Hawkes, Denise ORCID: 0000-0002-7305-3846 (2017) Child health and lone motherhood: evidence from the UK millennium cohort study. In: Portier-Le Cocq, Fabienne, (ed.) Fertility, Health and Lone Parenting: European Contexts. Routledge Studies in the Sociology of Health and Illness . Taylor & Francis, London, UK. ISBN 978-1315208305 (doi:https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315208305-6)

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Abstract

In this chapter, the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) is used to explore child health differences by family structure. This analysis extends the existing literature to look across the first four sweeps of the MCS to examine changes in health between and within family structure, taking account of child, mother and area characteristics. The results suggest that children in lone-parent families have poorer general health scores at all ages, although the gap with those living in two-parent families reduces over time. Boys, children with black and minority ethnic heritage, those with a non-graduate mother and those living in areas with higher levels of deprivation have more of a lone-parent penalty to health. The results highlight the complexity of the relationship between child health and family structure, as well as the degree to which lone-parent status could be seen as a general signal of disadvantage with regard to child health. Reassuringly, no difference is found in rates of overweight/obesity and long-standing illnesses and lone-parent status. The results in this chapter suggest that in designing public health campaigns in the UK, it is worth taking account of the lone-parent status and other measures of disadvantage may prove fruitful.

Item Type:	Book Section
Uncontrolled Keywords:	fertility, lone parenting, health
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Business Faculty of Business > Department of International Business & Economics
Last Modified:	22 Oct 2020 16:17
URI:	http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/23876

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