Does Children's Academic Achievement Improve when Single Mothers Marry?

Promoting marriage, especially among low-income single mothers with children, is increasingly viewed as a promising public policy strategy for improving developmental outcomes for disadvantaged children. Previous research suggests, however, that children's academic achievement either does not i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sociology of education 2010-07, Vol.83 (3), p.201-226
Main Authors: Wagmiller, Robert L., Gershoff, Elizabeth, Veliz, Philip, Clements, Margaret
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic Achievement
Achievement Gains
Child Development
Child growth
Child poverty
Childhood
Children
Children & youth
Disadvantaged
Disadvantaged Youth
Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey
Families & family life
Family Environment
Family Influence
Family Structure
General studies
Individual Characteristics
Kindergarten
Kindergarten education
Longitudinal Studies
Low Income Groups
Marital Status
Marriage
Mathematics
Mathematics Achievement
Mothers
One Parent Family
Only children
Parental investment
Parents
Public Policy
Reading Achievement
Single Mothers
Single Parent Family
Single parents
Socioeconomic Influences
Sociology
Sociology of education. Educational systems. Lifelong education
Sociology of the family. Age groups
Young Children
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Summary:Promoting marriage, especially among low-income single mothers with children, is increasingly viewed as a promising public policy strategy for improving developmental outcomes for disadvantaged children. Previous research suggests, however, that children's academic achievement either does not improve or declines when single mothers marry. In this article, the authors argue that previous research may understate the benefits of mothers' marriages to children from single-parent families because (1) the short-term and long-term developmental consequences of marriage are not adequately distinguished and (2) child and family contexts in which marriage is likely to confer developmental advantages are not differentiated from those that do not. Using multiple waves of data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), the authors find that single mothers' marriages are associated with modest but statistically significant improvements in their children's academic achievement trajectories. However, only children from more advantaged single-parent families benefit from their mothers' marriage.
ISSN:0038-0407
1939-8573
DOI:10.1177/0038040710375686