Dynamics in the Living Arrangements of Children and their Educational Outcomes using the SSD Millennium Birth Cohort

The living arrangements in early life are important estimators for the personal development in (young) adulthood. The more stability and the more resources parents can offer the better children will be able to unfold their own resources. Instability, due to divorce or death of a parent, or the loss of resources, due to the loss of a job or income, probably has a negative impact on the welfare of children. Repartnering of parents may have a positive impact (more stability, income) or a negative impact (ambivalence regarding family roles, step ties etc). We still do not know exactly 1) how the living arrangements (parental and economic structure) of contemporary children evolve on a day-to-day basis, nor do we really know 2) much about causality and the size of the effect of instability (changes in parental and economic structure) on the lives of children.
First aim is to describe the dynamics in the living arrangements of all children born in the Netherlands between birth and the age of 11.
Second aim is to use causal modelling to investigate the effect of instability on the lives of children.
The data for this study are derived from the Social Statistical Database (SSD) of Statistics Netherlands. We use the SSD Millennium Birth Cohort, which contains all children born in the Netherlands in the year 2000.