During the past century the U.S. family system has seen vast changes–in marriage and divorce rates, cohabitation, childbearing, sexual behavior, and women’s work outside the home. Andrew Cherlin reviews these historic changes, noting that marriage remains the most common living arrangement for raising children, but that children, especially poor and minority children, are increasingly likely […]

Past work on the relationship between cohabitation and childbearing shows that cohabitation increases fertility compared to being single, and does so more for intended than unintended births. Most work in this area, however, does not address concerns that fertility and union formation are joint processes, and that failing to account for the joint nature of […]

How have recent changes in U.S. family structure affected the cognitive, social, and emotional well-being of the nation’s children– Paul Amato examines the effects of family formation on children and evaluates whether current marriage promotion programs are likely to meet children’s needs.

The transition to first marriage among cohabiting black and white men and women is investigated, drawing on data form the National Survey of Families and Households. The results underscore the importance of economic factors on the transition to marriage for both black and white cohabitors. It is also found that for black cohabitors, but not […]

Despite recent interest in the potential of the welfare system as a tool to affect marriage behaviors among low-income women, little is known about how welfare participation, as opposed to welfare policy, affects decisions to marry. We employ an event history approach to examine transitions to marriage over a three-year period among mothers who have […]

This paper documents the extent and correlates of multiple partner fertility among parents in the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Survey in order to assess the opportunities and challenges that await marriage promotion policies which are attracting the attention of policy makers. We find that the majority of mothers who responded to the baseline and […]

Current U.S. government policy views marriage as an economic panacea for disadvantaged unwed mothers. In this article, we use retrospective family life history data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth to examine marital histories of at-risk women. First, we examine current marital behavior and poverty of women from disadvantaged family backgrounds. Second, we […]

This brief explores how childhood experiences, specifically child maltreatment and involvement with the child welfare system, impact the potential for a healthy, lasting marriage. The brief summarizes the research on the barriers to a healthy marriage and what is known about the longterm impacts of child maltreatment and foster care. Finally, the authors offer recommendations […]