This report finds that religious institutions are bulwarks of marriage in urban America. By fostering values and virtues that support marriage, these institutions-especially African American churches-help urban parents make the transition to marriage in communities where the practice of marriage has become increasingly infrequent. Moreover, the strong association between religious attendance and marriage in urban […]

In recent years, policymakers have become increasingly interested in exploring the relationship between public benefits rules and marriage. This interest has, in part, been prompted by social science research findings that, on average, children do best when raised by their two married, biological parents who have a low-conflict relationship. Interest has also been fueled by […]

This study explores generational and migration-related changes in gender and marriage in two locations of a transnational community of Mexicans: the sending community in western Mexico and the receiving community in Atlanta. The principal method was life histories, focusing on 13 women in Atlanta and their sisters or sisters-in-law in Mexico; life history informants’ mothers […]

Policymakers havebecome increasinglyinterested in exploringthe relationshipbetween public benefits rulesand marriage. Do the rulesaffect decisions to stay single,cohabit, or marry? If so, in whatways? Answering these questionsraises complex issues thatare endemic to any system thatprovides benefits on a group(i.e., family) basis rather thanlooking at individual needs. Thecomplexity becomes particularlyacute when eligibility for oramount of a benefit […]

We use data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth to investigate racial and ethnic differences in risk factors for marital disruption, with a particular emphasis on premarital cohabitation. Our analysis expands upon the array of risk factors considered in prior investigations of racial and ethnic differences in disruption and is among the first […]

When trying to balance work and family responsibilities, many workers experience conflict between these two roles. Although role commitment has been viewed both as contributing to and alleviating conflict, this relationship has not been fully tested. Using a sample of female nurses and police officers, we examined the direct and indirect relationship of role commitment […]

The rise of cohabitation and the growing share of births to cohabiting couples have led to speculation that the boundary between marriage and cohabitation is blurring. We examine this issue with an analysis of the financial arrangements of fathers of mainland Puerto Rican children. The analysis shows that married fathers are more likely than cohabiting […]

National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and census data are used to examine the effect of both individual- and contextual-level determinants on Latinas’ transition to first marriage (n= 745). Hypotheses derived from 4 leading theories of marriage timing are evaluated. Discrete-time event-history models that control for clustering within Labor Market Areas suggest that foreign-born Latina and […]

Increasingly, children are living with cohabiting parents. Prior work on the material well-being of children living in cohabiting families is extended by including the biological relationship of children to adults, examining the racial and ethnic variations, and investigating the multiple indicators of material well-being. We draw on the 1999 National Survey of America’s Families (N […]