In Brief

By Lisa McLaughlin

SHARING ROOMS Teenagers like to think of their bedroom as their own sacred, solitary space, but a new Coventry University study reports that teens who spend too much time alone in their rooms don't develop negotiating skills as good as those of the teens who share with a sibling. Forcing teenagers to share bedrooms could result in longer-lasting adult relationships and more stable marriages.

BIG BABIES An infant's birth weight may be a function of how much social support the expectant mother receives during pregnancy. Researchers at UCLA and the University of California at Irvine interviewed nearly 250 pregnant women, gathering data about the baby's father, the baby's grandparents and the mother's close friendships. They found that women who received support from multiple sources tended to have bigger babies, perhaps because they were encouraged to stop smoking and start eating better.

FOR POORER Single women may be closing the pay gap--for workers ages 21 to 35, there is now almost no difference in full-time pay between single women and single men--but not so working brides. New studies show that married women who work make 3% less than their male counterparts. When children arrive and women start working shorter hours and taking longer leaves than their male co-workers, the wage gap grows to 26%.

--By Lisa McLaughlin