Center for Marriage and Families

REPORTS

The Marriage Index: A Proposal to Establish Leading Marriage Indicators

Report, September 2008

What helps us the most to thrive, as individuals and as a society? Money or marriage? Assets or relationships? Here’s what we know: A large body of research suggests that the status of our marriages influences our well-being at least as much as the status of our finances. But consider this puzzle. Why do we so carefully measure and widely publicize our leading economic indicators, and do everything we can to improve them, while rarely bothering to measure our leading marriage indicators, or try to do anything as a society to improve them? How odd. This situation should change. And now it can change. This report presents a set of Leading Marriage Indicators—fundamental, well-chosen measurements that accurately reveal the direction and overall health of marriage as a U.S. social institution carefully developed by a bipartisan group of scholars and leaders.
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The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce: First-Ever Estimates for the Nation and for All Fifty States

Report, April 2008

This study provides the first rigorous estimate of the costs to U.S. taxpayers of high rates of divorce and unmarried childbearing both at the national and state levels.

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Baby Fathers and American Family Formation

Essay, Future of the Black Family Series, August 2007

How do we help low-income, never-married parents stay together and avoid breaking up? Read how the “daddy moment” offers a potentially rich opportunity for researchers, policy makers, and other social and civic leaders to help the couple deal with tensions and issues arising from their shared parenting roles and possibly imagine marriage to one another.
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The Revolution in Parenthood: The Emerging Global Clash Between Adult Rights and Children’s Needs

Report, September 2006

Around the world, the two-person, mother-father model of parenthood is being fundamentally challenged. Read how.
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Marriage and the Law: A Statement of Principles

Report, September 2006

100 family and legal scholars come together to critique current family law practices, affirm seven great truths about marriage and the law, and to offer three general insights that can be applied to a legal theory that is more respectful toward and supportive of marriage as a social institution.
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Why Marriage Matters, Second Edition: Twenty-Six Conclusions from the Social Sciences

Report, September 2005

Sixteen social scientists summarize marriage-related research into an extremely useful, succinct form.
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The Consequences of Marriage for African Americans: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Report, Future of the Black Family Series, September 2005

Scholars still lack a comprehensive understanding of the consequences of marriage for African Americans. This report seeks to close that knowledge gap.
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The Future of Family Law: Law and the Marriage Crisis in North America

Report, June 2005

Family law is heading in one or more of at least four troubling directions. Read why.
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The Motherhood Study: Fresh Insights on Mothers’ Attitudes and Concerns

Report, May 2005

Mothers express their beliefs and concerns about mothering and their thoughts about social change.
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What Next for the Marriage Movement?

Report, February 2004

New opportunities and emerging crises exist today for those who wish to recreate a marriage culture.
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Can Government Strengthen Marriage? Evidence from the Social Sciences

Report, February 2004

Public policy may help reduce rates of unmarried childbearing and divorce, and strategies exist that correspond to the best current evidence from the social sciences.
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Hardwired to Connect: The New Scientific Case for Authoritative Communities

Report, September 2003

Recent research shows that children are biologically primed (“hardwired”) for enduring connections to others and for moral and spiritual meaning.
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Does Divorce Make People Happy? Findings from a Study of Unhappy Marriages

Report, June 2002

Does divorce typically make adults happier than staying in an unhappy marriage? Surprisingly, the answer is no, according to the data published in this report.
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Hooking Up, Hanging Out, and Hoping for Mr. Right: College Women on Dating and Mating Today

Report, July 2001

Important aspects of the college social scene (“hooking up” or “joined at the hip”) undermine for college women the likelihood of achieving the goal of a successful future marriage.
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Watch Out for Children: A Mothers’ Statement to Advertisers

Report, May 2001

Advertisers need to do a better job of watching out for children in the ads they produce and the programs they sponsor.
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The Experts’ Story of Courtship

Report, September 2000

The new body of relationship research seldom if ever seeks to identify and examine those attitudes and practices which lead to stable marriages.
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The Marriage Movement: A Statement of Principles

Report, June 2000

The decline of marriage weakens civil society and spreads social inequality. Over 100 signatories sign onto a plan to reverse this trend.
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Turning the Corner on Father Absence in Black America

Report, June 1999

Researchers, policy makers, and social and civic leaders express their particular concern about father absence in the African American community.
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The Age of Unwed Mothers: Is Teen Pregnancy the Problem?

Report, September 1999

Why have three decades of intensive national effort to reduce teen pregnancy not been more successful? Because for three decades, we have misunderstood the problem.
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A Call for Family-Supportive Tax Reform

Report, January 1999

Marriage leaders express their urgent concern over the anti-marriage provisions of our nation’s tax code.
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The Course of True Love: Marriage in High School Textbooks

Report, September 1998

What are U.S. high schools teaching the younger generation about marriage? Based on a careful review of leading high school health textbooks, the answer is partly reassuring and partly disturbing.
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Closed Hearts, Closed Minds: The Textbook Story of Marriage

Report, September 1997

What are we teaching the next generation about marriage? Judging from this careful review of twenty recently published undergraduate marriage and family textbooks, the answer is: not very much.
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Marriage In America: A Report to the Nation

Report, May 1995

Making marriage in America stronger will require a fundamental shift in cultural values and public policy.
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