Overview
Sara McLanahan is a Princeton sociologist and demographer, William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and former director of the Office of Population Research. She is one of the leading authorities on family structure and child outcomes, and the principal investigator of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) — a longitudinal study of ~5,000 births in 20 U.S. cities (75% nonmarital) that has become the primary data source for causal research on father absence and single-parent family effects.
Key Contributions / Features
- "Growing Up with a Single Parent" (McLanahan and Sandefur 1994) — foundational book documenting that children in single-parent households have substantially worse educational, employment, and family formation outcomes; the key reference establishing the cross-sectional association that the subsequent causal literature interrogates.
- Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) — designed and directed the 20-city longitudinal cohort study launched in 1998–2000, following ~5,000 births (75% nonmarital) through at least age 15; provides the panel data underlying growth-curve and LDV studies of father absence effects.
- McLanahan, Tach, and Schneider (2013) — Annual Review of Sociology review of 47 studies using rigorous causal designs to estimate the causal effect of father absence on child outcomes; six identification strategies assessed; central verdict: effects are real and nonzero across behavioral/educational outcomes even after selection correction, but smaller than cross-sectional estimates. See Causal Effects of Father Absence.
- "Diverging Destinies" (McLanahan 2004) — documented that children of highly educated mothers are increasingly raised in stable two-parent households while children of low-educated mothers face rising rates of single parenthood and family instability — a "diverging destinies" pattern that amplifies inequality across generations.
- McLanahan (2009) — "Fragile Families and the Reproduction of Poverty." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 621(1): 111–131. Reports first five years of Fragile Families findings: documents severe disadvantage of unmarried parents at birth; identifies partnership instability (2/3 of unmarried mothers experience ≥1 change by child's third birthday) and multi-partnered fertility (35–40% of unmarried vs. 14–16% of married parents) as the two key mechanisms reproducing poverty; shows stably cohabiting children are indistinguishable from stably married children. See Multi-Partnered Fertility.
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