Food Insecurity among Recently Divorced Mothers The role of within-marriage characteristics

Fei Men

Abstract Single mothers’ economic hardship is a major concern of public policy. This paper looks at an understudied

aspect of this issue food security and utilizes longitudinal SIPP data to understand food security’s relationship with

marital dissolution and mothers’ within-marriage characteristics. Results suggest that the accumulation of human

capital and assets during marriage is associated with reduced risk of food insecurity to similar extents for married and

divorced mothers. However, severe disabilities and the presence of two versus one child during marriage are related

to greater increase in the odds of being food insecure for recently divorced mothers than for their continuously married

counterparts.

Keywords single mothers; food insecurity; human capital; children; disability; divorce

F. Men

Consumer Science, School of Human Ecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1300 Linden

Drive, Madison, WI 53706, USA

Tel.: +1-608-3582748

Fax: +1-608-2653119

E-mail: men2@wisc.edu

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Food Insecurity among Recently Divorced Mothers

The role of within-marriage characteristics

Introduction

Women’s economic decline following their marital dissolution has been well documented for decades, mostly

focusing on income measures (Weitzman 1985; Hoffman and Duncan 1988; Peterson 1996; Bianchi et al. 1999). More

recent analyses reaffirmed divorced women’s disadvantage in income and wealth compared to their male counterparts

(Zagorsky 2005; Gadalla 2008). In stark contrast with the rich body of literature on divorced women’s financial

disadvantage is the scarcity of research on their material wellbeing. This study aims to fill this gap by focusing on

food insecurity, a form of material hardship that threatens the health and wellbeing of over 14 percent of American

households (Coleman-Jensen et al. 2015). In particular, I focus on understanding how women’s human capital,

employment, assets, and children while married are linked to their likelihood of experiencing food insecurity following

marital dissolution and how this differs from women who remain married.

Women’s post-divorce economic wellbeing

Earlier literature has consistently reported a sharp decline in household income-to- needs ratio among divorced women,

ranging from 73 to 27 percent (Weitzman 1985; Hoffman and Duncan 1988; Peterson 1996; Bianchi et al. 1999).

More recent analyses on Canadian women found as many as 20 percent of them entered the low income group in the

year their marriage ended and most of those who entered the low income group remained there for more than one year

(Gadalla 2008). Focusing on wealth accumulation, Zagorsky (2005) showed that marital dissolution in the US was

associated with 77 percent of wealth decline on average, with little distinction across genders in terms of absolute

dollar amounts. In an attempt to control for the negative selection of economically vulnerable couples into divorce,

Ananat and Michaels (2008) used the firstborn child’s sex as an instrument and found no relationship between marital

dissolution and income drop on average. However, their quantile regression analyses found divorce to increase in the

percentage of mothers in the bottom and top quantiles of income distribution, suggesting that divorce may lead to both

a higher poverty rate and greater inequality among single mothers.

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These findings raise questions about the underlying causes of women’s economic decline following divorce.

Self-selection of economically vulnerable women into divorces is one possibility, but it does not seem to tell the whole

story (Amato 2010). The most obvious factor exerting direct influence may be the loss of an income earner. Impacts

of such a loss could range from substantial if the ex-husband was the only earner during marriage to imperceptible in

cases where the ex-wife was the only one with paid work. While ex-husbands’ income is undoubtedly important,

there are other factors that can either magnify or offset that income effect, such as women’s own earning potential,

household assets level, and presence of children.

Gary Becker (1985) noted that household task division might lead married women to invest less in their

human capital than their husbands do, and the resulting gender gap in human capital level could in turn reinforce

household task division. Such intra-household dynamic may eventually reduce women’s earning potential to the

extent that their economic decline becomes inevitable in the face of divorce. To be sure, the breadwinner-housewife

family structure has become increasingly uncommon. The proportion of married-couple families with husbands as the

sole earners has shrunk from 33.3 percent in 1970 to 19.0 percent in 2012. Meanwhile, the percentage of households

with both spouses earning salaries rose from 45.7 percent to 53.3 percent. Wives’ contribution to their family income

also increased in the same period, from 26.6 percent to 37.3 percent. In 1987, 17.8 percent of the women outearned

their husbands when both worked for pay; the comparable figure for 2012 was 29.0 percent (BLS 2014).

Notwithstanding the overall trends of increasing female labor participation, substantial disparity still persists

between genders. In 2013, the employment rate among all individuals 25-64 years old was 66.1 percent for women

and 78.8 percent for men. The disparity was larger at lower education levels in general: 40 percent of women versus

65.7 percent of men were employed among high school dropouts. In addition, women today still invest fewer hours at

work than men do (36.0 versus 40.9 per week). Working women are twice as likely to have a part-time job compared

to their male counterparts (26.0 versus 13.1 percent in 2013). Among full-time workers, a typical woman earns just

82.1 percent of a typical man’s salary ($706 versus $860 per week in 2013) (BLS 2014). All of this evidence suggests

that women still engage less in the labor market than their male counterparts do today, despite the substantial progress

they have made in the past decades.

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Evidence also suggests that the economic impacts of divorce vary de- pending on women’s human capital.

For instance, Mauldin (1990) found pre- divorce education and job training to be significant predictors of post-divorce

income for non-poor divorced women. Smock (1994) found pre-divorce work experience and education attainment

have significant independent effects on post-divorce personal income. Bianchi and coauthors (1999) found women

who were employed full-time and contributed a sizeable portion of their family income before divorce suffered the

least decline in living standard after divorces. Bridges and colleagues (2013) found years of education and prior work

experience both to be predictive of divorced women’s income. Those who did not invest in their own human capital

were exposed to greater financial shocks from events like marital dissolution. These findings to some extent lend

support to Becker’s theory on how within-marriage human capital might affect women’s post-divorce economic

wellbeing through gender role specialization and the subsequent contraction of earning potential.

Besides pre-divorce human capital, post-divorce child placement is another factor affecting the post-divorce

gender gap in economic wellbeing. Children can both raise the living expenses and limit the earning ability of their

care- takers (Bianchi 2000; Apps and Rees 2001). Despite the growing prevalence of shared placement, most children

still live with their mothers after divorces (Bartfeld 2011; Brown and Cook 2011; Vespa et al. 2013; Grall 2013).1

Child support payment to resident parents (mostly mothers), on the other hand, is often inadequate and irregular,

failing to bring the children back to their pre-divorce living standard (Bartfeld 2000; Cancian and Meyer 2005; Grall

2013)1. Hence it should be no surprise that post-divorce child placement was found to fully explain the income gap

between genders (Smock 1994).

Taken together, women’s post-divorce economic decline seems attributable not only to the loss of a partners’

income but also to women’s lagged human capital accumulation before or during marriage and the disproportionate

burden of child placement on women following a divorce. Past literature linking women’s human capital to their post-

divorce economic outcomes has focused exclusively on income-based measures of wellbeing, overlooking other

dimensions of material wellbeing such as food insecurity. As opposed to the substantial understanding we have on

1 In Grall’s study, one cannot tell if a parent has sole custody or equal or unequal shared custody. The term “joint custody” may

refer to either the legal or the physical custody or both.

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women’s financial status after divorce, it remains largely unclear whether and how marital dissolution would affect

women’s food security.

Determinants of Food Insecurity

Food insecurity is defined as the “limited or uncertain availability of nutrition- ally adequate and safe foods or limited

or uncertain ability to acquire food in socially acceptable ways” (Bickel et al 2000, p. 6). There are wide and consistent

reports on the potential harms of food insecurity for both children and mothers. Children from food insecure

households have been found to have poorer general health and higher odds of being hospitalized (Cook et al 2004;

Gundersen and Kreider 2009). Food insecurity in kindergarten was predictive of poorer academic performance in

elementary school (Jyoti et al. 2005). Moreover, young children from food insecure households presented lower level

of non-cognitive skills (Howard, 2010) and higher incidence of behavior problems (Whitaker et al. 2006; Huang et al.

2010b) compared to their peers from food secure households. Mothers’ dietary adequacy was often jeopardized when

their households were threatened by food insecurity (McIntyre et al 2003). They were more likely to self-report poorer

health and chronic health-conditions if they lived in households with very low food security (Tarasuk 2001).

Depressive episodes and other mental health disorders were also more prevalent among mothers from food insecure

households than their food secure counterparts (Whitaker et al 2006; Melchior et al 2009).

In 2014, 14.0 percent of American households (17.4 million households) had occasional or regular difficulty

providing enough food for all household members due to constraints on financial resources (Coleman-Jensen et al.

2015). Prevalence of food insecurity was high among households with minor children (19.2 percent), especially if

they were female- headed (35.3 percent) (Coleman-Jensen et al. 2015). Prior studies have consistently found single

motherhood to independently predict food insecurity (Bartfeld and Dunifon 2006; Hernandez and Pressler 2013;

Miller et al. 2014), but little is known about the role of marital dissolution per se in this relationship. Moreover, while

past work has looked extensively at how current circumstances are linked to food insecurity, there has been little

attention to how past circumstances are linked to later food security. Existing research does, however, provide

some insight into why divorce might increase the risk of food insecurity, and how human capital and other pre-divorce

attributes might moderate that risk. In particular, food insecurity has been consistently linked to low income, low

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education, unemployment, children, limited assets, and disability, all of which are potentially relevant to

understanding how divorce might influence women’s food security.

Not surprisingly, income (often represented by the income-poverty-ratio) has a consistent negative

relationship with household food insecurity. Nearly 40 percent of the households below the poverty line versus 6.3

percent of the households above 1.85 times the poverty line were food insecure in 2014 (Coleman-Jensen et al. 2015).

Even after controlling for other socioeconomic characteristics, lower income still predicted higher risk of food

insecurity in the past studies (Gundersen and Gruber 2001; Bartfeld and Dunifon 2006; Hernandez and Pressler 2013;

Miller et al. 2014). Yet income is far from a perfect predictor of food hardships. Among the 11,853 working-age adults

sampled from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) III, 80 percent of the poor people

were food secure while 31 percent of the food insecure individuals were not poor (Bhattacharya et al. 2004). Similar

estimates were obtained using the Current Population Survey (CPS) 2009 (Gundersen et al. 2011).

As a key determinant of personal earnings, human capital is expected to affect a household’s food security

status mostly through income (Hernandez and Pressler 2013). Yet education has also been found to predict household

or child food security beyond its effect on income (Ribar and Hamrick 2003; Bartfeld and Dunifon 2006; Miller et al.

2014), potentially due to its association with mental health and/or financial skills (Olson et al. 2004; Heflin et al. 2007;

Gundersen and Garasky 2012).

One would expect children to raise the risk of food hardships by limiting their caretakers’ earning potential

while increasing the cost of living. By that rationale, the effect of children would be absorbed entirely by the income-

needs ratio, as shown in some studies (Ribar and Hamrick 2003; Hernandez and Pressler 2013). In contrast, the effects

of children are more salient in studies where income was specified as absolute dollar amounts (Bartfeld and Dunifon

2006; Miller et al. 2014). Additionally, households with teenaged children are much more likely to be food insecure

than those with preschoolers only, controlling for other factors (Coleman-Jensen et al. 2013).

Besides human capital and children, assets and disability have also been identified as robust independent

predictors of food hardship. Gundersen and Gruber (2001) highlighted the importance of assets in buffering the impact

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of income shocks on food sufficiency.2 They found savings and homeownership to be positively correlated with a

household’s food security, a finding that was reaffirmed by later studies (Huang et al. 2010a; Guo 2011). Health is

another robust factor related to food insecurity. The presence of people with mental and physical disabilities predicted

higher food insecurity beyond the effects from the household’s economic profile (She and Livermore 2007; Heflin et

al. 2007; Huang et al. 2010a). Indeed, disability is associated with higher medical expenses (Mitra et al. 2009), lower

earning potential (Meyer and Mok 2009), and possible hindrances to food purchase and preparation, all of which could

lead to heightened risk of food hardship (Nielsen et al. 2010; Coleman-Jensen and Nord 2013).

In sum, past literature has found factors including but not limited to single motherhood, pre-divorce human

capital, and post-divorce child custody that could potentially influence a household’s food security status. However,

none has investigated whether marital dissolution as a transitional event is actually linked to mothers’ food security

and, if so, how it interacts with the other determinants of food security in the process. This is the gap this paper aims

to fill.

Framework and Hypotheses

The framework underlying this study posits that divorce is a risk factor for economic hardship among women, and

that this may be compounded or offset by factors such as human capital, assets, and children. Although gender role

specialization already tends to put women in an economically vulnerable position within marriage, such vulnerability

is likely more salient in the event of divorce. Marital dissolution results in lost financial resources due to loss of a

potential second earner, as well as in typical cases ongoing child responsibilities due to child placement arrangements.

With their earning ability constrained, custodial mothers are particularly vulnerable to economic deprivation after

getting divorced. Unless compensated by an adequate amount of assets or child support, such economic deprivation

likely translates into material hardships. Since the food budget is more flexible than other living expenses, it is often

the first to be cut down on when competing needs arise (Bhattacharya et al. 2004; Nord and Kantor 2006). Hence, I

focus my investigation on potential food hardships and ask whether marital dissolution is related to higher risk of food

2 “Food sufficiency” is a concept akin to “food security” with the focus on whether a household has enough food to eat in a given

period.

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insecurity among mothers. I also question the role of pre-dissolution human capital, assets, and children’s

characteristics with regard to food security and how their role may differ for mothers who get divorced versus those

who stay married. In accordance with my questions, I hypothesize that:

H1: Recent marital dissolution is associated with higher odds of being food insecure among mothers, relative

to their continuously married counterparts.

H2: Mothers’ within-marriage human capital, assets, and children are differentially linked to subsequent food

insecurity for women who experience marital dissolution as compared to those who remain married.

Methods

Data

This study utilized the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), which is a nationally representative

longitudinal survey administered by the US Census Bureau that collects detailed information on various

socioeconomic characteristics of individuals and households in the US. The survey is administered to all persons 15

years and older in a household every four months for an average of two to three years. Each round of the survey is

called a “wave” and the series of waves from the same original household members form a “panel”. Respondents from

the first wave are tracked in the subsequent waves of the panel regardless of whether they leave the original households,

such that people remain in the sample even following a marital dissolution. The survey is divided into a core module

that is repeated each wave – consisting of information related to income, assets, employment, marital status, and

household composition – and supplemental modules administered once or occasionally over the panel. In most panels,

a food security module is administered once, typically in the ninth wave.3

Analytic Sample

3 As an exception, in panel 2008, the food security module was administered twice in waves 6 and 9. However, for this study, I

only used food security status recorded in waves 8, 8, 5, and 9 from the panels 1996, 2001, 2004, and 2008, respectively.

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The analytic sample consisted of women aged 18 to 65 who were married and living with at least one child under

18 years old in the first wave of the survey and who reported their food security status during the wave in which

the food security module was administered (typically the eighth wave, that is, 28 months later). According to this

criterion, 38,729 female respondents from the first wave were sampled, and are classified as either continuously

married or eventually divorced based on their marital status at the wave of food security measurement. However,

nearly a quarter of them (9,300 individuals) dropped out of the survey before the food security questionnaire was

administered, which include 26 percent of the eventually separated mothers and 24 percent of the continuously married

mothers. Another 83 women were dropped due to missing information at the first wave. Hence a total of 29,346

initially married women were left for analysis of which 4.53 percent (1,330) experienced marital dissolution4 between

the first wave and the wave of food security measurement.5

Dependent Variable

The dependent variable was dichotomous indicating whether a household was ever food insecure in the four months

prior to the interview. The food security status was defined based on a series of five questions asked to the household

heads regarding the food budget and eating pattern of their households in the past four months. This is a slightly

abbreviated version of the USDA six-item food security scale. Prior research has confirmed the reliability and validity

of SIPP’s scale in measuring food insecurity at the national level (Nord 2006).

Independent Variables

The main independent variable was a dummy indicating whether an initially married woman experienced divorce or

separation in the up-to-32-months period between wave one and the wave of food security measurement. An initially

4 For the sake of simplicity, I will refer to all cases of divorce and separation in my sample as “divorce” or “marital dissolution”.

Mothers who got divorced or separated will be called “divorced mothers”. 5 Note that there might be unreported dissolutions in which initially married respondents dropped the survey before their new

marital status was recorded, inflating the proportion of continuously married women and deflating that of their divorced

counterparts (Hill 1997). Therefore, I postulated that the actual attrition rate should be even higher for the divorced mothers and

correspondingly lower for the continuously married ones.

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married mother was regarded as divorced if in any month before the food security measurement she or her husband

self-reported divorce or separation.

The key independent variables reflect human capital, assets, and children’s characteristics measured at

baseline when all of the women were married. The highest education attained, employment status, and disability status

of mothers at wave 1 were joint proxies for their human capital level during the marriage. The homeownership and

total amount of interest earned from bank deposits and government bonds together measured a respondent’s assets

level. Children’s characteristics were represented by the number of minor children and the age of the oldest child

present at home.

The analyses also control for mothers’ relevant demographic characteristics which included race and ethnicity,

age, metro status, and marital length. Dummy variables differentiating among the four SIPP panels were added to

control for potential changes in the macro environment over the 1996-2011 period. Because husbands’ characteristics

are also relevant to women’s material wellbeing, fathers’ human capital at wave one were also controlled for in the

regression analyses.

Interaction

Since baseline human capital, assets, and children may be differentially linked to economic outcomes for continuously

married mothers versus divorced mothers and that difference is an important focus of this study - I further interacted

those variables with mothers’ marital outcome. Thus, characteristics are not constrained to having the same

relationship to subsequent food security for women who divorce versus those who remain married; the models

formally test whether baseline characteristics have different implications for the two groups of women.

Empirical model

A series of multivariate logistic regressions of food insecurity were estimated, with baseline characteristics predicting

later food security status. The general framework is as shown below:

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𝑦𝑡1= 𝛼 + 𝛽(𝑑𝑖𝑣) + 𝛾(𝑥𝑡0

) + 𝛿(𝑧𝑡0) + 𝜎(𝑑𝑖𝑣 ∗ 𝑥𝑡0

) + 휀 (1)

where y denotes mothers’ food security outcome at t1 (wave of food security measurement), div represents the marital

outcome dummy, x represents the main variables of interest (including human capital, assets, and children) at t0 (wave

1), z denotes the demographic and other controls such as race and age, and div*x represents the interaction terms

between marital outcome and the main variables of interest.6

Previous research has shown that incorrectly assuming simple random sampling can lead to reduced standard

errors and an increased risk of Type I errors (Nielsen et al. 2009). Due to the multi-level sampling design of the SIPP

data (Census Bureau 2011), I applied the Taylor series linearization method suggested by Nielsen and Seay (2014) to

all of the regression models. Mothers’ household proportional weights from the wave of food security measurement

were also applied.

Results

Descriptive Analysis

As Table 1 shows, food insecurity was much more prevalent among recently divorced mothers than among

continuously married mother. Almost one-fifth of the divorced mothers were food insecure while fewer than eight

percent of the married mothers had the same hardship. With regard to baseline characteristics, subsequently divorcing

mothers were less likely to have completed college, but more likely to work full time. The rate of homeownership as

well as the amounts of earned interest were all substantially lower for the eventually divorced mothers compared to

their continuously married counterparts. Divorced mothers were also more likely to be black and married for a shorter

time, and less likely to live in a metro area. On the other hand, there was no significant difference between married

mothers and their divorced counterparts in the following characteristics: percentage with severe disabilities, number

6 Allison (1999) once raised the concern that apparently significant interactions in a logit model may result from unobserved

heterogeneity (aka heteroscedasticity) across the two groups from the dichotomous variable, which, if not properly accounted for,

may bias both the standard errors and the parameter estimates (Yatchew and Griliches 1985). Williams (2009) proposed a

heterogeneous choice model to correct for such potential bias, yet his approach could rather exacerbate the estimation bias in the

case of model misspecification and measurement error (Keele and Park 2006). Given the less rigorous results and potential

exacerbated bias from the heterogeneous choice model, I chose to conduct my analyses using the ordinary logit model.

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of minor children at home, oldest child’s age, and the percentage of Hispanics. Overall, the descriptive data suggest

that eventually divorcing mothers are more at risk of food insecurity on a number of dimensions examined here, with

full-time work as a notable exception.

Table 1: Mean values of selected variables by marital outcome

Variable Married Divorced

Food insecure at follow-up*** 0.078 0.193

Mother's characteristics

Bachelor's degree*** 0.301 0.154

Full-time job*** 0.388 0.439

Work-preventing disability 0.029 0.034

Black*** 0.073 0.114

Hispanic 0.167 0.152

Age 46+ years old *** 0.067 0.133

Father's characteristics

Bachelor's degree (m)*** 0.313 0.160

Full-time job (m)*** 0.749 0.702

Work-preventing disability (m)*** 0.030 0.053

Household characteristics

Household interest*** 33.766 14.195

No homeownership*** 0.222 0.378

3+ children* 0.231 0.258

Oldest child 9-17 years old 0.599 0.603

Metro residence*** 0.789 0.734

Married for 0-6 years*** 0.218 0.353

N 28016 1330

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Note: Weighted by the adjusted last-wave household weights. All

characteristics except food security outcome are measured at the baseline

(i.e. first wave). *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.

Regression analysis

Table 2 includes odds ratios from two logistic models. Model 1 contains all variables of primary interest alone and

primary variables interacted with the marital outcome dummy, as described above, so as not to constrain them to

having the same relationship to food security for married and divorced women. The odds ratios for the uninteracted

variables illustrate the association between baseline characteristics and the odds of subsequent food insecurity for

continuously married mothers; the odds ratios for the interactions denote the differential association of a given

characteristic with food insecurity for women who divorce relative to those who remain married. Thus, the relationship

between a baseline characteristic and the odds of food insecurity for divorced mothers is captured by the product of

the odds ratios for the uninteracted and interacted variables. Model 2 is a pared-down version of Model 1 including

only those interactions that were significant in the initial model.

Table 2: Main logistic regressions

1 2

Omitted Variable OR SE OR SE

Continuously married Divorced 2.422* (1.112) 2.324*** (0.391)

High school graduate High school incomplete 1.177* (0.105) 1.157* (0.096)

Some college 0.993 (0.082) 0.975 (0.076)

Associate degree 0.872 (0.074) 0.896 (0.072)

Bachelor's degree 0.552*** (0.051) 0.558*** (0.047)

No job Part-time job 0.983 (0.068) 0.958 (0.065)

Full-time job 0.789*** (0.059) 0.795*** (0.056)

Not disabled Work-limiting disability 2.091*** (0.212) 2.097*** (0.212)

Work-preventing disability 1.751*** (0.195) 1.745*** (0.191)

High school graduate (m) High school incomplete (m) 1.363*** (0.116) 1.316*** (0.103)

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Some college (m) 0.899 (0.082) 0.887 (0.076)

Associate degree (m) 0.977 (0.082) 0.972 (0.076)

Bachelor's degree (m) 0.548*** (0.044) 0.540*** (0.042)

No job (m) Part-time job (m) 0.847 (0.086) 0.849* (0.081)

Full-time job (m) 0.659*** (0.061) 0.664*** (0.056)

Not disabled (m) Work-limiting disability (m) 1.921*** (0.206) 1.920*** (0.207)

Work-preventing disability (m) 1.675*** (0.211) 1.689*** (0.211)

Household interest amount 1.000 (0.000) 1.000 (0.000)

Homeowner No Homeownership 1.953*** (0.121) 1.971*** (0.122)

1 child 2 children 1.077 (0.067) 1.076 (0.067)

3+ children 1.729*** (0.122) 1.729*** (0.121)

Oldest child 0-3 years old 4-8 years old 1.033 (0.092) 1.043 (0.095)

9-17 years old 1.113 (0.091) 1.129 (0.091)

White Black 1.341*** (0.118) 1.341*** (0.117)

Hispanic 1.534*** (0.101) 1.544*** (0.100)

Others 1.314** (0.159) 1.308** (0.158)

Age 0-25 26-35 0.939 (0.069) 0.937 (0.069)

36-45 0.931 (0.078) 0.927 (0.078)

46+ 0.972 (0.110) 0.958 (0.110)

Non-metro Metro residence 0.912 (0.067) 0.909 (0.067)

Married for 19+ years 13-18 1.175** (0.091) 1.175** (0.091)

7-12. 1.270*** (0.110) 1.272*** (0.110)

0-6 1.526*** (0.145) 1.530*** (0.148)

Missing marital length 1.500*** (0.212) 1.505*** (0.216)

Panel 1996 Panel 2001 0.937 (0.066) 0.936 (0.065)

Panel 2004 0.980 (0.074) 0.981 (0.074)

Panel 2008 1.462*** (0.102) 1.463*** (0.101)

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Interactions with marital outcome dummy

High school graduate High school incomplete 0.701 (0.182)

Some college 0.787 (0.185)

Associate degree 1.217 (0.296)

Bachelor's degree 1.125 (0.362)

No job Part-time job 0.733 (0.162)

Full-time job 1.006 (0.218)

Not disabled Work-limiting disability 0.859 (0.306) 0.819 (0.295)

Work-preventing disability 2.718** (1.065) 2.914*** (1.050)

High school graduate (m) High school incomplete (m) 0.698 (0.169)

Some college (m) 0.865 (0.200)

Associate degree (m) 0.955 (0.230)

Bachelor's degree (m) 0.944 (0.259)

No job (m) Part-time job (m) 0.965 (0.341)

Full-time job (m) 1.080 (0.340)

Not disabled (m) Work-limiting disability (m) 0.559* (0.192) 0.522* (0.187)

Work-preventing disability (m) 0.709 (0.293) 0.654 (0.204)

Household interest amount 0.998 (0.002)

Homeowner No Homeownership 0.739* (0.128) 0.679** (0.108)

1 child 2 children 1.381* (0.263) 1.439** (0.264)

3+ children 0.960 (0.244) 0.960 (0.227)

Oldest child 0-3 years old 4-8 years old 1.170 (0.342)

9-17 years old 1.227 (0.308)

Intercept 0.063*** (0.011) 0.063*** (0.010)

Observations 29,346 29,346

Notes: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1; “(m)” denotes (ex-) husbands’ characteristics.

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Marital dissolution was a significant predictor of mothers’ food insecurity independent of the other baseline

characteristics. In addition, several baseline characteristics were differentially linked to mothers’ food insecurity risk

de- pending on their marital outcomes. For instance, severe disability appeared especially harmful to divorced mothers.

While all married mothers with work- preventing disabilities had increased odds of food insecurity relative to their

non-disabled counterparts (OR=1.75), the risk was dramatically compounded for divorced mothers (interaction

OR=2.91). On the other hand, living with a husband with work-limiting disabilities at the baseline increased the odds

of food insecurity for mothers (OR=1.92), while the association was negated for the subset of women who

subsequently divorced (interaction OR=.522). In terms of assets, although renters at baseline showed higher odds of

being food insecure than their home-owning counterparts irrespective of their marital outcomes (OR=1.97), the

difference was partially offset among women who subsequently divorced (interaction OR=.68). Number of minor

children at home during marriage was another factor moderating the divorce-food- insecurity relationship. Whereas

the presence of two children versus one child at home did not make any significant difference to a continuously married

mother’s food security, two children did pose a greater risk in the event of divorce (interaction OR=1.439).

However, not all baseline characteristics were differentially correlated with divorced versus continually

married mothers’ food security. For both groups, having a bachelor’s degree was associated with roughly 40 percent

smaller odds of being food insecure compared to holding only a high school diploma. Also, working at a full-time job

at baseline was associated with 20 percent smaller likelihood of being food insecure compared to having no job at all,

irrespective of mothers’ marriage continuity. Note that neither the total household interests earned from financial

assets nor the age of oldest child at home was a significant predictor, yet the directions of their coefficients were as

expected.

Among the various control variables, racial and ethnic minorities faced a higher risk of food insecurity

compared to their white counterparts even after controlling for other characteristics. Mothers married for a longer time

were also less likely to be food insecure. Moreover, being interviewed in 2008 versus 1996 was associated with 46

percent higher odds of food insecurity; interviews occurred in 2001 or 2004 did not show significant differences.

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Predicted probabilities

To illustrate how baseline characteristics are linked to later food insecurity for continuously married versus divorced

women, I used odds ratios from Model 2 to estimate predicted probabilities of food insecurity for a series of

prototypical women who differ from each other in marital outcome and selected other attributes linked to food

insecurity. I began with all mothers’ characteristics set to baseline categories as follows: White, 26-35 years old,

living in a metro area with the oldest child’s age between nine and seventeen years old, interviewed for the first time

in 2004, with a household inflation- adjusted annual interest earned from bank deposits and government bonds of

$1.485 (the sample median). They were also assumed to hold a high school diploma and a full-time job, be able-

bodied and a homeowner, with one child at home, and married for 13-18 years to an able-bodied man with a high

school degree and a full time job at the baseline. The predicted probability of food insecurity for women with these

attributes was 3.0 percent for continuously married women, compared to 6.8 percent for divorced women (row 1).

I subsequently altered one characteristic at a time and assessed how the predicted probabilities change. For

mothers who had a bachelor’s degree rather than only a high school diploma at baseline but otherwise the same

reference characteristics, the predicted probabilities dropped to 1.7 and 3.9 per- cent, respectively (row 2). On the

other hand, jobless mothers showed 0.8 and 1.6 percentage points higher probabilities of food insecurity than otherwise

similar mothers with full-time jobs, respectively (row 3). Note that while the proportional change in risk is much the

same for both continuously married mothers and their divorced counterparts in the education and employment

dimensions, due to the small and insignificant interaction with marital outcome, this nonetheless translates to a higher

absolute change for divorced mothers due to their higher baseline risk.

Table 3 : Predicted probabilities of food insecurity for prototypical women

Variables (Reference category) Married Divorced

Reference (All in reference category) 0.030 0.068

Bachelor’s degree (High school degree) 0.017 0.039

No job (Full-time job) 0.038 0.084

17

Work-preventing (No disability, no job) 0.080 0.372

Renter (Homeowner) 0.073 0.110

2 children (One child) 0.041 0.125

3+ children (One child) 0.064 0.133

Notes: The following reference characteristics of mothers were assumed for all

simulations above: White, 26-35 years old, living in a metro area with the oldest

child's age between nine and seventeen years old, interviewed for the first time in

2004, with a household inflation-adjusted annual interest earned from bank deposits

and government bonds of $1.485, and married for 13-18 years to an able-bodied

man with a high school degree and a full time job. The following characteristics

were also assumed for the simulations above except when they appeared in

parentheses: High school graduated, working full time, able-bodied, homeowner,

with one child at home.

In accordance with the regression outcome, severe disability was associated with a much higher differential

risk of food insecurity for divorced mothers than for married mothers. Continuously married mothers with work-

preventing disabilities had more than double the predicted probability of food insecurity compared to able-bodied

jobless mother (8.0 versus 3.8 percent, rows 3 and 4, column 1); their divorced counterparts, however, had more than

four times the probability of food insecurity with these disabilities (37.2 versus 8.4 percent, rows 3 and 4, column 2).

The differential effect of homeowner- ship across marital outcomes can also be seen, with homeownership being more

protective for married versus divorced mothers. Continuously married renters showed a probability of food insecurity

almost 2.5 times as high as their home owning counterparts, whereas subsequently divorced renters had roughly 1.5

times the risk of their home owning counterparts (row 5). Note, however, that the absolute gap in food insecurity

probability between renters and homeowners was rather similar for mothers with different marital outcomes (4.3-

percentage-point gap among the continuously married mothers versus 4.2-percentage-point gap among the divorced

mothers). The differential association between number of children and food insecurity risk for married versus divorced

mothers is also illustrated in these predicted probabilities. Whereas continuously married mothers with two children

at baseline showed a 1.1 percentage points higher probability of food insecurity than their single child counterparts,

18

having two children increases the same probability by 5.7 percentage points among the divorced mothers (row 6). The

magnitude of change in food insecurity risk between having one and two children was much larger for divorced

mothers than for married ones, in both proportional and absolute terms.

Discussion

Compared to married couples, single mothers are particularly vulnerable to food insecurity (Coleman-Jensen et al.

2015). The results of this study showed that this fact is also true when focusing on mothers who experienced recent

marital dissolution as compared to their continuously married counterparts. A key focus of this study was to assess

the extent to which the negative impacts of divorce are moderated by women’s human capital, child responsibilities,

physical wellbeing, and accumulation of assets during marriage. On one hand, this study confirmed the importance of

these dimensions to mothers’ later food security status across marital outcomes. On the other hand, only a subset of

the dimensions proved differentially important to divorced women. Specifically, work-preventing disabilities and the

presence of more children were associated with higher risk for all women, but were linked to an especially high

probability of food insecurity for divorced women, suggesting that marriage may provide at least some cushion

against these risks. Conversely, homeownership at baseline seemed to be protective for continuously married women’s

food security, but less so for women who subsequently divorced.

Prior literature has reported physical and mental disability and number of children as significant risk factors

for household food insecurity, above and beyond various financial wellbeing indicators (Bartfeld and Dunifon 2006;

Heflin et al. 2007; Huang et al. 2010a; She and Livermore 2007). However, the differential risks associated with these

factors in the event of divorce are a new finding. There are at least two features that could contribute to such differential

effects. Financially speaking, both disabilities and the presence of more children involve greater expenses. The former

often generate considerable medical bills (Mitra et al. 2009) while the latter is associated with higher expenses in

general (Lino 2014). Although such elevated expenses likely affect both divorced mothers and their married

counterparts, the former have less of a cushion due to the loss of one of the household earners. Moreover, both coping

with disabilities and caring for children are activities that compete for time and energy with outside jobs, further

limiting single mothers’ earning capacity. Furthermore, divorce implies the physical loss of an adult helper for mothers,

19

which could compound the challenges of purchasing and preparing food faced by disabled women, making their

nutrition needs even harder to meet. With all the potential barriers listed above, it is not surprising that food hardship

is more commonplace among mothers with disabilities and more children, and that the risk is greatest following

marital dissolution.

However, not all findings were as expected. Both education and employment during marriage were similarly

associated with the food insecurity risk of both continuously married and subsequently divorced mothers. While

contrary to my hypothesis, this finding pointed to the potential benefit of human capital development to food security,

not only for divorced mothers but also for those still married. The results illustrate the importance of wives’

contribution to the household income today when the family expenditure increasingly relies on both spouses’ earnings

(Warren and Tyagi 2003).

The positive effects of assets accumulation on food security were intuitive. Homeowners should be able to

allocate a greater share of their budget to food purchases and apply for home equity loans if the need arises (Gundersen

and Gruber 2001). The benefit of such financial flexibility would nonetheless be mostly offset by the negative income

shock caused by a divorce such that the net outcome became positive to continuously married mothers but no longer

beneficial to the divorced ones.

Taken together, the evidence seems to suggest that policies that incentivize higher education and labor force

participation among women have the potential to alleviate their food insecurity in general regardless of their marital

status. Marriage appears to shield mothers with severe disabilities or multiple children from potential food-related

hardships to some extent while marital dissolution appears to dramatically exacerbate their food insecurity risk. For

people with disabilities, a reassessment of the adequacy and timeliness of the relevant safety nets may be needed, as

the potential non-monetary constraints of these households might also lead to food insecurity. The significant main

and interaction effects from the number of children call policymakers to at- tend to the role of post-divorce child

placement patterns and potentially child support policies in influencing food security. As far as the evidence goes, a

higher number of children was correlated with higher risk of food insecurity, especially for divorced mothers. Further

investigation of the source of such differential effects for mothers with different marital outcomes is warranted.

20

Conclusions

Marital dissolution seems to be a risk factor for mothers’ later food insecurity over and above their socioeconomic

prospects. Higher level of human capital, greater assets, and fewer children during marriage are all associated with

lower risk of food insecurity. Severe disabilities and the presence of more children within marriage are both associated

with greater increase in the food insecurity risk if the mother is divorced versus married. On the other hand,

homeownership was associated with lower risk of food insecurity for married mothers but not for divorced ones. The

findings of this study should not be interpreted as strictly causal. It is possible for the significant correlation between

food hardship and various explanatory variables to be spurious. In other words, unobserved characteristics like mental

health issues might determine mothers’ food security, marital outcome, and choice over human capital accumulation

and number of children simultaneously. In addition, while the disability results appear robust, it should be noted that

there are relatively few divorced mothers in the sample with work-preventing disabilities (N=53, 4 percent of the

divorced mothers). Despite these caveats, this paper illustrates how the food security of mothers is related to their

characteristics during marriage as well as how these characteristics interacted with marital outcomes. Future research

should try to identify the sources and remedies for the differential effects of homeownership and number of children

on mothers with different marital outcomes. Policies targeting the accumulation of human capital have the potential

to strengthen the food security of both married mothers and divorced ones. Public authorities may need to reevaluate

the adequacy and efficiency of the existing safety net programs for households containing people with disabilities.

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