Marriage Promotion Research Articles

“His” and “her” marriage expectations: Determinants and consequences

This article uses couple‐level data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N= 2,263) to investigate factors associated with unmarried parents’ expectations about marriage and the association between their expectations and subsequent union transitions. In most couples, both partners expect to marry, and their shared expectations are the strongest predictor of marriage and separation following their child's birth. Although men's expectations are somewhat more consequential for union transitions, marriage and relationship stability are more likely when at least one parent expects to marry. Factors such as children from previous relationships, distrust, conflict, and shared activities are also associated with union transitions. Findings about how expectations and other factors relate to marriage and separation may inform new marriage promotion initiatives.

The Formless City of Plato's Republic: How the Legal and Social Promotion of Divorce and Same-Sex Marriage Contravenes the Principles and Undermines the Projects of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

In the Republic, Plato describes a stage in social decay called “formlessness,” where all sorts of differences are accepted and none is preferred. No one need hold office or obey. People are impatient with all the ties that ought to bind them. Plato's formess city displays three deplorable features. One is the denigration of law and custom. A second is ethical skepticism or nihilism. A third is the repudiation of duty. These features also characterize the divorce culture and the same-sex marriage movement. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights reflects a philosophy quite the reverse of Plato’s formless city. Its philosophy of the family respects custom, embraces objectivism, and recognizes duty.

Recidivism among Former Recipients who Remain Unemployed: The Vicious Circle Created by Welfare Reform

This study investigated factors affecting the return to Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) programs by former participants who left welfare unemployed. Event history analysis was applied to the longitudinal data extracted from the Survey of Income and Program Participation 1996 panel. The results demonstrate a rate of return to TANF of between 20% and 36% for the final sample. They further suggest that sanctioning recipients for noncompliance with work requirements contributes to eventual dependency on TANF among former recipients. Results also show that the promotion of marriage in reformed welfare policy may help former recipients remain independent of welfare (and even free of poverty). Implications for policy were discussed.

Marriage Promotion and Missing Men: African American Women in a Demographic Double Bind

Since 1996, state legislators, members of the U.S. Congress, and more recently President George W. Bush, have called for the protection of monogamous, heterosexual marriage and the promotion of marriage among poor women. The thrust of this policy making is directed at African American families, among which female headship doubled between 1965 and 1990. This doubling is temporally associated with enacting the legislation directed toward the War on Drugs, which resulted in a tripling of the African American prison population. In Syracuse, New York, the swelling African American population behind bars has resulted in a skewed sex ratio, in which women significantly outnumber men. The authors use national, state, and local epidemiological, environmental, and ethnographic data to argue that the proliferation of marriage-promotion policies is heterosexist and blames African American women for demographic realities over which they have little control.

Critiquing the Case for Marriage Promotion

This article argues that governmental policies to promote marriage fail to recognize the reality of domestic violence in many families’ lives. By minimizing and misrepresenting the role of domestic violence, these policies ultimately are self-defeating. After describing the recent history of welfare reform and marriage promotion policies, we briefly review the arguments advanced in favor of such policies. We then offer a critique of marriage promotion through the prism of social science research on domestic violence and explain how advocates largely ignore or misrepresent this research. Finally, we discuss the need to ground policy formation in the voices of those women whose lives such policies ultimately will affect.

The wax and wane of marriage: Prospects for marriage in the 21st century

Key Words: cohabitation, family change, marriage. I thank the Editor, Alexis Walker, for publishing this symposium. I am especially grateful for her invitation to participate in this dialogue about family changes and what these changes might portend for the future of marriage and family life. The papers in this symposium span quite a wide range of issues. Seltzer (2004) and Le Bourdais and Lapierre-Adamcyk (2004) focus on heterosexual cohabitation, the former on the United States and Great Britain, and the latter on Canada. Kurdek (2004) focuses on gay and lesbian couples, examining how their relationships function compared with heterosexual spouses. Spurred by the Administration's Healthy Marriage Initiative in the United States, Huston and Melz (2004) examine the case for marriage promotion, arguing that policies to promote family well-being need to take account of myriad factors, and that an emphasis on relationship skills alone is misplaced. With a somewhat similar purpose, Bradbury and Karney (2004) explore the implications of research on marital quality for strategies designed to strengthen couple relationships. Oropesa and Landale (2004) investigate the likely consequences of the expansion of the Hispanic population in the United States for the future of marriage. Finally, Cherlin (2004) presents an argument that although marriage has become deinstilutionalized, it retains symbolic value. Although each essay has a unique aim and scope, all are valuable contributions that make for a provocative and diverse set of views on marriage and family changes. I also find it refreshing that the papers in this symposium focus on marriage and marriagelike adult relationships, the latter including heterosexual cohabitation and gay and lesbian couples. Research in my field is increasingly focused on how changes in family patterns affect child well-being. Thus, I applaud a discourse that makes marriage front and center. Also notable is that authorship is somewhat diverse in terms of disciplinary orientations. Some are written by family scholars with sociological and demographic training (Cherlin, Le Bourdais, Lapierre-Adamcyk, Oropesa, Landale, Seltzer, and Melz), and others by those with backgrounds in various areas of psychology (Bradbury, Karney, Kurdek, and Huston). I, by the way, am a member of the former group. The chief goal of my commentary is to identify several themes that emerge in the articles, and to provide some reflections on these themes. Unless otherwise noted, my comments refer to the United States, the country I know best in terms of family research. I conclude by drawing linkages between this symposium and what social scientists and social commentators were writing about families decades or even a century ago; many of the intellectual themes have been around far longer than we recognize. I also take the liberty of closing with my own prediction for the future of marriage. RECURRING THEMES 1. The Retreat From Marriage Stems From Economic, Social, and Cultural Shifts A first theme that runs through several of these contributions is twofold: (a) that marriage has retreated; and (b) that the retreat is due to a complex and interrelated set of social forces. Mostly the theme is mentioned in passing in the symposium articles, simply to provide context or interpretation for the discussion at hand. In the case of Cherlin's (2004) article, however, the theme is developed at some length. As far as marriage having retreated, those of us who study families tend to cite the same body of evidence, and that is certainly the case in this symposium. The litany of indicators is well known: declining fertility, increasing age at marriage, high levels of marital disruption, a growing separation between marriage and childbearing as manifested in an increasing proportion of children being born outside marriage, and the growth of nonmarital cohabitation. Where do we look for the causes of all of this change? …

Welfare Reform and Marriage Promotion: The Marital Expectations and Desires of Single and Cohabiting Mothers

Using nationally representative data, this examination of marital expectations, desires, and behaviors of single and cohabiting unmarried mothers suggests that a majority of unmarried women, including disadvantaged single and cohabiting mothers, value marriage as a personal goal. Among disadvantaged women, single mothers, and racial minority women, systematic differences point to subgroups with lower marital expectations. However, our results also indicate that marital desires do not easily translate into marriage. Accordingly, from a public policy perspective, single mothers’ attitudes about marriage need not be changed. The problem lies in identifying and reducing barriers that prevent single women from realizing marital aspirations.

Pathways Out of Poverty

Abstract With the enactment of welfare reform in 1996, welfare policy has changed significantly. Welfare rolls have been reduced, yet poverty has not been overcome for many clients in the welfare system. This paper analyzes potential pathways out of poverty within the context of devolution. The need for a redefinition of poverty is reviewed and several dimensions of policy are discussed: the notion of work as an antipoverty strategy, potential methods to support work, the notion of payment for care-givers functions, the controversy surrounding the promotion of marriage, education and employment options, and the need for a permanent safety net to assist individuals and families. Changes in the welfare system are suggested that could assist individuals and families to overcome poverty conditions.

Welfare reform and child poverty: effects of maternal employment, marriage, and cohabitation

The welfare reform debate centers on whether the best strategy to reduce poverty is to raise work participation among low-income women or to promote marriage. Using the 1992–2001 demographic supplements of the Current Population Survey, we track child poverty rates before and after passage of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. We find that increasing maternal employment accounted for roughly one-half of the decline in poverty among children living with single mothers. The largest economic benefits from increasing maternal employment were observed among African American children and those living with poorly educated mothers. Unlike the 1991–1995 period, changes in family structure over 1996–2000 were no longer giving demographic impetus to higher child poverty rates. Evidence that recent declines in nonmarital fertility have reduced child poverty rates, however, is limited. We conclude with benchmark estimates of the economic implications of marriage promotion initiatives and document post-1996 increases in children's co-residence in cohabiting couple families.

Legislating a "Normal, Classic Family": The Rhetorical Construction of Families in American Welfare Policy

This essay discusses the policy construction of welfare families through an analysis of the welfare hearings and debates from the 102nd, 103rd, and 104th Congresses, all of which led to President Clinton's signing of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act. Throughout the legislative process, witnesses and legislators relate stories about families on welfare and compare welfare families to an ideal nuclear family. This essay demonstrates the rhetorical appeal of these stories and their powerful influence on the resulting 1996 Act. The central argument of the essay is that depictions of welfare families influence legislation that affirms a historically privileged traditional family structure. The 1996 Act and subsequent proposals reinforce this married family ideal despite significant research demonstrating that (a) many Americans do not live in traditional nuclear families, (b) there are potential negative consequences of marriage promotion, and (c) federal reforms are unlikely to result in measurable increases in marriage rates.

Should the Government Promote Marriage?

The Bush administration's recent proposal to set aside federal welfare funds for marriage promotion programs renews a long-standing controversy about what makes a model family. But much more than symbolism is at stake in the debate over whether public policies should encourage marriage, and whether such policies are likely to be effective.

Marriage among Unwed Mothers: Whites, Blacks and Hispanics Compared

Much of the debate over welfare reauthorization centers on whether marriage promotion should play a key role. Few studies, however, have tracked the marriage and divorce histories of unwed mothers, including minority women, who are often the main targets of welfare reform. Data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth were used to estimate the hazards of the transition to marriage for women who delayed childbearing until marriage and for teenagers and older women who had a nonmarital first birth, and of the transition to divorce among the ever-married. Life-table estimates calculated with these estimated transition hazards show the cumulative proportions married and divorced, by race and ethnicity, for women who had a nonmarital first birth and for those who did not. RESULTS Nonmarital childbearing reduces the likelihood of marriage. Some 82% of white women, 62% of Hispanics and 59% of blacks who had a nonmarital first birth had married by age 40; the corresponding proportions among those who avoided nonmarital childbearing were 89%, 93% and 76%, respectively. There is no evidence to suggest that the negative effect of nonmarital childbearing on marriage is caused by other observed or unobserved differences between unwed mothers and women who remain childless until marriage. Nonmarital childbearing raises the likelihood of divorce among unwed mothers who eventually marry, a finding that also varies by race and ethnicity. Marriage promotion policies should focus on lowering rates of nonmarital childbearing. Reductions in nonmarital childbearing, however, may not eliminate long-standing discrepancies in marriage rates between black and white women.

The TANF Reauthorization Debate: Key Welfare Reform Issues and Concerns

In the United States today, the term generally refers to the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), which replaced the federal cash public assistance program Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) with the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) block grant. This legislation changed the structure of income support for poor families in the United States in a number of very significant ways, including the elimination of the individual entitlement to cash public assistance, the institution of a work-based safety-net for poor families with children (with, for example, the imposition of mandatory requirements and time limits on the receipt of cash public assistance), and the inclusion of family formation issues (such as the reduction of non-marital births and the promotion of marriage) among the welfare system's primary goals. The TANF program must receive Congressional reauthorization by September 30, 2002, and welfare researchers and advocates have focused a great deal of attention on identifying key TANF reauthorization issues and policy goals. Much of this discussion has focused on issues closely related to the core elements of the TANF program, such as the primary purpose of TANF, the size of the TANF block grant, the structure and implementation of time limits and sanctions, and the effectiveness of work first welfare-to-work strategies. In the context of the current economic downturn, the impacts of TANF policies in a weak economy and the ability of the TANF program to cope with increased economic need have also become critically important concerns. This paper provides a brief overview of some key TANF reauthorization issues and concerns that Congress is likely to face as it considers the next phase of welfare reform (see table 1).

From Welfare to Wedlock: Marriage Promotion and Poor Mothers' Inequality

For the past several years, marriage has figured prominently in debates about welfare. The idea of government as dating serv ice or matchmaker doesn't seem to resonate widely with the pub lic,1 yet the idea that welfare policy should encourage or pressure poor single mothers into marriages nevertheless has bewitched policymakers of all political stripes. Four of the five welfare reauthorization bills that either have been introduced in Congress or are about to be include marriage provisions. And that's just the Democratic bills.

Women’s Roles and Recent Marriage Trends in Iran

This paper examines recent marriage trends in Iran. The available data suggest a significant up-trend in the number and rate of marriage since 1979. This trend is consistent with the social philosophy of Islam advocated in the Islamic Republic. The factors behind this up-trend in marriage are analyzed in the context of this philosophy and in relation to social and legal changes which have been introduced in Iranian society. In addition to religious promotion of marriage and procreation the long continued war with Iraq younger age structure slowdown in increasing pattern of age of marriage for women and significant decline in age of marriage for men remarriage and polygyny seem to be contributing to this up-trend in marriage. (SUMMARY IN FRE) (EXCERPT)