Stable marriage and child wellbeing

Reported in Reuters September 14, The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and The Brookings Institution's current issue of The Future of Children examines the family formation and child well-being and the changes affecting this formation, and reviews programs and tax and transfer policies and their impact on stable marriage in the community. From the article:

"The decline in two-parent families since 1960 has been closely linked with a rise in child poverty, primarily because poverty rates are far higher in single-mother families than in two-parent families," according to the report.

The proportion of single-parent families doubled to 26 percent in 2003 from 12 percent in 1970, according to the report.

Children already being raised by same-sex couples can also benefit when those couples marry, the study suggested.

On the release of the study, a forum discussed the need for programs helping with relationships and parenting which might reduce the number of unstable marriages, thus affecting the rates of divorce, family violence and single parenting:

Could we increase rates of marriage? Because if we could, children would benefit, adults would benefit, society would benefit, and disproportionately low-income minority children would benefit.

Marriage and Child Wellbeing
(available in PDF, 774 KB, The Future of Children, v. 15, n. 2)

Overcoming Barriers to Stable Marriage, A Brookings/Woodrow Wilson School Panel Discussion
(full transcript available in PDF, 147 KB, from The Brookings Institution)