Do children of married parents do better?
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 4 February 2019
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Does being born to non-married parents affect a child's prospects? It is a question that is notoriously hard to answer. BBC Education Editor Branwen Jeffreys investigates research from Princeton's landmark Fragile Families study, which has gathered data from 5,000 births over the last 18 years. She speaks to principal investigator Professor Sara McLanahan to find out how much we know about the differing outcomes of children raised by married, cohabiting or single parents.
Branwen asks how applicable the results of the study are to British society, where very soon, a minority of births will be to married parents. Professor Emla Fitzsimons has been following the lives of 19,000 children, born across the UK in 2000-01. She reveals what the project, know as The Millennium Cohort Study has found. Producer: Diane Richardson
Transcript
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| 0:41.0 | Over recent decades there's been a revolution in family structures with almost half |
| 0:45.5 | the children in Britain now born to unmarried parents. Will that make a difference to those |
| 0:50.5 | children's lives? The BBC's education editor, |
| 0:53.6 | Branwyn Jeffries, investigates. |
| 0:55.5 | What kind of wristbands are you wearing? |
| 1:01.5 | Green wristbands. Who knows where you need to go when I call for green wristbands? |
| 1:04.8 | Up there? It's a 360 party. Can you all see it? Okay, but who's excited? |
| 1:11.6 | And who's going to go and play? |
| 1:14.0 | Okay, off you go. |
| 1:16.0 | Hey, well, bring 60. |
| 1:18.0 | Have you guys been here before? |
| 1:19.0 | Yes. |
| 1:20.0 | I'm going on the big slide'm going on my belly. |
| 1:24.0 | Yeah, on the big side. |
... |
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