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Introduction
Family structure in the United States changed rapidly in the second half of the twentieth century. A wide variety of family forms increasingly replaced the two-parent family norm. In 2001, 69 percent of children lived in two-parent families, down from 77 percent in 1980 (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 2002). Divorce is common. About half of all recent first marriages are expected to end in divorce (Ooms, 2002). Of children born into two-parent families, 34 percent will experience a disruption of their parents' union by age 16. One-third of all births are out-of-wedlock. And couples opting to cohabit rather than marry is becoming an increasingly common phenomenon. Forty percent of all births occur within cohabiting unions rather than marriages (Bumpass & Lu, 2000). Some European countries also experienced a
precipitous decline in marriage rates but have recently seen those rates level and even rise (Ford, 2002).
A vast accumulation of research suggests that children do not fare as well in these alternative family structure forms as children living with their two married biological parents. Numerous studies indicate that children growing up in single-parent families experience worse outcomes than children growing up in two-parent families (Acs & Nelson, 2001; Amato & Keith, 1991; McLanahan & Sandefeur, 1994; Wu & Martinson, 1993). And many studies show that divorce, specifically, is correlated with negative effects on children's well-being (Amato, 1993; Amato & Keith, 1991; Chase-Lansdale, Cherlin, & Kiernan, 1995; Chase-Lansdale & Hetherington, 1990). Even when parents remarry, a synthesis of the research suggests that this does not appear to improve outcomes (Amato, 1993).
Recent research also suggests a relationship between marriage and positive outcomes for adults. Married couples build more wealth on average than singles or cohabiting couples, while divorce and unmarried childbearing increase the risk of poverty for children and mothers (Lupton and Smith, 2002). Individuals who are married are found to have better health and longer life expectancies than similar singles (Lillard and Waite, 1995). Married mothers have lower rates of depression than cohabiting or single mothers (Brown, 2000). Research also shows that unhappily married adults who divorce or separate, on average, are no happier than unhappily married adults who stay together (Waite et al., 2002).
Relationship Programs
A diverse set of relationship programs currently exists to improve relationships and marriages. Marriage and relationship education programs vary by sponsoring organization, curricular focus, client learning style, and target population. They are developed from government, research, or faith-based initiatives, or they may operate privately for profit. Programs may operate in mental health centers, hospitals, public assistance offices, churches, or universities, among other places. Curricula deal with topics such as communication, parenting or finances. Providers utilize formats that may be instructive, group-oriented, or analytic, and programs may operate with different group sizes and treatment dosage amounts. The programs reach many populations, including individuals (e.g. youth, fathers, mothers), couples (e.g. pre-marital, married), and families.
While the interpretation of outcomes research on marriage and relationship programs is complex, experts in the field suggest generally there is promising evidence that couples can learn specific skills to improve their relationships (Stanley, Markman, & Jenkins, 2002). According to these experts, couples can learn to reduce patterns of negative interaction and maintain higher levels of relationship satisfaction. They noted that in some studies, higher-risk couples show the strongest program effects, and some studies have found that the beneficial effects appear to last up to five years after the training.
U.S. Policy Response
Recently marriage has become a national issue of public policy in the United States. The Bush Administration has proposed that the Federal government dedicate $300 million a year as part of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program to "help couples form and sustain healthy marriages." Proposed legislation focuses on eight allowable activities:
- Public advertising campaigns on the value of marriage and the skills needed to increase marital stability and health.
- Education in high schools on the value of marriage, relationship skills, and budgeting.
- Marriage education, marriage skills, and relationship skills programs, which may include parenting skills, financial management, conflict resolution, and job and career advancement, for non-married pregnant women and non-married expectant fathers.
- Pre-marital education and marriage skills training for engaged couples and for couples or individuals interested in marriage.
- Marriage enhancement and marriage skills training programs for married couples.
- Divorce reduction programs that teach relationship skills.
- Marriage mentoring programs, which use married couples as role models and mentors.
- Programs to reduce the disincentives to marriage in means-tested aid programs, if offered in conjunction with any activity described in this subparagraph.
Source: Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2003. H.R.4.IH
Current Review
This review is designed to inform U.S. policymakers in their effort to provide funding for marriage and relationship programs and will examine specifically how these programs impact measures of relationship satisfaction and communication. However, the greater policy question surrounding the effects of marriage programs relates to the well-being of children and adults, particularly in low-income families. The administration is interested in promoting these programs with the hope that they will lead to an improvement in marital satisfaction and ultimately child well-being outcomes for their participants' children. It is especially interested in the ways that programs could effectively serve lowincome couples. This review can provide an answer to the most immediate policy question: What do published and unpublished evaluations of marriage and relationship programs indicate about the impact of interventions on the satisfaction of couples? Figure 1 below shows this logic model.
More specifically, this review is a systematic review of evaluations of marriage and relationship programs, which are defined as those that aim to improve the relationship between two people involved romantically. Reviewers performed a systematic search of literature sources and obtained studies for this review that met the following criteria: first, each study had at least one treatment group as well as a no-treatment or wait-list control group; second, each demonstrated that these two groups were created by random assignment or high-quality quasi-experimental methods; third, each presented results on relationship satisfaction, communication, or both that could be converted to standardized effect sizes; and fourth, each study demonstrated that at least 40 percent of its original sample was assessed at pre- and post-test. This review analyzes a final set of 39 studies that met these inclusion criteria. Reviewers find an average effect size of .68 for
relationship satisfaction and .26 for relationship communication.
Funding
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (ACF), funded this review to inform policymakers of the existing research on the effectiveness of marriage programs as Congress debates TANF reauthorization. ACF also funded this review to guide implementation of new legislative mandates related to promoting healthy, stable marriages.
Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).
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