Table 1.

Measures used to construct Lifetime Destabilizing Factor Index (range 0–7, mean = 0.58, sd = 0.82, n = 12,935).

Question wording	Percentage Responding “Yes” during lifetime
Have there ever been any times when your mother, father, or guardian lost a job or couldn’t find work?	22.9%
At any time in your life did either of your parents, a stepparent, or guardian ever have to go to prison?	7.3%
In your whole life, were you ever in a very bad fire, flood, tornado, hurricane, earthquake or other disaster? This would be a time that your home or apartment was damaged and you might have had to live somewhere else for a while.	7.2%
Did a parent or someone who takes care of you ever have to leave the country to fight in a war, when he or she had to be away for several months or longer?	6.7%
Was there ever a time in your life when your family had to live on the street or in a shelter because they had no place to stay?	2.8%
Were you ever sent away or taken away from your family for any reason?	2.7%
[From the caretaker interview] Counting your current partner, how many different spouses or live-in partners have you had since your [child] was born? (Instability count for any cases greater than two).	8.5%
Traditional measure of stability, not in LDF Index [From the caretaker interview] How many times has your [child] moved households since he/she was born? (Response divided by child’s age is greater than 0.3, or more than once every 3.3 years)	25.4%

Note: question wording is for children 10 and older. For those aged 1 month to 9 years, questions were asked of primary caretaker about “any time in your child’s life”.