A new portrait of single Americans, drawn from a major new survey, suggests the attitudes and behaviors of today's singles are quite unlike their counterparts just a few decades ago. Findings show men are more interested in love, marriage and children than their peers in earlier times; women want more independence in their relationships than […]

Child Trends has released a new research brief entitled: Characteristics of Young Adult Sexual Relationships: Diverse, Sometimes Violent, Often Loving, which analyzes data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to identify important factors about the nature and quality of these relationships that may have long-term consequences. Among the findings: Read the brief. Young […]

The Supporting Healthy Marriage Evaluation – Early Lessons from the Implementation of a Relationship and Marriage Skills Program for Low-Income Married Couples has been released. This report presents early implementation and operational lessons from the Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) evaluation. Funded by the Administration for Children and Families, SHM uses a rigorous research design to […]

That's the latest news from the land of Gen X parenthood. Apparently, these children of the divorce boom of the 1970s would rather put chocolate syrup in the baby bottles than put the children through a family break-up. The number of divorces has been in decline since it peaked in 1980, and that is particularly […]

Results of a new study show that engaging in activities that you and your spouse view as exciting can help you feel more satisfied in your marriage. "We did one experiment where we had people for two hours a week do something new and exciting and it dramatically increased the quality of their marriage," says […]

Shattering gender stereotypes, an international study has found that men need cuddling more than women. Researchers from the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University discovered that cuddles and caresses are key to a couples' satisfaction in their long-term relationship, but tenderness is more important to men than women. The study, which looked at more than 1,000 […]

Building Strong Families (BSF), a program of relationship skills education for unwed parents, has been found in a rigorous random assignment evaluation to have limited effects on couples who signed up for the program (Wood, McConnell, et al. 2010). Averaging results across the eight local programs that participated in the evaluation, BSF had no effect […]