This study examines the effects of changes in family structure on children’s economic well-being. An initial shift-share analysis indicates that, had the proportion of children living in female-headed families remained constant since 1970, the 1998 child poverty rate would have been 4.4 percentage points lower than its actual 1998 level of 18.3 percent. We then […]
The federally-funded Healthy Marriage & Family Formation Project enhances the capacity of child welfare professionals and community service providers capacity to address healthy marriage and family formation issues as a way of improving safety, permanency, and well-being outcomes for children and families in Colorado, Wyoming, and Kansas. The project is also working to identify and […]
This webcast focused on efforts to build healthy relationships and sustain healthy marriages through marriage education. Panelists included: Bill Coffin, Special Assistant for Marriage Education, Administration for Families and Children, HHS; Francesca Adler-Baeder, Auburn University, Alabama; Dana Reichert, TANF Director for the state of Louisiana; and Carlis Williams, Regional Administrator, Administration for Children and Families, […]
Has the relationship between economic prospects and marriage formation in the United States changed in recent decades? To answer this question, a discrete-time event-history ananlysis was conducted using data from multiple cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience. Among women, results indicate growth in the importance of earnings for marriage formation between […]
Family instability is often offered as an explanation for the possible disadvantages faced by children with cohabiting parents. However, measures of family stability typically have focused on changes in legal marital status to the exclusion of cohabitation status. Consequently, children’s experiences of family instability have been underrepresented (Raley and Wildsmith 2004). To better understand a […]
What do the half-century decline in U.S. marriage and the attendant rise in single parenthood mean for the economic well-being of children, especially children living in single-parent families? Adam Thomas and Isabel Sawhill show how differing living arrangements can be expected to affect families’ economic well-being. Married-parent and cohabiting households, for example, can benefit from […]
The institution that most strongly protects mothers and children from domestic abuse and violent crime is marriage. Analysis of ten years worth of findings from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has conducted since 1973, demonstrates that mothers who are or ever have been married are far less […]
In the United States today, in almost half of marriages one or both spouses have been marriedbefore. Helping individuals form and sustain healthy remarriages is crucial to strengthening the institution of marriage. Moreover, most remarriages create stepfamilies that involve children. So to improve the lives of children, it is important to help remarriedcouples succeed. Yet, […]
This fact sheet from the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center outlines the trends in children’s living arrangements from 1970-2004.
The report explores the potential benefits of marriage for couples who are living together and have children. It begins with a review of research literature that indicates children with cohabiting parents fare worse than those with married parents. Research results are then provided from the 2002 National Survey of America’s Families that focus on four […]