For Immediate Release Contact: Stephanie Coontz Coontzs@msn.com; 360-352-8117; cell 360-556-9223 PRESS ADVISORY Recent Census Data Shows Majority of American Parents Doing Well on Key Parenting Indicators, Despite Some Differences by Family Type, Reports Council on Contemporary Families. But America has higher proportions of poor and low-income children than other developed nations, and poverty explains more […]
Topics of Expertise: Children
October 12 marks the 4th anniversary the United States becoming a “no-fault nation.” On that date in 2010, New York, the last holdout, finally joined the 49 other states in eliminating the need for divorcing couples to state that the dissolution of their marriage was the “fault” of one or the other. Today, every state offers the possibility of a no-fault divorce.
Three years later, the co-chair of The Coalition for Divorce Reform claims that “no-fault divorce has been a disaster,” leading to record numbers of divorces and plummeting rates of marriage.
Figuring out divorce and marriage trends is further complicated by the recent foreclosure crisis and the ensuing deep recession. The Council on Contemporary Families asked five researchers to explore recent trends in divorce and marriage for the CCF Symposium on New Inequalities.
The Council on Contemporary Families releases The Gender Revolution Rebound Symposium as public support for working mothers and dual-earner families is on the rise; new research suggests that in marriages formed since the early 1990s, men and women are much more happy with non-traditional arrangements than in the past.
Topics of Expertise: Gender & Sexuality
For more than 20 years, researchers have reported that premarital cohabitation is associated with an elevated risk of divorce. Yet these findings have failed to deter young people from “shacking up.” Senior CCF Scholar Arielle Kuperberg’s research finds that previous studies have over-stated the divorce risk from premarital cohabitation by ignoring how old the individuals are when they move in together.
Topics of Expertise: Cohabitation, Committed Relationships & Marriage
On February 10, 1964, the House of Representatives passed the Civil Rights Act, which made it illegal to discriminate against individuals on the basis of race, national origin, religion, or gender, and sent the bill on to the Senate. On it’s 50th anniversary, CCF asked a dozen researchers to discuss what has changed in the past half century for each of the populations affected by the law – religious groups, racial and ethnic minorities, and women. On, February 4, the Council released an update on the changing religious landscape of America. On February 5, researchers described the rearrangements of racial and ethnic relations since 1964. And on Thursday, February 6, we reported on the progress of women since passage of the Civil Rights Act.
Topics of Expertise: Race, Ethnicity & Culture / Work & Family
Is there more going on in the hookup scene than meets (men’s) eyes? The college hookup scene is typically understood as a male-dominated environment—where men are mainly in charge of sexual initiation, parties are often centered around fraternity houses, treating women as sex objects is common, and women engage in sexual displays, including kissing each other, in order to arouse male interest.
Yet, in the forthcoming April 2014 issue of Gender & Society, a team of researchers observes that for some women the super-straight environment of college hookups is also a setting “to explore and to later verify bisexual, lesbian, or queer sexual identities.” Turns out public kissing and threesomes play an important role—and that not all of that sex play is about performing for men’s pleasure.
Topics of Expertise: Gender & Sexuality / LGBTQ Partnering & Families / Singles & Dating
Has “hooking up” become the defining feature of college life? Does everyone do it? Does everyone want to? Most research on hooking up has examined college students who live on campus, or nearby, and hook up after alcohol-fueled parties. For example, the Online College Social Life Survey (OCSLS) of 21 colleges and universities shows that more than 70 percent of students, overall, hook up at some point in their college career. Even so, new research from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a diverse urban, public university with more commuters than on-campus residents, suggests that college sex is something quite different for the typical commuting student.
Topics of Expertise: Race, Ethnicity & Culture / Singles & Dating
Why are divorce rates higher in religiously conservative “red” states and lower in less religiously conservative “blue” states? After all, most conservatives frown upon divorce, and religious commitment is believed to strengthen marriage, not erode it. Even so, religiously conservative states Alabama and Arkansas have the second and third highest divorce rates in the U.S., at 13 per 1000 people per year while New Jersey and Massachusetts, more liberal states, are two of the lowest at 6 and 7 per 1000 people per year.
Topics of Expertise: Couples Conflict, Separation & Divorce / Economic Inequality
This month marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s declaration of an “unconditional war on poverty.” Yet this month also marks over a quarter century since President Ronald Reagan’s 1988 announcement that the war on poverty was over, and that poverty had won. To mark the anniversaries of these very different points in the government’s role in poverty reduction, two researchers from the Council on Contemporary Families assess where we have come from and where we stand today.
Topics of Expertise: Child Welfare / Economic Inequality / Marriage & Divorce / TANF & Public Assistance
A new briefing report for the Council on Contemporary Families documents how the way you look affects your life prospects.
Topics of Expertise: Transition - Adolescents to Adulthood / Work & Family
Recent headlines such as “Men, Who Needs Them?” and “Why Fathers Really Matter” showcase a growing debate about the importance of including men in discussions of gender inequality. Two new studies from Gender & Society turn attention to areas in which men have long been ignored: at home, in the study of conception, pregnancy and childbirth, and at work, in the caregiving professions—particularly nursing. New research demonstrates under what conditions men’s contributions are slowly becoming more visible and what the benefits of that are (and can be).
Topics of Expertise: Fertility,Reproduction & Sexual Health / Gender & Sexuality / Work & Family
Fifty years ago this week, on June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, amending the earlier Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, to “prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers.” So, how’s that going?
Topics of Expertise: Economic Inequality / Gender & Sexuality / Labor & Workforce / Race, Ethnicity & Culture / Work & Family
Researchers have long known that people make assumptions about people’s race based on social status cues, but a new study from Gender & Society demonstrates that observers take into account a wide range of factors in determining the race of people they see, including what they know about someone’s income, home address or marital status.
Topics of Expertise: Gender & Sexuality / Race, Ethnicity & CultureAll those advice books that tell you what to expect when you get married or divorced, lose a spouse, or experience a trauma may be leading you seriously astray. That is the clear implication of a new report to the Council on Contemporary Families. Report author and Pace University psychology professor Anthony Mancini and his colleagues have been studying many of the topics on which experts often dole out generic advice–from marriage and divorce to death of a loved one and military PTSD. They keep finding the same thing: “Our research confirms—in study after study—that people respond in surprisingly diverse ways to a wide variety of life events and acute stressors.” The research, discussed in Mancini’s report, “The Trouble with Averages: The Impact of Major Life Events and Acute Stress May Not Be What You Think,” suggests that there is no one “normal” response to getting married or divorced, losing a spouse to death, or experiencing military deployment. The report was released today from the University of Miami-based Council on Contemporary Families.
