This paper presents findings from in-depth interviews with 16 couples who participated in the Supporting Healthy Marriage (SHM) program. Couples reported benefiting from SHM’s focus on communication and conflict management, but financial needs and lack of social supports placed stress on their relationships throughout their tenure in SHM. MDRC Overview Link
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 […]
A number of leading marriage and relationship education programs encourage couples to value and to understand the benefits of spending time together, as it is an important condition for a flourishing relationship. There has been some concern that poor couples may have less time and energy for each other than other couples — and less […]
The Exploratory Study of Decision Making in Low-Income Couples (CDM) was designed to gather information that may ultimately help shape content, service delivery, and outcome measurement in programs serving economically disadvantaged families, particularly parents eligible for public assistance and social services. The study uses survey data, direct observation of couple interaction, and physiological measurement to […]
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 […]