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Study findings suggest that job quality may be an important economic indicator for family outcomes (either practical or symbolic). I find that having employment with "bad job" characteristics, especially the lack of health insurance and pension benefits, significantly delays men's transition to first marriage. In addition, women's job quality is important for marital stability in that working in jobs without health insurance decreases the risk of divorce among women. I also find that a mother's low-quality nonstandard employment (e.g., part-time, contract work) is detrimental to her children's health, particularly so in single-mother families. The absence of health insurance from mother's nonstandard employment is associated with worse health outcomes for children in single-mother families than those in two-parent families.

As the first study to incorporate various measures of "bad job" quality in key family outcomes, my dissertation contributes to the theoretical discussions of the causes of family inequality since deteriorating job quality and increasing labor market inequality have been hypothesized as leading influences on family changes but have not yet been empirically tested. Beyond theory, my research can also inform policy debates surrounding the linkages between work, family, and the well-being of both adults and children, as well as the implications of these relationships for the increasing inequality in the U.S. in the context of labor market changes.