This article discusses the effects of cohabitation and marriage on binge drinking, cigarette smoking and marijuana use in the U.S. The authors argue that marriage causes reductions in risky behaviors like binge drinking and marijuana use (especially for men), but has little effect on smoking. Less consistent are the effects of cohabitation on risky behaviors. […]
Drawing on a national longitudinal study of 297 parents and their married offspring, the authors found that parents’ marital discord was negatively related to offspring’s marital harmony and positively related to offspring’s marital discord. The transmission of marital quality was not mediated by parental divorce, life-course variables, socioeconomic attainment, retrospective measures of parent-child relationships, or […]
The Welfare Peer TA Network sponsored a multi-State TA event on July 15-16, 2003, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. This event was co-coordinated with Public Strategies, the public relations firm that manages the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative. The Administration for Children and Families’ Region VI, VII and IX Offices provided additional support, ensuring this event met State […]
Partners in romantic relationships provided reports on perceived changes in their love, commitment, and satisfaction and completed contemporaneous scales on the same relationship phenomena multiple times over several years. At each wave of the longitudinal study, participants whose relationships had remained intact perceived that their love and related phenomena had increased since they had last […]
The divorce revolution–the steady displacement of a marriage culture by a culture of divorce and unwed parenthood–has failed. It has created terrible hardships for children, incurred unsupportable social costs, and failed to deliver on its promise of greater adult happiness. The time has come to shift the focus of national attention from divorce to marriage […]
This research project was conducted as part of the evaluation for the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative. In 1999 Governor Frank Keating announced the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative, with the objective of reducing the divorce rate in Oklahoma by 1/3 by the year 2010. One aim of the Oklahoma Marriage Initiative is to change the culture of support […]
This document presents early findings from the Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) Demonstration Evaluation and provides an overview of the early implementation from the eight demonstration programs across the country providing SHM services. Services include healthy marriage and relationship education skills sessions and support services to over 6,000 low-income, married couples with children. (Author abstract)
Guidelines and exercises for facilitating a new Marriage Enrichment Group. Eight months of “”teach-out-of-the-box”” plans. Permission is granted to copy exercises only. (Author abstract)
This report examines changes in the likelihood, timing and stability of marriage among adults ages 25 to 59. The analysis utilizes the public use micro samples of the 1950 to 2000 Decennial Censuses and the companion 2008 American Community Survey (ACS). The 2008 ACS was the first Census Bureau enumeration to inquire if the respondent […]
David and Sarah Catron detail all the steps necessary to get a chapter of Better Marriages up and running in a community, congregation, or civic club. It includes practical information, which any group can use to get started. (Author abstract)