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divorce.15 This is yet another disruptive marital transition for children, most of whom have
already undergone at least one divorce.
Other researchers look at the stepfamily more positively. Amato and Keith analyzed
data comparing intact, two-parent families with stepfamilies and found that while chil-
dren from two-parent families performed significantly better on a multifactored measure
of well-being and development, there was a significant overlap. A substantial number of
children in stepfamilies actually perform as well or better than children in intact two-
parent families. As Amato comments, Some children grow up in well-functioning intact
families in which they encounter abuse, neglect, poverty, parental mental illness, and pa-
rental substance abuse. Other children grow up in well-functioning stepfamilies and have
caring stepparents who provide affection, effective control and economic support. 16 Still
other researchers suggest that it may be the painful transitions of divorce and economi-
cally deprived single-parenthood which usually precede the formation of the stepfamily
that explain the poor performance of stepchildren.17
Perhaps a fairer comparison of stepchildren s well-being is against single-parent
families. Indeed, if there were no remarriage (or first marriage, in the case of unmarried
birth mothers), these children would remain a part of a single-parent household. On most
psychological measures of behavior and achievement, stepchildren look more like children
from single-parent families than children from never-divorced families, but on economic
measures it is a different story. The National Survey of Families and Households ( NSFH)
data show that stepparents have slightly lower incomes and slightly less education than
parents in nuclear families, but that incomes of all types of married families with children
are three to four times greater than the incomes of single mothers. Custodial mothers
in stepfamilies have similar incomes to single mothers (about $12,000 in 1987). If, as
seems plausible, their personal incomes are about the same before they married as after,
then marriage has increased their household incomes more than threefold. Stepfathers
incomes are, on average, more than twice as great as their wives , and account for nearly
three-fourths of the family s income.18
In contrast to residential stepparents, absent biological parents only rarely provide
much financial or other help to their children. Some do not because they are dead or can-
not be found; about 26 percent of custodial, remarried mothers and 28 percent of single
mothers report that their child s father is deceased or of unknown whereabouts. Yet even
in the three-quarters of families where the noncustodial parent s whereabouts are known,
only about one-third of all custodial mothers (single and remarried) receive child support
or alimony from former spouses, and the amounts involved are small compared to the
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238 Part II " Sex and Gender
cost of raising children. According to NSFH data, remarried women with awards receive
on average $1780 per year, while single mothers receive $1383. Clearly, former spouses
cannot be relied on to lift custodial mothers and their children out of poverty.19
The picture is still more complex, as is true with all issues relating to stepfamilies.
Some noncustodial fathers, like Ray Jones in our scenario, have remarried and have
stepchildren themselves. These relationships, too, are evident in the NSFH data. Nearly
one-quarter (23 percent) of residential stepfathers have minor children from former re-
lationships living elsewhere. Two-thirds of those report paying child support for their
children.20 In our case, Ray Jones did continue his child support payments, but he felt
squeezed by the economic obligation of contributing to two households. This is a grow-
ing class of fathers who frequently feel resentful about the heavy burden of supporting
two households, particularly when their first wife has remarried.
In sum, although we have no data that precisely examine the distribution of re-
sources within a stepfamily, it is fair to assume that stepfathers substantial contributions
to family income improve their stepchildren s material well-being by helping to cover
basic living costs. For many formerly single-parent families, stepfathers incomes pro-
vided by remarriage are essential in preventing or ending poverty among custodial moth-
ers and their children. ( The data are less clear for the much smaller class of residential
stepmothers.)
While legal dependency usually ends at eighteen, the economic resources avail-
able to a stepchild through remarriage could continue to be an important factor past
childhood. College education and young adulthood are especially demanding economic
events. The life-course studies undertaken by some researchers substantiate the inter-
personal trends seen in stepfamilies before the stepchildren leave home. White reports
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