1. Are the Kids All Right?
An Analysis of the Effects of
Adolescent Family Structure on
Adult Psychological Wellbeing
Margaret Matthews
Skidmore College
2. Hypothesis
Adults who lived with both parents at age 16
will report having better psychological wellbeing
than those who did not.
3. Life Course Disruption Theory
Ross and Mirowsky (1999) and Bachman, Coley, and Carrano (2012)
Disruptive life events create distress, with
higher disruption causing more distress.
Family disruption results in major life changes
such as living with a single parent, moving
homes, and introduction into a new blended
family.
4. Anomie: The Anomic Family
Emile Durkheim (1897), Lester D. Jaffe (1963), and Frederich V. Wenz (1978)
Feelings of normlessness result from a family
that is disintegrated or lacking of accepted
values. The individual struggles to relearn how
to self-regulate or adjust to the internal
disintegration
5. Research Methods
2014 General Social Survey
47% Response Rate
1,235 Respondents
Missing Data Excluded:
IAP
Don’t Know
No Answer
6. DV: Psychological Wellbeing
“Now thinking about
your mental health,
which includes stress,
depression, and
problems with
emotions, for how
many days during the
past 30 days was your
mental health not
good?”
Days Not Good Label
0 Outstanding
1-4 Very Good
5-9 Good
10-14 Slightly Good
15-19 Slightly Poor
20-24 Poor
25-30 Very Poor
7. Table 1. Psychological Wellbeing (in percentages)
Days Not Good Percent
0 64.1
1-4 15.4
5-9 7.8
10-14 3.7
15-19 2.3
20-24 1.7
25-30 4.9
Total 100.0
(N) (1235)
8. IV: Family Structure
“Were you living with
both your own mother
and father around the
time you were 16? (IF
NO: With whom were
you living around that
time?)”
Dummy coded:
Traditional= 1
Nontraditional= 0
Family Structure Percent
Mother & Father 64.9
Father & Stepmother 1.5
Mother & Stepfather 6.2
Father 2.9
Mother 19.1
Male Relative 0.2
Female Relative 1.0
Male & Female
Relatives
1.9
Other 2.3
Total 100.0
9. Table 2. Family Structure (in percentages)
Family Structure Percent
Traditional 64.9
Nontraditional 35.1
Total 100.0
(N) (1235)
10. Number of Siblings
“How many brothers and sisters did you have?
Please count those born alive, but no longer
living, as well as those alive now. Also include
stepbrothers and stepsisters, and children
adopted by your parents.”
Range: 0-25
11. Table 3. Number of Siblings (in percentages)
Siblings Percent
0 3.1
1 18.3
2 22.1
3 16.9
4 11.9
5 8.4
6 6.2
7 4.0
8 2.8
9+ 6.2
Total 100.0
(N) (1235)
12. Table 4. Age (in percentages)
Age Percent
18-35 31.7
36-55 44.7
56-89 23.6
Total 100.0
(N) (1235)
16. Table 6. Race (in percentages)
Race Percent
White 73.5
Other 26.5
Total 100.0
(N) (1235)
17. Table 7. Means and Standard Deviations for
Psychological Wellbeing, Family Structure,
Siblings, Age, Gender, and Race (N=1235)
Variable Mean SD
Psychological Wellbeing 3.34 7.23
Traditional Family .65 .48
Siblings 3.60 2.81
Age 44.09 13.43
Women .51 .50
White .74 .44
18. Table 8. Correlations (r) between Psychological Wellbeing
and Family Structures plus Gender, Age, Number of Siblings,
and Race (listwise deletion, two-tailed test, N=1235)
*p < .01
Traditional
Family
Number of
Siblings
Age Woman White
Psychological
Wellbeing
-.093* .018 -.098* .038 .013
Traditional
Family
-.189* .161* -.029 .194*
Number of
Siblings
.124* .066 -.187*
Age -.004 .126*
Women -.061
19. Table 9. Regression of Psychological
Wellbeing on Traditional Family and All
Variables
R 2 = .019; F(5,1229) = 4.780; p < .01
*p < .01
b β
Traditional Family -1.242 -.082*
Age -.050 -.093*
Number of Siblings .052 .020
Women .538 .037
White .759 .046
Constant 5.321
21. Conclusion
Hypothesis Supported!
Adults who grow up in a traditional family are
more likely to report better psychological
wellbeing than adults whose families did not
consist of both biological or adoptive parents.
25. Acknowledgements
Thank you to Professor Catherine Berheide for your
continual input and support. Thanks to my Sociology
friends for working with me throughout the semester. It’s
been a pleasure learning alongside you all! Additional
thanks to Linda Santagato, Johanna Mackay, Professor
Rik Scarce, and my other friends and family for their
advice on my topic and work with the senior seminar
program. And of course, thank you to the entire Skidmore
Sociology department for being such an inspiration!
26. For more information, please contact:
Margaret Matthews
Skidmore College
Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
mmatthew@skidmore.edu
Thank You!
Editor's Notes
The family is an integral structure in childhood. Internal changes are addressed more fully through Anomie.
changes in self-identification and life story become a cause for distress.
Children may have difficulty understanding their social self when coming from families that stray from the standard two-family ideal, which may carry into adulthood.
The F test yields significance at the .01 level despite it’s small size. The combination of variables is significant on their impacts on mental wellbeing even though only two variables are significant alone.
The R 2 shows us that about 2% of the variance in adult psychological wellbeing can be explained by family structure, age, gender, number of siblings, and race. This is a very low percentage, meaning that there are other extraneous variables that are responsible for mental health. The literature review expands on these possible factors. The constant of 5.321 means that when all variables are 0 (nontraditional family, 0 years old, male, 0 siblings, not white) the number of days of poor mental health in the past 30 days will be about 5 days. When coming from a traditional family, the constant is decreased by about one day. Every 20 years, a day of poor mental health is subtracted from the constant. Being a woman means adding half a day to the constant. Number of siblings is positive but very low, meaning you’d need 20 siblings to add one full day to the constant. Being white, interestingly, adds a little under a day of poor mental health to the constant.
The Beta scores show us that age is the most powerful factor on mental wellbeing, followed closely by family structure. This is an important finding because it indicates that perhaps the stronger indicator of mental wellbeing is age rather than family structure. It also provides hope as it shows that despite growing up in a nontraditional family structure, psychological wellbeing will increase greatly with age.
Traditional families do not expose children to disruptive events, eliminating one source of major adjustment and possible distress that accompanies major life course disruptions.
Time may allow adults to heal from the adverse effects of childhood or adolescent disruption.
Children may have difficulty understanding their social self when coming from a nontraditional family structure that strays from the “standard” two-parent family ideal, which can carry into adulthood.
Negative conflict between two parents can really impact a child when exposed to it! Parents whose marriages are struggling should really try to keep the animosity and conflict separate from the children, and if and when a divorce does take place, be diligent to maintain a positive relationship with the children, work to maintain involvement, and even seek mental health professionals who understand the implications of family structure change who can help the child through it. Same with single parenting- understand that your child may need you more than you realize!
Adults who read this study could gain a lot if they themselves are from a nontraditional family- understanding can help people move towards acceptance! Understanding that it wasn’t their fault, that they aren’t the “only ones,” and understanding the theoretical reasons behind their family-related distress.
Future researchers may want to explore what can be done to lower the distress felt by children and adults from nontraditional families: previous studies find things like parent-child relationships and parent involvement to be really influential factors on how a child is able to cope with the disruption or simply knowing they are from an atypical family.
Happiness is defined in so many ways! My variable targeted whether the respondent felt negatively in the past 30 days, but using a different happiness variable or even combining multiple happiness variables could provide interesting differences. (Which is why my study was interesting- most studies define happiness by a more general question asking how happy you are or how satisfied you are with life).
Longitudinal research: Just continuing with the sample here, because the younger respondents were more likely to come from nontraditional families, so what might their psychological wellbeing be in older adulthood? The older adults in this sample were much more likely not only to be happier but to come from a traditional family, which makes it difficult to assume causality into older age.
