Family, State, and Child Well-Being

Sociologists have long recognized the importance of the family in social mobility and in the reproduction of poverty (Featherman & Hauser 1978, McLanahan & Sandefur 1994). More recently, they have begun to study the role of the state in these processes (Skocpol 1992, O’Connor et al 1999). Children depend on their parents to provide them with the resources they need to develop into healthy and successful adults. Parents, in turn, depend on their communities and on government to share the costs of raising children. Changes that undermine children’s claims on parental resources or parents’ claims on public resources are likely to have long-term negative consequences for society. As we enter the twenty-first century, two such changes are underway—an increase in nonmarital childbearing and a restructuring of the welfare state. Nonmarital childbearing, a trend that now affects one of three children born in the United States, undermines children’s claims on fathers’ resources (time and money). Welfare reform, which curtails welfare benefits and strengthens child support enforcement, undermines the claims of poor parents on public resources. These changes disproportionately affect families at the lower end of the income distribution, who have the highest rates of nonmarital childbearing and welfare receipt.

In order to assess the full impact of these changes in the family and the state, sociologists need answers to several questions. First, they need to know more about the capabilities of the men and women who bear children outside marriage, especially the fathers. Second, they need a better understanding of the relationship between unwed parents and between parents and children. And third, they need to understand how welfare and child support policies affect parents’ relationships