Citation

Fomby P, Goode JA, Mollborn S. Demography 2015; 53(1): 1-26.

Affiliation

Department of Sociology and Institute of Behavioral Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, UCB 483, Boulder, CO, 80309, USA. mollborn@colorado.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Population Association of America, Publisher Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s13524-015-0443-9

PMID

26608795

Abstract

As family structure in the United States has become increasingly dynamic and complex, children have become more likely to reside with step- or half-siblings through a variety of pathways. When these pathways are accounted for, more than one in six U.S. children live with a step- or half-sibling at age 4. We use data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (N ~ 6,550) to assess the independent and joint influences of residing with a single parent or stepparent and with step- or half-siblings on children's aggressive behavior at school entry. The influences of parents' union status and complex sibship status on aggressive behavior are independent. Family resources partially explain the association between residing with an unpartnered mother and aggressive behavior regardless of sibship status. However, the resource hypothesis does not explain the association of complex sibship with aggressive behavior.

Language: en