Recent Research

With all of the research and analyses being conducted on marriage, graduate students, professors, researchers and evaluators alike can find it very difficult to keep up. Each month, new journal articles and reports are published that provide new information on healthy relationships, American families and programs designed to help families succeed. On this page, we will provide references for some of the newest, thought provoking and publicized research and reports.

Just released!

Implementation of the Building Strong Families Program.
This report highlights key findings from a large-scale study of marriage education programs for unwed, expectant couples. The Building Strong Families (BSF) project included more than 5,000 couples in seven program sites (Atlanta, Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Florida, Indiana, Oklahoma, and Texas). The analysis documents recruitment and enrollment practices, describes the characteristics of enrolled couples, provides data on program participation, and summarizes the experiences of couples participating in the intervention during the evaluation's first 6 to 14 months. Also includes a video with a glimpse of what couples enrolled in the BSF project say about the marriage education workshops and an overview of marriage education. M. Robin Dion, Alan M. Hershey, Heather H. Zaveri, Sarah A. Avellar, Debra A. Strong, Timothy Silman, and Ravaris Moore, January 2008, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

October 2007

Trends in Marital Stability - Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania conducted this study on the recent trends on marriage stability in the United States. While recent data offers conflicting evidence, authors review data, and conclude that marital stability has increased among married couples since the mid-late 1970s.

September 2007

Adolescent Romantic Relationships as Precursors of Healthy Adult Marriages - The Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation funded this report, which synthesizes and evaluates the literature on adolescent romantic relationships, with emphasis on how these relationships are precursors of adult marriages. The goal of the report is to provide a foundation for policies to promote healthy marriages through programs targeted to adolescents.

August 2007

The Effects of Work-Conditioned Transfers on Marriage and Child Well-Being: A Review (PDF - 220 KB) - The RAND Corporation authored this report on the effects of work-conditioned welfare programs on marriage or child well-being. By using a theoretical framework and past research in this area, authors find that welfare programs can increase family income, which will affect child outcomes.

June 2007

The Effects of Marriage on Health (PDF - 256 KB) - This paper synthesizes recent research evidence concerning one of these potential benefits of marriage—the effects of marriage on health.

May 2007

http://www.statcan.ca/english/research/11F0019MIE/11F0019MIE2007299.pdf - Hou, F., & Myles, J. (2007). The changing role of education in the marriage market: Assortative marriage in Canada and the United States since the 1970s. Analytical Studies Branch Research Paper Series, no. 299. Ottowa, ON: Statistics Canada.
http://www.statcan.ca/english/freepub/82-003-XIE/82-003-XIE2006006.pdf - Rotermann, M. (2007). Marital breakdown and subsequent depression. Health Reports, 18(2), 33-44.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr55/nvsr55_16.pdf - Eldridge, R.I., & Sutton, P.D. (2007). Births, marriages, divorces, and deaths: Provisional data for September 2006. National Vital Statistics Reports, 55(16). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.

April 2007

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2007/RAND_MG599.pdf - Karney, B.R., & Crown. J.S. (2007). Families under stress: An assessment of data, theory and research on marriage and divorce in the military. Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation.

March 2007

http://bpp.wharton.upenn.edu/jwolfers/Papers/MarriageandDivorce(JEP).pdf - Stevenson, B., & Wolfers, J. (March, 2007). Marriage and Divorce: Changes and their Driving Forces. NBER Working Paper No. 12944. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research.

February 2007

Schoppe-Sullivan, S.J., Mangelsdorf,S.C., Brown, G.L. & Sokolowskic. M.S. (2007). Goodness-of-fit in family context: Infant temperament, marital quality, and early co-parenting behavior. Infant Behavior and Development, 30 (1), 82-96.

January 2007

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr55/nvsr55_11.pdf - Hamilton, B.E., Martin, J.A., & Ventura, S.J. (2007). Births: Preliminary data for 2005. National Vital Statistics Reports, 55(11). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.