This paper examines the effects of incarceration on marriage and family life. The paper reports on three empirical analyses. First, estimates show that incarcerated men are only about half as likely to be married as noninstituional men of the same age, however they are just as likely to have children. By 2000, more than 2 […]

Why are so many Americans enchanted with the idea of marriage but increasingly disenchanted with beingmarried? This paper will try to shed light on that question by looking at recent social scienceresearch on patterns and predictors of marital success and failure. Social science is better equipped to make generalizations about groups than it is to […]

This brief examines the prevalence of multipartnered fertility at the beginning of the 21st century and identifies factors that are associated with this increasingly-common family situation. Specifically, we assess the prevalence of multipartnered fertility among unmarried and married parents, and we describe the individual and couple characteristics that are associated with multipartnered fertility for mothers […]

In recent years, the number of fragile families has risen markedly in urban America. Nevertheless, no research has yet determined if religious participation is associated with higher levels of relationship quality and lower levels of domestic violence among parents in fragile families. Research on religion and married parents indicates that religious participation is associated with […]

Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, this brief examines the role of””marriage markets”” in explaining differences across racial and ethnic groups in rates of marriage in the year following a nonmarital birth. We use the term marriage market to refer to the supply of men relative to women in a local […]

An audio/video recording of the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center’s Technical Assistance Webinar “”Effectively Launching Your Healthy Marriage Program””, held May 16, 2007. Includes concepts and frameworks for programs that want to enhance service delivery, retention and recruitment.

In the last four decades, marriage rates have declined among all Americans, but especially among minorities and lower-income Americans. Research on the retreat from marriage has focused on a range of factors, from the absence of marriageable males to the impact of changes in welfare policy, but it has largely overlooked the role that religious […]

This article uses new data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study to examine the reasons why white, Mexican American, and other Hispanic parents are approximately 2.5 times more likely than African American parents to marry within the 30 months after a nonmarital birth. Combining Fragile Families microdata with 2000 U.S. Census data shows […]