Title
Contents
Acknowledgements 9
The Authors 10
Abbreviations 11
Notes on terminology used in the report and statistical significance 12
Summary 15
Part 1. Exploring the links between disability and family formation 21
1. Introduction 22
1.1 Background 22
1.2 Aims 23
1.3 Methods and data 24
1.3.1 Overview of the key datasets 25
1.3.2 The key cross-sectional datasets: Census 2001 and FACS 26
2. Previous research 29
2.1 Background to the literature review 29
2.1.1 Literature search strategy 29
2.1.2 Literature strands in disability and family research 30
2.1.3 Conceptual issues: disability definitions and disability experience 33
2.2 Disability, family and lived experience 34
2.2.1 Introduction 34
2.2.2 Childhood disability and family experiences 34
2.2.3 Adulthood disability and family experiences 35
2.2.4 Health, impairment in family context and marital status 36
2.3 Childhood disability and family forms 37
2.3.1 Marital status and childhood disability 38
2.3.2 Importance of the availability of support 39
2.4 Adulthood disability and family forms 40
2.4.1 Temporal factors and the impacts of impairment and disability 40
2.4.2 Impacts of childhood onset illness and impairment: the example of childhood cancer 40
2.4.3 Experiencing sudden onset of impairment: the example of spinal cord injury 42
2.4.4 Experiencing fluctuating and/or unpredictable impairment 43
2.4.5 Maintaining and changing relationships in the context of impairment 44
2.5 Conclusions 45
3. Disability and family status 47
3.1 Introduction 47
3.2 Linking relationship status and disability 48
3.2.1 Remaining single, never-married 49
3.2.2 Marriage and cohabitation 50
3.2.3 Divorce and separation 53
3.2.4 Bereavement 54
3.3 Exploring the links between marriage and disability 56
3.3.1 Gender and housing tenure 57
3.3.2 Type of impairment ('health problem') 58
3.4 Disability and having children 62
3.4.1 Child disability and lone parenthood 63
3.5 Key findings 64
Part 2. The dynamics of disability and family formation 66
4. The dynamics of disability and family change 67
4.1 Introduction 67
4.2 Year-on-year changes in disability 67
4.3 Year-on-year changes in family status 69
4.4 Longer-term changes 72
4.5 Key findings 73
5. Disability and family breakdown 74
5.1 Introduction 74
5.2 Family breakdown from birth to three years 74
5.3 Year-on-year changes 78
5.4 Longer-term effects 81
5.5 Key findings 81
6. Disability, partnering and re-partnering 83
6.1 Introduction 83
6.2 Partnerships for those with and without children 83
6.3 Lone parents becoming couples: birth to three years 86
6.4 Year-on-year changes and longer-term effects 88
6.5 Key findings 90
7. Disability and children 91
7.1 Introduction 91
7.2 Background 91
7.3 First births - analysis of the British Households Panel Survey 94
7.4 Second and later births - analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study 95
7.4.1 Plans to have more children 95
7.4.2 Having more children 97
7.5 Key findings 98
8. Consequences for employment and poverty 99
8.1 Introduction 99
8.2 Current rates of family poverty 99
8.3 Poverty dynamics 102
8.4 Child poverty dynamics 103
8.5 Employment transitions and disability 105
8.6 Resilience - how disability mediates family breakdown 107
8.7 Key findings 109
9. Conclusion 111
9.1 Introduction 111
9.2 Key findings 111
9.3 Disability in family context 113
9.4 Main policy implications 113
Appendix. Extra confirmatory analysis 115
References 116
Table 3.1 Disability and marital status, all adults aged 20+ in 2001, and age group 49
Table 3.2 Marriage, disability and health problems, all aged 16+ 60
Table 3.3 Divorce, disability and impairments, all aged 16+ 61
Table 3.4 Child disability and parental family status, children aged zero to 15 in 2001 64
Table 4.1 Annual transitions into and out of disability - mother, father and children 69
Table 4.2 Annual transitions into and out of lone parenthood and being a couple with dependent children 70
Table 4.3 Annual changes in family size (number of dependent children) 70
Table 4.4 Annual changes in family/marital status of individuals of all ages 71
Table 4.5 Changes over five years in family type, LSI and poverty 72
Table 5.1 Transitions from couple to lone parent (first two waves, MCS) 78
Table 5.2 Average annual transition rate from couple to lone parent (2001-2005) 79
Table 5.3 Logistic regression model of the annual transition from couple to lone parent (2001/05) 80
Table 6.1 Average annual transition rate from single person to couple (1991-2005/06) 84
Table 6.2 Average annual transition rate from single person to couple (1991-2005/06), those aged 16 to 44 84
Table 6.3 Average annual transition rate from lone parent to couple (2001/05) 89
Table 7.1 Those without children in 1991: presence of children in 1995 and 2000 by reported disability in 1991/95 94
Table 7.2 Plans to have more children and disability status of parents and child (when child aged nine months) 96
Table 7.3 Disability status (when child aged nine months) and whether had more children three years later 97
Table 8.1 Respondent disability and employment transitions (2001/05, paired years) 106
Table 8.2 Child disability and respondent employment transitions (2001/05, paired years) 107
Table 8.3 Movement into (and out of) poverty by family change and disability 108
Table 8.4 Movement into (and out of) employment by family change and disability 109
Figure 3.1 Proportion single (never-married) by age group, comparing those with and without an LLTI (aged 25+) 50
Figure 3.2 Proportion married (and in their first marriage) by age group, comparing those with and without an LLTI 51
Figure 3.3 Proportion married and cohabiting by age group, comparing those with and without an LLTI 53
Figure 3.4 LLTI and proportion divorced or separated, by age 54
Figure 3.5 LLTI and proportion widowed, by age 55
Figure 3.6 LLTI and proportion widowed, by age 56
Figure 3.7 'Marriage gap' by age and gender, and whether a home-owner (a measure of relative affluence) 58
Figure 3.8 LLTI and proportion with dependent children in family, by age 62
Figure 3.9 Children living in lone parent families, according to age and whether they (the children) have an LLTI 63
Figure 5.1 Proportion of couples separating, by disability status of mother, father and child 76
Figure 5.2 Proportion of couples separating, by disability status of mother and father 77
Figure 5.3 Proportion of couples separating, by disability status of mother and child, during 2001-05 81
Figure 6.1 Proportions of single people becoming couples, by reports of LLTI in first five years 86
Figure 6.2 Proportion of lone parents becoming couples, by disability status of mother and child 87
Figure 6.3 Proportion of lone parents becoming couples, by mother's description of 'health problem' 88
Figure 6.4 Proportion of lone parents becoming couples, by disability status of mother and child, during 2001-05 90
Figure 7.1 Average number of dependent children (aged under 16) by disability and age group 92
Figure 7.2 Average number of dependent children (aged under 16) by type of impairment described in peak childrearing age group (30-44 years) 93
Figure 8.1 Poverty rate, by mother disability and family type 101
Figure 8.2 Poverty rate, by child disability and family type 101
Figure 8.3 Poverty rate over time ('ever-poor') by type of adult impairment 102
Figure 8.4 Poverty rate over time, by duration of mother, child disability 103
Figure 8.5 Poverty rate in 2005, by current child disability and its history 104
Figure A.1 'Marriage gap', by Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) status: Difference between DDA disabled and non-disabled, current status 115