This chapter examines differences in father involvement among fathers who are living with a child and the child’s mother. Using qualitative interview data with fifty-seven couples, the author looks at fathering in the first year after birth to see how fathers in happy and unhappy relationships– some married, others cohabiting– differ in level of father […]

Teenage childbearing is associated with many adverse consequences for teen mothers, their families, and children. Many of the negative consequences for teen mothers are due to the disadvantaged situations in which many of these girls already lived before having a teen birth. While the disadvantaged backgrounds of most teen mothers account for many of the […]

In this article, the authors examine the effects of subjective and organizational religious participation on marital stability over time for urban Black American couples and White American couples who participated in a longitudinal project. Their findings indicated that the role religiosity plays in the stability of marriage over time varied by gender and race. Black […]

Using data from six waves of the Study of Marital Instability over the Life Course (N = 1,998), the authors conducted a latent class analysis to test for distinct marital happiness trajectories. They found three distinct marital happiness trajectories: low, middle, and high happiness. Initial levels of life happiness were strongly associated with membership in […]