Marriage & Family Issues

Typically, one or two parents and a child–along with any siblings–comprise a family, and the parents’ interactions with the child are a primary driver of the child’s development. Yet nearly 4 percent of U.S. children (nearly 3 million) live in homes with no parent present.

This paper reports the results of a survey of state TANF rules regarding the treatment of unrelated cohabitors in households containing TANF units. The research focused primarily on identifying differences in how the eligibility of a family is treated depending on the household adult(s) relationship to the children, and, to the extent it matters, marital status.

The overall purpose of this report is to show how marital quality, strengths, and/or interpersonal protective factors work to enhance the probability that children will do better among families where strengths are higher. Additionally, we reviewed the research about parental marital quality and child outcomes and showed how those two constructs are connected.

The purpose of this research brief is to explain the relationship context of adolescents who live in married couple families. Specifically, the marital quality of the adolescents' biological parents (and step-parents) is assessed by examining how supportive and conflict behaviors combine within the couple relationship.

The number of people incarcerated in this country is in the millions, and most will eventually be released to the community.В  Policy interest in preparing prisoners for reentry has grown significantly in recent years.В  This interest is fueled in part by research showing that marital and parent-child relationships are at high risk of disruption during incarceration and reentry, a

Prepared for:Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE)U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)  

This report focuses on family processes and adolescent religious attendance and personal religiosity among youth who were raised primarily in married-parent families. The study used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 cohort (NLSY97). Sample includes only youth living in married-parent families at the time of the first wave of data collection.

This research examines the effects of parental marital quality and the quality of the parent-child relationship on the educational progress of adolescents. Previous research indicates that family structure and economic capacity have significant effects on educational achievement and high school graduation rates.