Related UI Researchers

Publications on Family/Parents

The increasing recognition of the importance of marriage for the social and economic well-being of children has led to demonstrations aimed at strengthening and stimulating healthy marriages. The next step is to ensure that factors closely linked with healthy marriages are addressed as well. This paper brings together research findings and policy ideas about the interactions between marriage, employment, and family functioning. It presents a framework and proposes several demonstrations aimed at improving employment and family outcomes for disadvantaged populations. The appendix reviews an extensive body of research on specific linkages between marriage, employment, and family functioning.

Building on our March forum, which analyzed how tax policy affects low-income working families, in April we turn to two supports designed to help parents stay in the workforce: child care subsidies and paid family leave.

Children's mobility outcomes are a function of not only their parents' characteristics and resources, but also of the way parents transmit those characteristics and resources across generations. This review assesses the literature on the effects of family structure, resources, and childrearing styles on children's economic outcomes. Particular attention is paid to the challenge of disentangling the impacts of these determinants, which are often highly correlated: high socio-economic status individuals are better able to address their children’s material needs, but are also more likely to form stable, two-parent families and may even tend to employ more effective parenting strategies. (Review 3 of 11.)

This study follows-up on a prior study of child welfare agencies' efforts to identify, locate, and involve nonresident fathers of children in foster care. These analyses use information from the original survey and administrative data on case outcomes to explore three research questions: (1) Is nonresident father involvement associated with case length? (2) Is nonresident father involvement associated with foster care discharge outcomes? and (3) Is nonresident father involvement associated with subsequent child maltreatment allegations? The study finds that having an involved father is associated with shorter case length and a greater likelihood of reunification. Future research is needed to better understand the nature of nonresident fathers' involvement.

Is there a correlation between exposure to racially integrated, low poverty areas and employment outcomes? Does moving from a poor, inner city neighborhood to a less poor area bring greater proximity to job opportunities, or contacts with new networks of neighbors who might steer movers to jobs? Does living in a community where more people work increase motivation to work or to increase income? In examining these questions for the MTO experimental movers, this brief finds that factors in addition to where people live affect their employment and earnings.