We estimated the effects of family structure on how children perceive whether they are happy or anxious, by means of multiple regression analysis. Our sample was from preadolescent- and early-adolescent youth from the nation of Trinidad and Tobago; we found that single-parent children were less happy than children from two-parent homes even when we controlled for the amount of family conflict. We concluded that family structure was an important variable that should not be dismissed prematurely when attempting to understand child outcomes.
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