THE WELL-BEING OF MARYLAND PARENTS AND THEIR CHILDREN:
DIFFERENCES BY INCOME STATUS AND FAMILY STRUCTURE
By Richard Wertheimer, Ph.D., Kristin Anderson Moore, Ph.D., and Jordan Kahn, B.A. May 2009
OVERVIEW
When compared with their higher-income counterparts, on average, parents in low-income Maryland
families (that is, those with incomes that are less than twice the official poverty threshold)1 have less advantageous
environments for raising children, and both the parents and their children experience fewer
positive outcomes. Similarly, when compared with their counterparts in families headed by two biological
or adoptive parents, families headed by single mothers are associated with less advantageous environments
for raising children and fewer positive outcomes for both parents and children. When family structure
and income are jointly taken into account, family circumstances and child outcomes are often dramatically
different.
BACKGROUND
Research studies based on statistics for the United States as a whole have documented differences in child
and family well-being between children in low-income families and children in more affluent families2 and
between children in single-parent families and children in two-parent families.3 However, researchers have
not explored differences in well-being in these families at the state level because of a lack of state-level
data. The National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) provides representative data at both the national
and state levels on several important areas (or domains) of parental and family functioning and well-being.
Child Trends drew on these data for 2003 to analyze differences in well-being by family income and family
structure in Maryland, thus illustrating the richness of this new source of statistical information. This
Research Brief presents our findings.
Our analyses focused on child and family well-being in five different domains:
• Parent characteristics4 and well-being;
• Parenting and family processes;
• Child’s environment;
• Child’s activities; and
• Child’s health and well-being
Although we found that most children and their parents in Maryland are functioning well in most domains,
significant differences exist in many important measures of child and family well-being between children
and their parents in low-income families and their counterparts in higher- income families.5 Similarly, significant
differences exist in many measures of child and family well-being between children and their parents
in families headed by single mothers and families headed by two biological or adoptive parents. In
particular, the often-substantial contrasts between low-income single-parent and higher-income two-parent
families serve as a telling reminder of the difficulties faced by children in households with both of these
family risk factors.
2
The results of Child Trends’ analyses, as presented below, are statistically significant, after taking account
of the child’s gender, age, and race/ethnicity and the better educated parent’s educational attainment. However,
the percentages and the differences themselves have not been adjusted for these factors. (It should be
noted that, prior to imposing these basic demographic controls, many of these differences were statistically
significant.) Comprehensive results are presented in Table 1 at the end of this brief.
PARENT CHARACTERISTICS AND WELL-BEING IN MARYLAND: KEY FINDINGS
We examined four measures in this domain: the level of aggravation the parent experienced in parenting;
the status of the parent’s physical health; the status of the parent’s mental health; and the frequency with
which the parent exercised regularly or played sports.
Low-income vs. higher-income families. Among single-mother families, mothers in low-income families
were at a disadvantage in three of the four measures of parental well-being, when compared with their
higher-income counterparts (see Figure 1) and after controlling for the child’s gender, age, and race/
ethnicity.
• Among single-mother families, 20 percent of mothers in low-income families were in fair or poor
physical health, compared with 6 percent of mothers in higher-income families.
• Similarly, among single-mother families, 19 percent of mothers in low-income families were in fair or
poor mental health, compared with 9 percent of mothers in higher-income families.
• About 53 percent of mothers in low-income single-mother families regularly exercised or played sports
in the past month, compared with 67 percent of mothers in higher-income single-mother families.
However, among two-parent biological or adoptive families, parents in low-income families were not at a
statistically significant disadvantage in any of the four measures, after controlling for the child’s gender,
age, and race/ethnicity and the better educated parent’s educational attainment (see Table 1).
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