Family Structure and Adolescent Physical Health, Behavior, and Emotional Well-Being

This study uses data from the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine family structure's associations with adolescent physical health, behavior, and emotional well-being. Findings suggest that adolescents in most other family types tend to have poorer outcomes than those in two-biological-parent families. Adolescents living with their biological father but not their mother have similar outcomes to those living with their single, biological mother. Although transitioning to a single-parent family is adversely associated with multiple outcomes, few associations are found for other types of transitions, and there are few differences in adolescent outcomes by parental marital status. Estimates from models utilizing adolescent- and caregiver-reported outcome measures, though similar with regard to behavior problems, differ considerably with regard to physical health and emotional well-being such that those using adolescent reports suggest a stronger relation between family structure and adolescent well-being than those using caregiver reports.