Family Structure and Child Health in the UK: Pathways to Health

A large body of literature has shown marked differences in the average level of resources and the average level of child well-being across different family structures. The average level of resources will vary across different family types. Although studies examining cognitive, educational and behavioural outcomes are more numerous, there is some evidence of differentials in physical health. Most research on family structure and child outcomes has concentrated on describing differentials, or testing whether the association between family structure and child well being is "real”. Less emphasis has been placed on understanding the underlying proximate processes that explain the link between family structure to child health. Using the British Millennium Cohort Study, we focus on explicitly mapping the possible proximate processes that link family structure to children’s physical health. These analyses employ graphical chain models, a statistical technique that lends itself well to longitudinal data, to test these relationships.