High levels of divorce, cohabitation, and fragile unions, especially among the less educated in the United States, mean that unprecedented numbers of children are growing up in families without two parents in a healthy, stable relationship. This family instability poses increased risks to children’s well-being and healthy development. This report by Alan J. Hawkins, […]
he authors examine the implications of health and personality characteristics for late-life marital conflict using data from the 2010–2011 wave of the National Social Life Health and Aging Project, a nationally representative study with data on both partners in 955 marital and cohabitational dyads. Using these data, they relate characteristics of husbands to characteristics of […]
The health benefits of marriage have been much commented on and are often misunderstood. The significance of the growing body of evidence establishing the connections is now becoming clearer. A new series of NHMRC publications address these issues in depth and are an invaluable and reliable resource for health researchers, healthcare professionals and health policy […]
Overview The Fragile Families and Welfare Reform project looked at the conditions and capabilities of vulnerable mothers and fathers in the years following enactment of PRWORA and examined the complex relationships between this new legislation and families’ economic and non-economic wellbeing. The project estimated the composition of the actual and eligible welfare caseload, how unwed […]
The Measuring Couple Relationships agreement transferred funds from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to support activities of the NICHD Family and Child Well-Being Network, through the Network’s grant at Child Trends (HD30930/Moore), to review the state of the art in measuring couple […]
The Strengthening Families with Children Born Out-of-Wedlock project was jointly funded by ACF’s Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation and Office of Child Support Enforcement. Researchers conducting this study utilized research, information obtained from field observations, and expert consultation to develop a conceptual framework for the design and evaluation of interventions to improve the quality […]
The Supporting Healthy Marriage in Step-Families project: (1) summarized and synthesized the existing literature concerning the characteristics of stepfamilies, (2) catalogued and documented existing marriage support and education programs focused on step/blended families, and (3) developed a conceptual framework to help guide future programmatic and research agendas aimed at stabilizing and supporting step-families, with a […]
The Minnesota Couples on the Brink Project led by Bill Doherty has just released an online training course on Discernment Counseling. Discernment Counseling is a new way to work with mixed-agenda couples (one leaning out of the marriage, the other leaning in). It teaches marriage therapists and counselors a step-by-step protocol for offering couples a multi-session […]