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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Stephanie Coontz
coontzs@msn.com
360-352-8117
Debate from the Council on Contemporary Families: Scholars respond to a marriage proposal regarding interracial marriage and African-American women
Chicago, IL, August 30, 2011-In a discussion paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families, based on his forthcoming book, Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone, Stanford Law Professor Ralph Richard Banks challenges conventional responses to the black marriage decline and offers a provocative, demography-based recommendation for how Black women's intermarriage can counteract the trend. His discussion paper is available here.
Because Banks' work is already stirring controversy, CCF has invited leading authorities on marriage, sexuality, and family life to offer commentary on his proposals, available here.
Background. Rates of marriage in the United State have declined substantially in the past 50 years, but the decline has occurred at different speeds, with differing causes and consequences in different groups. Up through the mid-20th century, the marriage rates of blacks and whites were approximately equal. During the past half century, however, African Americans have become the least married people in our nation, and many scholars argue that this rapid decline has affected the quality of personal relationships in the African-American community, especially for women. Among those scholars is Professor Banks.
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For Immediate Release
Contact: Stephanie Coontz
360 556-9223; coontzs@msn.com
LOOKING FOR LOVE BEFORE THE INTERNET
19th Century Personals Have Much In Common With Today's High-Tech Versions - And Some Interesting Differences
A Valentine's Day Information Sheet Prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families
by Pam Epstein, Rutgers University
On Valentine's Day, it is only natural that our thoughts turn to love. Those who think they have found it use the occasion to celebrate their relationship, making Valentine's Day the busiest day of the year for candy sales and romantic restaurant dinners. Those still looking for love often feel lonelier than ever, so that web dating sites see their numbers spike in February.
Much attention has been paid to the explosion of on-line dating and the posting of personal profiles, but Americans have been advertising for partners for more than 150 years. I have collected thousands of personal ads from the 19th-century, and it's worth reading what men and women said they were looking for then, and how they went about it, to see what has and has not changed.
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Read more... [Looking for love before the internet]
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The 100th Anniversary of Father's Day: A Council on Contemporary Families Media Advisory
CHICAGO, June 16 (AScribe Newswire) -- One hundred years ago, on June 19, 1910, the first Father's Day was celebrated in Spokane, Washington, after Sonora Dodd convinced the mayor that fathers such as hers, a widowed farmer who raised his six children, deserved their own day of recognition.
Unlike Mother's Day, politicians didn't immediately jump on the bandwagon. In fact, the holiday was met with mockery in its early years. Not until 1972 did President Richard M. Nixon sign the holiday into law. It has since become a day when Americans celebrate their fathers and father-like figures, including uncles, grandfathers, and even older brothers. Father's Day is also observed world-wide, with at least 52 countries setting aside a day to honor "dear old dad."
Fatherhood has changed dramatically since 1910, and even since 1972. While a father's job was once primarily to "bring home the bacon," dads are increasingly involved in all aspects of family life - reading to their kids, shuttling car pools, and offering a shoulder for the kids to cry on. Between 1965 and 2003, men tripled the amount of time they spent in child care.
But involved fatherhood remains a challenge, both because of the large numbers of children whose fathers are not in the home and because employers, government, and many members of the public still think that a dad's only real job is to provide economic support to his children and leave the nurturing to others.
In honor of Father's Day, here are some surprising and thought-provoking facts and figures about fatherhood today.
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Read more... [The 100th Anniversary of Father's Day]
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- January 26, 2010
CONTACT: Stephanie Coontz; coontzs@msn.com; 360.556.9223; 360.352.8117
Click here to download the complete report as a PDF.
The marriage prospects of educated women have been hotly debated in the media in recent weeks. Are highly educated women more likely to wind up single than their less-educated counterparts? Would they do better to settle for a "good enough" man before they miss their chance altogether? Or are educated women now MORE likely to marry then their less-educated counterparts? But if so, do higher expectations make them more discontented with marriage?
In a briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families, economists Betsey Stevenson and Adam Isen crunch the data from 1950 to 2008 and come up with some surprising findings. Yes, college-educated white women (unlike college-educated black women) are less likely to marry than their less-educated counterparts. But when they do marry, they are less likely to divorce, so that by age 40, they are MORE likely to be married than other women, many of whom have already divorced.
In addition, college-educated women who are unmarried at age 40 are twice as likely to marry in the next 10 years as unmarried 40-year-olds with just a high school degree. Educated women are also more likely to report themselves happy in their marriages than less-educated women.
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Read more... [Myths About College-Educated Women and Marriage]
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- April 4, 2009
CONTACT: Stephanie Coontz; coontzs@msn.com; 360.556.9223
One of the foremost authorities on American family life will speak about the contradictions and dilemmas in American marital values and behaviors at the Council on Contemporary Families' 12th Annual Conference, Saturday, April 18, at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Andrew Cherlin, Griswold Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University, will report on his new book, The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today (Knopf; release date April 14).
In his conference remarks, Cherlin will report that Americans marry more often and live with more partners than people in any other Western country, including the supposedly less "pro-family" Scandinavian countries. These patterns of recurrent divorce, remarriage, and short-term cohabitation, Cherlin argues, reveal that Americans have come to simultaneously embrace two contradictory models of family life: a commitment to a shared life in a sanctified marriage and an individualistic emphasis on personal growth and development.
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Read more... [I Do," "I Do," and "I Do Again": The American Marriage-Go-Round]
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- January 9, 2009
CONTACT: Philip Cowan and Carolyn Cowan; pcowan@berkeley.edu; ccowan@berkeley.edu
- Old News: Having a Baby Will Save Your Marriage
- New News: No, After Having a Baby, Satisfaction With Marriage Goes Down for Most Couples
- New New News: Having a Baby Won't Improve a Poor Marriage, but Couples Who Plan the Conception Jointly Are Much Less Likely to Experience a Serious Marital Decline
- And Really Good News: Couples Who Establish a Collaborative Parenting Relationship After the Child Is Born not Only Have Happier Marriages but Better-Adjusted Children
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Read more... [News You Can Use: Are Babies Bad for Marriage?]
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