This paper presents a brief review of the existing literature and then focus on data andconceptualization that has driven us toward testable hypotheses that we believe hold particularpromise for elucidation of the cohabitation effect. We will conclude this paper with a list ofpropositional statements or hypotheses to guide future study-some closer to existing findingsand some […]

This Power Point presentation discusses findings on marriage and divorce rates and their relationship to poverty, and describes components of a marriage education program. It begins by sharing information on the characteristics of low-income marriages, cohabiting families, and single mothers. Reasons for not marrying and for divorce among low-income families are identified, and implications for […]

This brief explores how attitudes toward welfare, nonmarital childbearing, and work differ between mothers who have recently received welfare payments and mothers who have not recently received welfare. Differences in attitudes may be important to public policy because attitudes mayinfluence behavior. For example, a mother with a young child who believes that mothers should not […]

This testimony given before the Subcommittee on Social Security and Family Policy of the U.S. Senate, discusses the following components of a healthy marriage: safety in interaction that allows couple to talk openly and well about key issues, with the strongest expressions of such safety including emotional safety and support; personal safety that includes freedom […]

Research supports the anecdotal observation that unmarried mothers and their children face greater obstacles and suffer greater strains than married couples and their children. Much less is known about the specific characteristics of the women who have births outside of marriage. This research brief paints a fuller picture of nonmarital childbearing. The data presented here […]

Eighty-three couples were stratified into groups at high and low risk for relationship distress and randomized to either the Self-Regulatory Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (Self-PREP) or a control condition. As predicted, there were differential effects of Self-PREP on high-risk and low-risk couples. Because of low statistical power, results must be interpreted cautiously, but at […]

A cultural shift is occurring that bodes well forAmerica’s children. After four decades of treating society’s ills with more government spending,elected officials, social scientists, community leaders,and policymakers across the ideological spectrum admit that strong marriages-not government largesse-are key to improving both personal and social well-being. Social science research is showing that children in married families […]

This study developed a marital typology based on a nonrandom, national sample of 415 African-American couples who took the Enriching Relationship Issues, Communication and Happiness (ENRICH) marital assessment inventory. Five types of African-American marriages were indentified through cluster analysis using the positive couple agreement (PCA) scores in 10 relationship domains. (Author abstract).