Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study
Encyclopedia
The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) is a longitudinal birth cohort study
of American children in urban areas, run by Princeton University
and Columbia University
. It uses a stratified random sample technique and an oversample of non-marital births. Baseline data collection ran from 1998–2000, with interviews with both biological parents shortly after the child’s birth. Follow-up interviews were conducted when the child was one, three, five, and nine years old. In addition to parents, the last three waves have included in-home assessments, child care or teacher assessments, and interviews with the child. Core aims of the study are to learn about capabilities and relationships of unmarried parents as well as how families and children fare on various health and social measures over time.
Some of the major topic areas covered are as follows:
Household Characteristics: household roster and demographics, child’s living arrangements, employment and income, housing and neighborhoods
Incarceration: current status and history of parents and new partners
Family Relationships: bio-parents relationship, new partnerships, social support, church attendance, civic participation
Parental Health and Cognitive Ability: physical health, mental health, cognitive ability
Parenting: nurturance and discipline, cognitive stimulation, relationship with child, Child Protective Services involvement
Child Health and Development: child’s use of medical care, health of child, child’s health at birth, child’s nutrition, daily routines, cognitive development, child behavior, child relationships
Child Care/Kindergarten: child care use, child care/kindergarten characteristics at 3 and 5
Elementary School (age 9, teacher and caregiver reports): school, classroom, and teacher characteristics; child’s behavior; special education services; comparative academic performance; parental involvement
Genetic Analysis: mother and child, genetic predisposition
and gene-environment interaction
Program participation: TANF, food stamps, Medicaid, EITC, child support, housing
At the one-year survey wave, the parents were each interviewed by telephone.
When the child was three, the parents were interviewed again by telephone. There was also a visit to where the child lives and an in-person interview with the child’s primary caregiver, usually the mother. The child and mother completed cognitive assessments and their heights and weights were collected. The interviewer also gathered observational data on the home environment, appearance and behaviors of the family, and the neighborhood. In 10 of the 20 cities, the child care setting was also observed and the non-parental caretaker completed a survey.
The five-year interview contained the same components as the three-year, except with the observation and survey conducted in Kindergarten classes instead of child care settings for the 10 city subsample.
Around the child’s ninth birthday, both parents were interviewed by phone. Again a home visit included a primary caregiver interview and physical and cognitive assessments of the child. The primary caregiver also filled out a paper survey. This wave also included an in-person interview with the child and the collection of saliva samples by the mother and child for DNA analysis. All families with home visits were then asked for contact information for the child’s teacher, who was mailed a survey.
This survey differs from many others in its diligence tracking non-custodial parents, generally fathers living outside the household.
(OPR), in collaboration with the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton and the Columbia Population Research Center and the National Center for Children and Families (NCCF) at Columbia University. The principal investigators of the project are Sara McLanahan
and Christina Paxson
at Princeton and Irwin Garfinkel, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and Ron Mincy at Columbia.
The FFCWS is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
and a consortium of private foundations and other government agencies.
Data collection for the nine-year wave of FFCWS was administered by Westat
. The previous four waves of data collection were conducted by Mathematica Policy Research and National Opinion Research Center
(NORC).
More sensitive information, such as certain geographic identifiers and contextual census data, may also be obtained on a contract basis.
Hundreds of peer-reviewed articles, books and book chapters, and dissertations or theses have been written using the data.
Cohort study
A cohort study or panel study is a form of longitudinal study used in medicine, social science, actuarial science, and ecology. It is an analysis of risk factors and follows a group of people who do not have the disease, and uses correlations to determine the absolute risk of subject contraction...
of American children in urban areas, run by Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
and Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. It uses a stratified random sample technique and an oversample of non-marital births. Baseline data collection ran from 1998–2000, with interviews with both biological parents shortly after the child’s birth. Follow-up interviews were conducted when the child was one, three, five, and nine years old. In addition to parents, the last three waves have included in-home assessments, child care or teacher assessments, and interviews with the child. Core aims of the study are to learn about capabilities and relationships of unmarried parents as well as how families and children fare on various health and social measures over time.
Sampling
Children in the FFCWS were born in hospitals in 20 large cities across the United States. These cities were selected for diversity in child support enforcement, labor market conditions, and welfare generosity. Within each city, hospitals were sampled and births were sampled in each hospital. The study design called for an over-sample of births to unmarried couples. Thus, although non-marital births accounted for only a third of U.S. births at the time the study began, they make up around three-quarters of the Fragile Families sample. The FFCWS public data files include two sets of weights for each wave of data collection that can be used to make the sample representative of urban births nationwide.Research Questions and Topics
The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study was designed primarily to address four questions of great interest to researchers and policy makers: (1) What are the conditions and capabilities of unmarried parents, especially fathers?; (2) What is the nature of the relationships between unmarried parents?; (3) How do children born into these families fare?; and (4) How do policies and environmental conditions affect families and children?Some of the major topic areas covered are as follows:
Household Characteristics: household roster and demographics, child’s living arrangements, employment and income, housing and neighborhoods
Incarceration: current status and history of parents and new partners
Family Relationships: bio-parents relationship, new partnerships, social support, church attendance, civic participation
Parental Health and Cognitive Ability: physical health, mental health, cognitive ability
Parenting: nurturance and discipline, cognitive stimulation, relationship with child, Child Protective Services involvement
Child Health and Development: child’s use of medical care, health of child, child’s health at birth, child’s nutrition, daily routines, cognitive development, child behavior, child relationships
Child Care/Kindergarten: child care use, child care/kindergarten characteristics at 3 and 5
Elementary School (age 9, teacher and caregiver reports): school, classroom, and teacher characteristics; child’s behavior; special education services; comparative academic performance; parental involvement
Genetic Analysis: mother and child, genetic predisposition
Genetic predisposition
A genetic predisposition is a genetic affectation which influences the phenotype of an individual organism within a species or population but by definition that phenotype can also be modified by the environmental conditions. In the rest of the population, conditions cannot have that effect...
and gene-environment interaction
Gene-environment interaction
Gene–environment interaction is the phenotypic effect of interactions between genes and the environment....
Program participation: TANF, food stamps, Medicaid, EITC, child support, housing
Survey Components
Baseline data collection consisted of an in-person interview with the biological mother and biological fathers, usually at the hospital shortly after the child’s birth. Medical records for the mother and infant were also collected when possible.At the one-year survey wave, the parents were each interviewed by telephone.
When the child was three, the parents were interviewed again by telephone. There was also a visit to where the child lives and an in-person interview with the child’s primary caregiver, usually the mother. The child and mother completed cognitive assessments and their heights and weights were collected. The interviewer also gathered observational data on the home environment, appearance and behaviors of the family, and the neighborhood. In 10 of the 20 cities, the child care setting was also observed and the non-parental caretaker completed a survey.
The five-year interview contained the same components as the three-year, except with the observation and survey conducted in Kindergarten classes instead of child care settings for the 10 city subsample.
Around the child’s ninth birthday, both parents were interviewed by phone. Again a home visit included a primary caregiver interview and physical and cognitive assessments of the child. The primary caregiver also filled out a paper survey. This wave also included an in-person interview with the child and the collection of saliva samples by the mother and child for DNA analysis. All families with home visits were then asked for contact information for the child’s teacher, who was mailed a survey.
This survey differs from many others in its diligence tracking non-custodial parents, generally fathers living outside the household.
Funding and Management
FFCWS is a joint project of Princeton University and Columbia Universities. It is actively managed through the Center for Research on Child Wellbeing at Princeton, in the Office of Population ResearchOffice of Population Research
The Office of Population Research at Princeton University is the oldest population research center in the United States. It was founded in 1936....
(OPR), in collaboration with the Center for Health and Wellbeing at Princeton and the Columbia Population Research Center and the National Center for Children and Families (NCCF) at Columbia University. The principal investigators of the project are Sara McLanahan
Sara McLanahan
Sara McLanahan is an American sociologist.She is the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton University. She received her B.A. in Sociology from the University of Houston and her PhD in Sociology from the University of Texas at Austin, and she previously taught at the...
and Christina Paxson
Christina Paxson
Christina Hull Paxson is the Hughes Rogers Professor of Economics and Public Affairs at Princeton University. In July 2009, she became the Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton. She received her B.A. from Swarthmore College in 1982, and her Ph.D. from...
at Princeton and Irwin Garfinkel, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, and Ron Mincy at Columbia.
The FFCWS is funded by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Eunice Kennedy Shriver
Eunice Kennedy Shriver, DSG a member of the Kennedy family, sister to President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy, was the founder in 1962 of Camp Shriver, and in 1968, the Special Olympics...
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development , created by Congress in 1962, supports and conducts research on topics related to the health of children, adults, families, and populations...
and a consortium of private foundations and other government agencies.
Data collection for the nine-year wave of FFCWS was administered by Westat
Westat
Westat is an employee-owned corporation providing research services to agencies of the U.S. Government, as well as businesses, foundations, and state and local governments....
. The previous four waves of data collection were conducted by Mathematica Policy Research and National Opinion Research Center
National Opinion Research Center
NORC at the University of Chicago, established in 1941 as the National Opinion Research Center, is one of the largest and most highly respected social research organizations in the United States. Its corporate headquarters are located on the University of Chicago campus...
(NORC).
Data Access
Public data for the FFCWS is available for free. It is hosted in the OPR data archive, and directions for access through a quick registration process can be obtained from the Fragile Families website.More sensitive information, such as certain geographic identifiers and contextual census data, may also be obtained on a contract basis.
Hundreds of peer-reviewed articles, books and book chapters, and dissertations or theses have been written using the data.