ArticleAnnual review of sociology2019
Family Instability in the Lives of American Children.
Article in Annual review of sociology, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 44 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
44 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Childhood experiences and adult prayer or meditation in 22 countries around the world.Scientific reports · 2025Pooled it
- Failure to replicate effects of parent-delivered early language intervention: Evidence from a randomised controlled trial with implications for universal language intervention.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Type, number and timing of family structure transitions and their association with internalizing and externalizing problems in early adolescence: evidence from the French EDEN cohort.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Research on multiple family transitions: An overview.Family transitions (Philadelphia, Penn.) · 2026Article
- Life Course Dynamics in the Health of Mothers Raising Children with Serious Conditions.Journal of health and social behavior · 2026Article
- Family Structure and Cognitive Effort: Examining the Influence of Living with a Single Parent on Children's Task Engagement.Kolner Zeitschrift fur Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie · 2026Article
- Comparing the Role of Selection in Early Adolescent Substance Use Disparities Related to Single-Mother Family Structures Across Three Affluent Countries.Demography · 2025Article
- Dynamics of Adult Child-Mother Relationships in Emerging Adulthood by Gender and Race.Social psychology quarterly · 2025Article
- Psychometric Properties of the Coparenting Relationship Scale in Ecuadorian Parents.European journal of investigation in health, psychology and education · 2025Article
- HIV and Viremia Prevalence in Nonmigrating Members of Migrant Households in Southern Uganda: A Cross-Sectional Population-Based Study.Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999) · 2025Article
- Parental marital status and anxiety symptoms in adolescents: the mediating effect of childhood maltreatment.European archives of psychiatry and clinical neuroscience · 2024Article
- How Do Households Fare Economically When Mothers Become Their Primary Financial Support?Journal of family and economic issues · 2024Article
- Testing Whether Protective Parenting is a Causal Mediator of Intervention Effects on Decreased Delinquency Using a Randomized Prevention Trial.Justice quarterly : JQ · 2024Article
- Lost support, lost skills: Children's cognitive outcomes following grandparental death.Social science research · 2023Article
- Romantic Unions and Mental Health: The Role of Relationship Churning.Journal of health and social behavior · 2023Article
- Family Formation History and the Psychological Well-Being of Women from Diverse Racial-Ethnic Groups.Journal of health and social behavior · 2023Article
- Childhood Family Instability and Young-Adult Union Experiences: Black-White Differences in Outcomes and Effects.Demography · 2023Article
- Mothers' Nonstandard Work Schedules and Children's Behavior Problems: Divergent Patterns by Maternal Education.Research in social stratification and mobility · 2023Article
- Unpacking the linkages between single parent households and early adolescent adjustment.Social science research · 2023Article
- "The Italian Job": How Social, Family Cohesion, and the Church Have Helped Spare Italy from a Prescription Opioid Crisis.Journal of pain research · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Scholars have long looked to family composition to understand child well-being. Family instability, or the experience of repeated changes in parents' union status during childhood, represents a recent advance in this field that takes into account the dynamic nature of contemporary family organization and considers its implications for children's adjustment and development. We review some of the structural and cultural factors that have contributed to rising levels of family instability and highlight the emergence of national data to measure it. We then review the perspective that guides much of the scholarship on family instability and critically assess the contributions of this work to the understanding of child well-being. We close by suggesting new directions for research, with a call for work that broadens the conceptualization and measurement of contemporary children's family systems and home environments as well as the mechanisms that explain why-or whether-instability matters.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.