The 2009 State of Our Unions report reveals five ways to build fulfilling and lasting marriages. Read More

Tara Parker Pope (who writes The New York Times' Well blog) explores the scientific evidence that explains why some couples succeed and others fail. Read More

Call them blended families, bonus families or para-kin. Just don't call them stepfamilies. The term – seared into our consciousness through fairy tales and Disney movies – is falling out of favor, even as the ranks of nontraditional families are expanding. A new poll estimates that at least four in 10 Americans consider themselves part […]

Time: Shelly Sundstrom knew she didn't have much of it. Days, hours, minutes were slipping away – but Sundstrom knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to marry Jay Ellison. And he wanted to marry her. But when? And, more problematically, how? Neither of them had the stamina to plan a wedding. Shelly, 48, […]

Marriages between spouses of different races and ethnicities are more common than ever before, say authors of a report by the Pew Research Center. Read More

They are high-school sweethearts who seemed happily married for 40 years after raising four children. But the announcement that Al and Tipper Gore were splitting up was not a surprise to researchers who study the most divorcing cohort in American history. Read More

Americans without a college degree bore the brunt of the recent recession, and so did their marriages, according to a new report by researchers at the University of Virginia. The "Survey of Marital Generosity," conducted on behalf of U-Va.'s National Marriage Project, found that 29 percent of couples reported that the 2007-09 downturn had put […]

The increase in fragile families reflects changes not only in the initial context of births but also in the fundamental nature and patterns of childrearing. Read More

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,656), the authors examined the association between intergenerational relationships and parents' union stability five years after a baby's birth. Read More

This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the association between multi-partnered fertility (MPF) – when parents have children with more than one partner – and parents‘ mental health, including Major Depressive Disorder, heavy episodic drinking, and illicit drug use. Read More