Maternal Relationship Instability Influences on Children’s Emotional and Behavioral Functioning in Low-Income Families

The present study investigated associations between maternal relationship instability patterns and children’s behavioral and
emotional functioning in middle childhood in a representative sample of low-income urban families (N = 891). Data from the Three-City Study tracked maternal partnerships through the child’s life, assessing total marital and cohabiting relationship transitions and
delineating transitions by developmental timing, and by directionality (i.e., entrances into versus exits from partnerships).
Analyses linking instability to child behaviors at age 8 found that a greater total number of maternal relationship transitions
predicted higher anxious, somatic, and conduct problems, with recent transitions (in the prior 2 years) driving these results.
Consideration of partnership formations versus dissolutions indicated that recent entrances into new partnerships, and entrances
into cohabitations, were most consistently associated with problematic functioning across numerous aspects of children’s emotional
and behavioral functioning. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.