Economic life for average Americans and their families has increasingly been characterized by stagnant incomes, rising income inequality, and uncertain job prospects for men. How much do changes in marriage and family stability affect this shifting economic landscape, the economic status of men, and the health of the American dream? A lot, argue Robert Lerman and W. Bradford Wilcox in their new AEI report, “For richer, for poorer: How family structures economic success in America.”
This report is part of the Home Economics Project, a research effort of the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for Family Studies that explores whether and how strong and stable families advance the economic welfare of children, adults, and the nation as a whole. The project also examines the role, if any, that marriage and family play in increasing individual opportunity and strengthening free enterprise at home and abroad, as well as their implications for public policy.