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Abstract
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.
Introduction
Over the last 50 years, the United States and other western countries have experienced
dramatic and long-term changes in family and household formation, and in the ways
individuals and families support themselves economically. The changes are well-known:
people are deferring marriage to later ages and choosing not to marry at all; divorce rates are
at high levels after rising dramatically and stabilizing; more children are born outside
marriage and growing up with only one parent; and the sources of family income have
shifted, as the role of men’s earnings has declined while the roles of women’s earnings and
government transfer benefits have increased. The trends and patterns vary sharply by
educational attainment. More educated women are becoming less likely to divorce and still
are very unlikely to bear a child outside marriage, while among less-educated women, the
propensity to marry is declining, divorce rates are high and increasing, and nonmarital births
have been rising and now account for over half of their births (Ellwood and Jencks 2004;
Martin 2006; Raley and Bumpass 2003). Although it is difficult to quantify the impacts of
the complex interactions among marriage, employment, fertility, and the functioning of
families, the consensus view is that on balance these demographic and economic trends have
contributed to child poverty and economic inequality, harmed the health and well-being of
adults, and diminished the ability of children to grow into productive and well-functioning
adults.
Delays in marriage and the increased share of children not living with two biological
or adoptive parents have many potential causes (Ellwood and Jencks 2004). The rising
acceptability of premarital sex, the increased effectiveness of birth control, and the
expansion of female labor force participation are among the social, economic, and technical
factors that have played a role (see, for example, Akerlof Yellen, and Katz 1996; Goldin and
Katz 2002). Financial disincentives to marry built into government tax and transfer programs
may have played some role in reducing marriage among low-income parents (Carasso and
Steuerle 2005). Whether or not government policies and programs bear some responsibility
for these family outcomes, especially among low-income individuals, the problems are too
serious for governments to ignore. Within the United States, several initiatives have aimed at
preventing divorce and nonmarital births and at mitigating their consequences. The list
includes an array of programs and demonstration projects testing such approaches as teen
pregnancy prevention (Quint et al. 1997) and other early youth interventions (Maxfield,
Schirm, and Rodriguez-Planas 2003), enhanced work incentives and work requirements for
single mothers (Michalopoulos et al. 2002), increases in the affordability and availability of
child care (Crosby, Gennetian, and Huston 2001), stronger enforcement of child support
obligations of noncustodial parents (Miller and Knox 2001), and the provision of
employment and training services to low-income individuals.
Recently, policymakers began a new set of initiatives to strengthen and increase
healthy marriages. This effort recognizes the importance of marriage to adult and child wellbeing,
the impact of marriage on employment outcomes and living standards, the desire by
many couples to have healthy marriages, the disincentives to marry built into the nation’s tax
and transfer programs, and the need to respond to the decline of marriage, especially in the
African American and low-income communities. The strategy focuses on improving the
skills of individuals to communicate effectively with partners and spouses, to solve problems
together, to parent well as a couple, to deal with financial conflicts and financial
management, and to understand the long-term benefits of marriage. Developed under the
Administration for Children and Families (ACF), the Healthy Marriage Initiative (HMI) is
sponsoring a mix of demonstrations to test their effectiveness in strengthening marriage in
the United States (Dion 2005). In 2006, the U.S. Congress included a five-year program of
healthy marriage and father-involvement activities as part of the reauthorization of the
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. So far, in addition to marriage
education classes, healthy-marriage programs are using a range of approaches. Among them
are mentoring couples, training individuals to deliver marriage education, employing family
case managers; declaring celebration days for marriages; delivering media messages about
marriage; and sponsoring seminars and classes dealing with healthy relationships for high
school and community college students. Other program features include referrals to services
to address potential barriers to healthy marriage, such as employment, substance abuse, or
mental health problems; and the formation of local coalitions to encourage government,
nonprofit, clergy, and other local organizations to raise the consciousness of community
members about the importance of marriage and the availability of marriage-strengthening
services.
(End of excerpt. The entire report is available in PDF format.)
The nonpartisan Urban Institute publishes studies, reports, and books on timely topics worthy of public consideration. The views expressed are those of the authors and should not be attributed to the Urban Institute, its trustees, or its funders.
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