The present study is an evaluation of the Hispanic Active Relationships Project (HARP), which was an initiative specifically designed as an outreach effort to Hispanic couples in Texas. The specific Active Relationships curriculum used in this project is called Active Communication. This curriculum is designed to provide participants with relationship and communication tools that contribute […]
A bibliography of resources on marriage and cross-cultural issues.
A bibliography of resources on cohabitation and marital outcomes.
This tip sheet outlines ways newly-married couples can maintain healthy relationships by sharing the responsibility for decision making, open communication, and effective conflict resolution.
Many marriage and relationship education programs focus on developing effective communication and conflict resolution skills. While different processes or methods are used, the target skills remain consistent. These skills include assertive communication, I-messages, decision-making, arguing effectively, learning to avoid behaviors that hurt when arguing, and conflict resolution. As a result it is important for professionals […]
While the vast majority of contemporary Americans eventually marry, their age at marriage matters. Early marriage is associated with an increased risk of marital dissolution compared with marriages that occur to older individuals. However, only a minority of Americans now marries in their teens or early twenties. Researchers have also found that individuals who have […]
According to Waite and Gallagher (2000), benefits and protections accruing to marriage are largely due to “commitment”. The long-term nature of commitment allows couples to risk specialising or letting go of domestic roles. This is an efficient arrangement in terms of time, stress and money. Commitment motivates couples to look out for one another, providing […]
In order to learn whether couples can improve their odds of staying happily married, thereby reducing rates of family breakdown, we need to know three things. (1) We need to know what risk factors make marriages more likely to succeed or fail. For example, we might reasonably assume that couples who are better-off or those […]
This article presents reliability and validity data for the 15-item ENRICH (evaluation and nurturing relationship issues, communication and happiness) Marital Satisfaction (EMS) Scale. The scale was found to be reliable and to have strong correlations with other measures of marital satisfaction and moderate relationships with measures of family satisfaction and consideration of divorce. The EMS […]
This paper investigates whether the health of children affects the likelihood that their parents divorce. This topic is relevant to the debate over whether the economic status of families affects children’s health: if the poor health of children promotes greater family dissolution, then children’s health problems could be the cause rather than the result of […]