Research
The Date Night Opportunity, Brad Wilcox & Jeffrey Dew:
The second edition of The Date Night Opportunity, examines the links between one-on-one couple time and relationship quality with data from a new survey. Read more here.
Study: Less Marriage, More Inequality :
The standard portrayals of economic life[1] for ordinary American families paint a picture of stagnancy, even decline, amidst rising economic inequality. Read more here .
Why Marriage Matters: Thirty Conclusions from Social Science
In Why Marriage Matters, a diverse group of leading family scholars summarizes the findings on the difference that marriage makes. Read the summary points, or check out the full report .
Stronger Marriages: The Greatest Weapon Against Poverty
Marriage is good for America. But marriage is falling off a cliff. In 1970, nearly 80 % of all adults in America were married. Today that number has shockingly dropped down only 52% of adults who are married. Marriage is particularly difficult for the poor and middle class. When young people complete at least a high school education, work full time and wait until age 21 to get married and have a child, there is only a 2 percent chance of being in poverty. Yet, those that violate all three elevate their chance of being in poverty to 77 percent. Here is research from both the left and the right about how strengthening marriage reduces poverty:
Heritage Foundation - Marriage: America's Greatest Weapon Against Poverty
The Case for Marriage
Summary points of why married people are happier, healthier, live longer lives, and have more financial stability and healthier children--from the book The Case for Marriage by Linda Waite and Maggie Gallagher.
The Millennial "Success Sequence"
Millennials are much more likely to flourish financially if they follow the “success sequence”—getting at least a high school degree, working full-time, and marrying before having any children, in that order. Click here for the full report.
Get Married: Why Americans Must Defy the Elites, Forge Strong Families, and Save Civilization, Brad Wilcox
According to new research by the University of Virginia sociologist Brad Wilcox, our kids and communities—not to mention our civilization as a whole—are much more likely to flourish when the state of our unions is strong.
• Both men and women who get and stay married accumulate much greater wealth than people who don’t marry.
• Married men and women with families report more meaningful lives, compared with their single and childless peers.
• Couples who take a “we-before-me” approach to married life—by, for instance, sharing joint checking accounts—are happier and less divorce-prone than couples who do not.
• Couples who forge “family-first” marriages—characterized by frequent date nights, family fun time, and chores done with the kids—enjoy the happiest marriages.
Wilcox spotlights four groups—Asian American, Conservative, Faithful, and Strivers—who have built strong, stable marriages by defying the me-first messages of our elites in favor of a family-first way of life.
This is a book for anyone who wants to understand why, even as fewer men and women tie the knot, America’s most fundamental institution matters for our civilization more than ever.