When parents separate, their children are placed at a real economic disadvantage. This brief examines the effects of parental separation on children's economic well-being. The data were collected in the 1984 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Sample households were visited eight times, at 4-month intervals, between October 1983 - January 1984 and February - May 1986. The information on children and their families thus covers a 32-month period.

The data cover children under the age of 15 at the time of the first interview, for whom 32 months of data on household income and family composition exist. The term "parent" includes step- and adoptive, as well as biological, parents.