Researchers find families with stepmothers spend less on children

Three studies under the direction of University economics professor Anne Case have found that children raised in families with stepmothers generally suffer from lower levels of health care, education and money spent on food than children raised by their biological mothers.

The studies examined the resources parents said they gave to their children. Each study focused on one of three categories: food expenditure, health investment and education investment. The first of the three papers — on food expenditure — was published Monday in the Economic Journal of the Royal Economic Society.

Sarah McLanahan, a professor in the sociology department and the Wilson School, co-authored the education and food studies. Christina Paxson, director of the University's new Center for Health and Well Being, conducted the health study with Case.

Though previous research had suggested that children not raised by both biological parents are at risk for poorer outcomes in life, Case's study attempted to explain these phenomena by examining the resources different families devote to raising children.

"There has been a lot of documentation on the fact that children raised away from a two-birth-parent environment are at risk for poor outcomes on lots of dimensions, but the question of why these kids have worse outcomes later in life is not necessarily clear," Case said.

"One of the things we were interested in is, yes, there may be scarring and there may be stress, but it might also be the case that these children don't have people invest in them quite as much, and that is why we decided to look at the inputs into the kids," she added.

The studies took their data from the University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the Child Health Supplement to the National Health Interview Survey.

Among the studies' findings were that families with a stepmother spend about 5 percent less on household food than families where both biological parents are present.

The health study found that among children aged one or older, 61 percent living with both biological parents have had a medical checkup within the last year, while only 46 percent living with a stepmother and their biological father have had a checkup during the same period.

The studies found that the negative effects of living with a stepfather on health investments, food and education were much smaller than the effects of living with a stepmother — about one-third to one-half the size, according to Case.

"Where it stands now, is that we have these results that are consistent with many theories about why children might be at risk if they're not living with their birth mothers," she said. "Some are based on certain evolutionary biology — that one tends to protect one's own genetic material. Some are based on simple models of reciprocal giving — that I invest in a child that I think is later going to provide me with support."

The purpose of the studies was not to determine the motives of the parents or the feelings that lay behind the relationships, Case explained, but simply whether children are at risk of lower investments.

Get the best of ‘the Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

Case emphasized that her aim was not to show that stepmothers are wicked, or "to suggest that it's as simple as the Cinderella story."

"That's not the point and that's not the message. The message is that these kids are at risk and if you want to know why that it turns out that they are significantly more likely to be in poverty later in life, or they don't have as strong attachments to the labor market, maybe we should be looking at some of the investments," she explained.

The study has generated a response from different stepfamily associations across the country. Margorie Engel, president of the Stepfamily Association of America, said the results of the studies prove that there is a need to make legal changes that recognize the relationship between stepchildren and stepparents.

"The stepparent has no legal relationship to the child, and is not authorized to make doctors appointments and other decisions. And so we see stepmothers stepping back, or being pushed back, being told that they are not allowed to do this," Engel said. "I found that the study was helpful to the extent that it was proving what we as an organization are trying to say, that clearly step-parents need to be recognized."

Chase has long been interested in families and households and the way people within a household interact and negotiate, she said, and conducted research on child-support enforcement before beginning this study. On leave this semester, she teaches a graduate level course in the economics department on development economics and a course on domestic policy in the Wilson School.