According to new research reported on in Science Daily, some of the negative consequences on the wellbeing of a child born to a single mother can be reduced if their biological father joins and stays with the family. Conversely, however, if the biological father leaves, or is replaced by a step-father, the children, on average, do no better cognitively, socially or emotionally than children whose mothers remain alone. The research was conducted by experts at the prestigious London School of Economics (LSE) by analysing data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a UK longitudinal study of around 19,000 children who were born in the UK between September 2000 and January 2002. Their final report was published in full in the peer-reviewed European Journal of Population.