When Karen Rue was on the verge of accepting her first superintendent appointment 11 years ago, her husband Gary anticipated he might be asked to play the role of "first spouse," serving as informal ambassador for the school district. He was correct. Gary Rue, a retired physical education teacher, has willingly served as his wife's…

Although several factors condition mental health differences between married and never-married adults, given recent increases in marriage delay and permanent singlehood, one modifying factor--deviation from desired age at marriage--has yet to be examined. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (N = 7,277), the author tested…

A common claim in the literature is that higher-educated persons are more likely to marry outside their ethnic/racial group than lower-educated persons. We re-examine this "educational gradient" with a multilevel analysis of 46 immigrant groups in the Current Population Survey. We find that there are positive effects not only of individual…

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, a nationally representative cohort of young adults, the authors analyzed relationship type at the time of a first birth (N = 4,044). More than 10% of births were to a postconception cohabiting household (cohabitations that were initiated between conception and birth), a higher…

This article addresses open questions about the nature and meaning of the positive association between marriage and well-being, namely, the extent to which it is causal, shared with cohabitation, and stable over time. We relied on data from the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 2,737) and a modeling approach that controls for fixed…

Educational expansion has led to greater diversity in the social backgrounds of college students. We ask how schooling interacts with this diversity to influence marriage formation among men and women. Relying on data from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 3,208), we use a propensity score approach to group men and women into…

Individuals in marriages and long term committed relationships often turn to friends and family members for support and input about relationship problems. Given their lower use of mental health services, these confiding relationships may be particularly important to African Americans. The goal of this study was to evaluate an educational…

This study is an investigation into the contribution of counseling providers to the success or failure of marriages. The purposive and the simple random sampling methods were used to select eight churches and 259 respondents (married people) in the Techiman Municipality. The instrument used to collect data was a 26-item questionnaire including a…

Though estimates vary, as many as 2 million to 3.7 million U.S. children under age 18 may have a lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender parent, and about 200,000 are being raised by same-sex couples. Much of the past decade's legal and political debate over allowing same-sex couples to marry has centered on these couples' suitability as parents,…

Gene Sperling, author of the seminal 2004 report published by the Council on Foreign Relations, and Rebecca Winthrop, director of the Center for Universal Education, have written this definitive book on the importance of girls' education. As Malala Yousafzai expresses in her foreword, the idea that any child could be denied an education due to…

This article presents the findings of a linguistic ethnographic pilot study, conducted as part of an ongoing research study, to examine how students utilise their knowledge and experience in understanding literary texts being studied from different cultural and temporal spaces. The analysis of this development in the students' comprehension of new…

This is the first in a planned series of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports tracking progress on the child-related indicators in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report highlights, through a data lens, the enormous task ahead for countries in meeting the 2030 Agenda for children. Through the development of projections to…

This is the executive summary of the first in a planned series of United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) reports tracking progress on the child-related indicators in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The report highlights, through a data lens, the enormous task ahead for countries in meeting the 2030 Agenda for children. Through the…

This report presents findings from the "CalYOUTH Wave 4 Youth Survey." CalYOUTH (the California Youth Transitions to Adulthood Study), is an evaluation of the impact of the California Fostering Connections to Success Act on outcomes during foster youth's transition to adulthood. CalYOUTH includes collection and analysis of information…

Despite substantial progress over the last two decades, girls still have on average lower levels of educational attainment than boys in West and Central Africa. This is in part because many girls in the region are married while still children, often before they may be physically and emotionally ready to become wives and mothers. Educating girls…