The authors use 1990 U.S. Census of Population data to calculate what poverty rates would have been if cohabitors were treated in the same manner as married couples. They find that the official treatment of cohabiting partners as separate family units overstated the extent of poverty in 1989...

This article compares mothers’ experience of having children with more than one partner in two liberal welfare regimes (the United States and Australia) and two social democratic regimes (Sweden and Norway). We use survey-based union and birth histories in Australia and the United States and...

Despite the dramatic rise in U.S. nonmarital childbearing in recent decades, limited attention has been paid to factors affecting nonmarital fatherhood (beyond studies of young fathers). In this article, we use data from the 2002 National Survey of Family Growth and the National Longitudinal...

This brief, the third in a series from our Building Strong Families (BSF) project, draws on our survey for the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study on the characteristics and relationship patterns of unwed parents. The findings can help state and local agencies and other groups designing...

This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the frequency of parent-child interaction in several areas across a range of family types. Overall, we find that few individual characteristics of mothers or fathers are consistently associated with how often...

This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the frequency of parent-child interaction in several areas across a range of family types. Overall, we find that few individual characteristics of mothers or fathers are consistently associated with how often...

The nine papers in this volume ask the authors to 'use their analyses to predict what is likely to happen to welfare caseloads, to recipient well-being, and to state budgets and policies when the next recession arrives.