ADVISORY: Women’s Equality Day Turns 44. Gains, stalls, and setbacks August 25, 2017, Austin, TX: Since 1973, August 26th has been designated as Women’s Equality Day, offering a chance to assess the current status of gender equity. In a fact sheet compiled for the Council on Contemporary Families, Nika Fate-Dixon and Stephanie Coontz (The […]
Topics of Expertise: Division of Labor in Families / Economic Inequality / Gender & Sexuality / History & Trends on Gender, Marriage & Family Life / Work & FamilyEconomic Inequality
Economic Inequality
Is TANF Working for Struggling Millennial Parents?
A briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Shawn Fremstad, JD, Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and Senior Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The views expressed are his own and do not necessarily represent the views of either organization. August 22, 2016 Millennial […]
Topics of Expertise: Economic Inequality / TANF & Public AssistanceIt’s Women’s History Month: Why is pay for caregiving work so low relative to other jobs with similarly low requirements for formal education?

It’s Women’s History Month: Why is pay for caregiving work so low relative to other jobs with similarly low requirements for formal education? A Briefing Paper Prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Paula England, Ph.D, Professor of Sociology and Director of Graduate Studies at New York University. March 15, 2016 Two […]
Topics of Expertise: Economic InequalityPresidential Candidate Fact Checked by CCF Experts: Stephanie Coontz, Nancy Folbre, and Kristi Williams

RH Fact Check cited CCF members Stephanie Coontz, Nancy Folbre, and Kristi Williams in its review of Jeb Bush’s comments on poverty and marriage, Hard Work and Marriage Aren’t the Magic Cure-Alls for Poverty Jeb Bush Is Hoping For.
Topics of Expertise: Economic Inequality / Work & FamilyHealth Care Is a Family Stressor—So There’s Good News

September 16, 2015; The U.S. Census Bureau’s report on income, poverty and health insurance coverage, released today, reflects the continued uncertainty for U.S. families that has persisted since the Great Recession. Year-to-year changes in most trends were modest or not statistically significant—except in the case of health insurance coverage—but the longer-term trends are important. Specifically: […]
Topics of Expertise: Economic Inequality / Health CareMoynihan’s Half Century: Have We Gone to Hell in a Hand Basket?

This briefing paper was prepared as part of an online symposium Moynihan+50: Family Structure Still not the Problem for the Council on Contemporary Families and published jointly by CCF and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR). By Philip N. Cohen, Heidi Hartmann, Jeff Hayes and Chandra Childers Executive Summary In The Negro Family: The […]
Topics of Expertise: Economic Inequality / Race, Ethnicity & CultureA Class Act? Stability and Instability in Children’s Lives

Contrary to popular opinion, growing instability in American families, reflected not just in divorce rates but falling rates of marriage and high rates of unwed motherhood, is not caused by people abandoning traditional concerns for children’s well-being. It is a class issue caused by the growing gap between the job options, resources, economic stability, and personal safety nets available to college-educated Americans and less-educated workers. The authors explain.
Topics of Expertise: Couples Conflict, Separation & Divorce / Economic InequalityFamily Diversity is the New Normal for America’s Children

People often think of social change in the lives of American children since the 1950s as a movement in one direction – from children being raised in married, male-breadwinner families to a new norm of children being raised by working mothers, many of them unmarried. Instead, we can better understand this transformation as an explosion of diversity, a fanning out from a compact center along many different pathways.
Topics of Expertise: Economic Inequality / TANF & Public AssistanceCCF Civil Rights Symposium: Racial-Ethnic Realities since the Civil Rights Act

Overview: Changing Racial-Ethnic Realities since the Civil Rights Act Remarks by: Stephanie Coontz Today the Council on Contemporary Families releases the second set of papers in a three part symposium marking the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. Yesterday researchers described the rearrangement of America’s religious landscape over the past half century. Today’s four […]
Topics of Expertise: African American Families / Economic Inequality / Immigrant, Mixed Status & Transnational Families / Latino Families / Race, Ethnicity & CultureCCF Civil Rights Symposium: Are African Americans Living the Dream 50 Years After Passage of the Civil Rights Act?

By Velma McBride Murry and Na Liu Vanderbilt University In 1963, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made his famous “I Have a Dream” speech at the March on Washington, the momentous demonstration that helped spur passage of the Civil Rights Act the following year. He described African Americans as living “on a lonely island […]
Topics of Expertise: African American Families / Economic Inequality / Race, Ethnicity & CultureEXPERTS
Professor of Economics, School of Public Policy UMass Amherst; Williams Institute UCLA
Associate Professor of Labor and Employment Relations and Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University
Assistant Professor of Education, University of Pittsburgh Center for Urban Education
Professor of Sociology & Faculty Fellow of the Honors College, University of Illinois at Chicago
Associate Professor and Faculty Director of the Master of Science in Social Policy program, University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice
Professor and Interim Department Chair of Policy Analysis and Management, Director of the Cornell Population Center, Cornell University
Assistant Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University - Camden
Professor of Psychology & Director of Center for Research on Families, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Professor, Department of Sociology & Population Studies Center, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Boston University Medical School; Center for Multicultural Training in Psychology, Boston Medical Center; American Family Therapy Academy; Boston Center for Culturally Affirming Practices
Professor of Family & Consumer Studies and Adjunct Professor of Sociology, University of Utah