Scientific formulas for happy, healthy, wise children
April 15, 2008 5:22 PM   Subscribe

What are some (at least somewhat) objective studies on healthy children demographics? I'm specifically interested in single vs. multiple children, and for multiple children, differences in age, gender, relationship to parent (adoption vs. biological), and race.

I often hear people say things like "I want to have multiple children so they have good social skills," or "I don't want to have children too far apart, or they won't like each other." But is any of this backed up (or contradicted) by formal studies?

I'd like something less anecdotal and more quantitative evaluating these assumptions. For example, are suicide rates higher among only children? Are girls with much older sisters more often treated for depression? Do mixed-race siblings typically make more or less money than same-race siblings? Please point me to such studies. Yes, I realize every family is different; I'm nonetheless interested in trends.
posted by scottreynen to Society & Culture (2 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Some articles. You can get many many more by looking into terms like "child development" or "development" perhaps crossed with "sibship" or "sibling configuration" or "family structure" if more searches with "sibling" don't work. The cited/cites network off articles in those searches will help.

Your other specific questions could go to pubmed, or google scholar, or scopus.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 6:30 PM on April 15, 2008


Another high yield search. I guess what I'm saying is google.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 6:32 PM on April 15, 2008


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