How distance to a non-residential parent relates to child outcomes.

Autor/inn/en	Rasmussen, Astrid Würtz; Stratton, Leslie S.
Titel	How distance to a non-residential parent relates to child outcomes.
Quelle	Bonn: IZA (2012), 38 S., 289,49 KB PDF als Volltext kostenfreie Datei Link als defekt meldenVerfügbarkeit
Reihe	Discussion paper series / Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit. 6965
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	online; Monographie; Graue Literatur
Schlagwörter	Bildungsniveau; Eltern; Kind; Entfernung; Arbeitspapier; Allein erziehender Elternteil; Dänemark
Abstract	A substantial and growing fraction of children across Europe and the US live in single parent households. Law practices are evolving to encourage both parents to maintain contact with their children following parental separation/divorce, driven by the belief that such contact is in the best interest of the child. We test this assumption by using information on the distance between non-residential parents and their children to proxy for contact, and measuring educational, behavioral, and health outcomes for a population sample of children from nonnuclear families in Denmark. Instrumental variables techniques are employed to control for the endogeneity of residence. The results indicate that educational and behavioral outcomes are better for children who live farther away from their non-residential parent, but that distance is not related to health outcomes. Failing to control for endogeneity biases the results in favor of more proximate parents. These findings suggest that policy efforts to keep separated parents geographically closer together for the sake of the children may, in fact, not be advantageous.
Erfasst von	ZBW - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Wirtschaft, Kiel
Update	2013/2