this area. Using data from the 1979 to 2002 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) merged mother-child file, we examine children living in three-generation households and evaluate differences in outcomes between these children and those living with a single mother alone, and those living with married parents, using lifetime measures capturing the total number of years a child has lived in various family structures. All analyses are performed separately by race and also address issues of potential bias from omitted variables. To measure child functioning, we focus on three measures of children's cognitive achievement, as well as a measure of the amount of cognitive stimulation provided in the home. We examine test scores because they are relatively objective; specifically, each child is administered an identical assessment, and differences across children are attributable solely to the child's ability to complete the assessment. In contrast, measures such as behavior problems rely on maternal reports and therefore could be influenced by mothers' emotional well-being, parenting styles, or other factors that may also be related to children's living arrangements. Additionally, test scores provide an important measure of child development that is closely linked to future educational and eventual occupational success. We include in our analysis the measure of cognitive stimulation in order to examine if the provision of cognitive stimulation in the home differs across family living arrangements, and whether it accounts for any associations between family structure and children's test scores. Other research has noted that grandparent residence may result in less positive parenting (e. …