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Abstract: “This paper develops a unified dynamic treatment effects framework to examine how parental marital patterns affect children’s cognitive skills. Using Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Survey data, we analyze the timing and sequencing of family structure changes throughout childhood.  Using a clustering analysis treating marital trajectories as sequences, we identify six distinct marital trajectory clusters from continuously single to stably married families. The marital history clusters differ considerably on variables that are predetermined at the time of birth as well as on endogenous variables like time investments and test scores. We then estimate a dynamic model of marital status and children’s outcomes that allows for age-varying selection into marriage and divorce. The estimated model reveals substantial sorting on gains into marriage and negative average effects of divorce on cognitive skills that attenuate with time.”