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Methods: We utilize longitudinal data drawn from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth on approximately 5,500 children who spent some part of their childhood living with a single mother. We focus on 5 measures of father investment: (1) whether the father has seen the child during the past year; (2) how often the father has seen the child during the past year; (3) whether the father pays any (formal) child support; and (4) the amount of child support the father pays. We also investigate whether maternal re-partnering is associated with changes in the geographic distance between fathers' homes and those of their children. Our analytic approach consists of both standard regressions and fixed effects models. The standard regressions (ordinary least squares and logit models) assess whether there are static differences in levels of non-resident father investments in children by whether children's mothers have remarried or formed new cohabiting unions, as opposed to having remained single. The fixed effects models assess the extent to which fathers' investment behaviors change when mothers enter into new partnerships and have the advantage of adjusting for unobserved time invariant child and family characteristics when estimating these associations.

Results: Preliminary results suggest that, on average, children whose mothers have re-partnered spend less time with their biological father and are less likely to see their biological father over the course of a year than are children living with a single-mother who has not re-partnered. Fixed effects results also reveal that both the likelihood that a non-resident father has seen his child in the past year and the number of times the father has seen the child decrease after a mother re-partners. In addition, we find that the geographic distance between fathers' homes and those of their children increases when mothers re-partner and that this is only partially explained by residential moves on the part of the mother; non-resident fathers are also more likely to move away from their children after a maternal re-partnership. Yet, we find little evidence of associations between maternal re-partnering and child support payments.

Conclusions: Given that a sizeable proportion of children will experience maternal re-partnering, coupled with evidence that non-resident father involvement may positively influence children's wellbeing, it is crucial to understand how maternal re-partnering affects non-resident fathers' investments in children. Implications of this research for public policies regarding marriage and family formation, as well as for designing programs to promote child wellbeing in complex families, are discussed.

The second paper investigates differences in health insurance coverage for children whose parents cohabit and those whose parents are married, with a focus on families that include a social (non-biological) parent. Child health insurance coverage may vary as a function of differences in access to economic resources and differences in access to employer sponsored health insurance policies between family structures. Results from this paper suggest children in cohabiting and social-father families are more likely to have public and less likely to have private coverage than those in (married) two-biological parent families.

The final paper uses an instrumental variables strategy to examine associations of an exogenous change in income due to expansions in the Earned income Tax Credit with family health behaviors, child health outcomes, and children's health insurance coverage. Results suggest that children in families that experience an exogenous increase in income are more likely to be covered by (private) health insurance, to have gone to the dentist in the previous year, and to be reported by their mother as being in excellent health.

This dissertation has implications for better understanding factors that place children at risk for health problems as well as for identify pathways by which social policy programs and the healthcare system can promote optimal quality of life for low-income children and families.