HOW COLOR-BLIND IS LOVE? INTERRACIAL DATING FACTS AND PUZZLES

A fact sheet for the Council on Contemporary Families

by Colleen Poulin and Virginia Rutter

March 30, 2011

How colorblind is love? In interracial and intercultural romances, color counts for less than ever. But when it comes to marital commitments, and even public displays of affection, barriers still remain.

The following fact sheet was prepared for the 2011 Council on Contemporary Families conference, "Tipping Point? When Minority Families Become the Majority" (April 8-9 at the University of Illinois Chicago),  by researchers at Framingham State University. CCF public affairs intern Colleen Poulin and FSU sociologist Virginia Rutter consider what's working and what remains challenging in interracial relationships.

Interracial dating has increased dramatically

• About half of Americans have dated someone from a different racial group. One study found that 36 percent of white Americans, 57 percent of African Americans, 56 percent of Latino Americans, and 57 percent of Asian Americans have interracially dated.
• Attitudes in every generation have become more accepting of interracial dating: millenials are the most accepting, with almost 90 percent approving.
• Experience makes all the difference: 92 percent of those who have dated interracially before will do so again; and attendance at a more diverse college or living in a multi-racial setting makes interracial dating more likely.
• Many people in today's dating pool are themselves children of parents of different races. According to estimates from the Census Bureau, the mixed-race population has grown by more than a third, from 2.4 percent of the population in 2000 to 3.5 percent today. Among children, the mixed-race population has grown by 50 percent in the same period of time.
• Diversity is complex. In one set of interviews at Framingham State University, we found 10 different types of interracial pairings in just 13 couples.

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 19^th-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.

CONTACT: Stephanie Coontz, coontzs@msn.com

360 352-8117; 360 556-9223

MASS INCARCERATION AND AMERICA'S FAMILIES

A Best-Practice Briefing Prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Carol Shapiro, Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy, Columbia University, October 12, 2010

October 16 is the 37^th anniversary of congressional approval of the Drug Enforcement Administration, whose purpose, in the words of then-President Richard Nixon, was to coordinate an "all-out war" on drugs. Before the 1970's, drug abuse had been seen by policy makers primarily as a disease that could be addressed by treatment. During the 1970s, however, drug abuse - even in the absence of any violent or other criminal behavior - came to be seen as a law enforcement problem to be solved through aggressive arrest and incarceration policies.

Since then, the United States has increased its rates of imprisonment by nearly 500 percent. We now incarcerate a far higher proportion of our citizens than any other nation -- 2.3 million adults and an additional eight hundred thousand youths.  This is a higher proportion than in either China or Russia, and higher than the top 35 European countries combined, per recent reports. As an absolute number it represents more than the combined populations of Boston, San Francisco, and Washington, DC.

On any given day, at least one in 100 adults is in our nation's jails and prisons, while more than one in 30 adults is under some form of correctional custody, including probation and parole supervision in the community. More than half of all inmates are parents of minor children. Almost 3 million minor children have a parent behind bars-that is one in 28--and about one million juveniles are themselves under some form of correctional supervision, creating complex relationships between parents, schools, probation officers, and other agencies.

Low-income communities are disproportionately affected by America's mass incarceration practices. Residents are more likely to be arrested, prosecuted, and sent to jail for the same offenses that lead to warnings, probation, or treatment programs in more affluent neighborhoods.  Most convictions in low-income communities, contrary to popular impression, are for nonviolent acts, with drug users and the mentally ill heavily overrepresented in the prison population.  Two-thirds of incarcerated parents of minor children are in jail for non-violent acts. Many non-violent offenders cycle in and out of jail simply because of technical violations of probation or parole rules, not because they have committed new crimes.

WHY SHOULD WE CARE?

Back in 1963, when 17 million Americans aged 65 and older represented just 9 percent of the population, President John F. Kennedy designated May as Senior Citizens Month. Today there are almost 40 million Americans aged 65 and older, a number that is projected to increase to 88.5 million by 2050. By then they will make up 20 percent of the total population, and nearly 1 in 4 will be over 85. (By comparison, in 1900 only 4 percent of women and 3 percent of men lived to be 90.)

We now know that they hate being called "senior citizens." (President Carter changed the name to Older Americans Month in 1980.) Their numbers are swelling. What else do we know about older Americans? Follow this link to read some surprising facts from researchers at the Council on Contemporary Families.

By Ellen Galinsky

This preview of Ellen Galinsky's Mind in the Making: The Seven Essential Life Skills Every Child Needs provides an overview of her findings about what researchers now know about the life skills children need and ways that parents can teach them.

For the past two decades, parents have felt ever-increasing pressure to buy expensive, high-tech learning toys and enroll their children in special activities that will give them an edge in getting into a good college and embarking on a rewarding career. Yet employers overwhelmingly report that young employees are not prepared for the demands of the 21^st-century workplace. Specifically, they complain that the kind of skills successful workers need are typically not taught in school nor tested for - skills such as communicating effectively, working well with diverse groups of people, thinking outside the box, and being ongoing learners.

A Report Prepared for the 13th Annual Conference of the Council on Contemporary Families, Augustana College, April 16-17, 2010

By Valerie Adrian and Stephanie Coontz

The economy is now out of free fall, but the impact of recent economic losses on families will continue for many years to come. An overview of the economic, unemployment and poverty trends suggests why:

• The Congressional Budget Office estimates that thousands more jobs would have disappeared and the growth rate would have been 1.2 to 3.2 points lower in the third quarter of 2009 without the Recovery Act's stimulus package, but even so the official unemployment rate remains around 10 percent. When economists take into account discouraged workers that rises to almost 18 percent, the highest figure since the 1930s.
• As of March 2010, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 44 percent of jobless workers had been out of work for six months or more. This is more than double the number recorded in December 2008.
• A December 2009 survey found that 44 percent of families had experienced the job loss of one or more members, a reduction in hours, or a cut in pay over the past year.

December 16, 2009

By Deborah Carr, Associate Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University; carrds@rci.rutgers.edu; 732.309.1807; and Kristen W. Springer, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Rutgers University; kspringe@rci.rutgers.edu, 732.425.0017

Keeping healthy during the holiday season isn't something we need to do alone. Decades of research by social scientists show that good relationships keep us healthy. Our spouses and partners can help us to eat and sleep well, motivate us to exercise, and provide emotional support during stressful times. Here are ten tips to keep yourself (and your families) healthy this holiday season.

By Richard Williams, Professor of Sociology, University of Notre Dame; Richard.A.Williams.5@ND.Edu; 574.631.6668 (office); 574.289.5227 (home)

Forty-seven years ago, on November 20, 1962, President Kennedy signed Executive Order 11063, prohibiting federally-funded housing agencies from denying mortgages to any person based on their race, color, creed or national origin. Kennedy was fulfilling a campaign promise to make "one stroke of the pen" that would allow millions of black American children "to grow up in decency."

Today, however, there are some who argue that government efforts to promote minority home ownership caused our current economic crisis, forcing banks to lend to unqualified buyers and eventually pulling all homebuyers down. This is a misconception that could hamper future efforts to help families find secure, affordable housing.

A SURVEY OF RESEARCH AND CLINICAL FINDINGS

PREPARED FOR THE COUNCIL ON CONTEMPORARY FAMILIES 10TH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

May 4-5, 2007

Edited by Joshua Coleman, Senior Fellow, Council on Contemporary Families, and Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education, Council on Contemporary Families

See also: Unconventional Wisdom, Issue 2 and 3.

May 10, 2007

By David Cotter, Department of Sociology, Union College; cotterd@union.edu; and Paula England, Department of Sociology, Stanford University; pengland@stanford.edu; 650.723.4912 or 650.815.9308; and Joan Hermsen, Department of Sociology, University of Missouri; HermsenJ@missouri.edu

May 2003

By Rachel Henneck, Council on Contemporary Families Intern

In the space of about 30 years, the institution of marriage lost its dominance as the main mechanism by which income is distributed to women and children, while the workplace lost its status as a place where employees' family responsibilities could be ignored. The private, unpaid, 24-hour caregiving work of women can no longer be taken for granted by employers or society as a whole, nor can it be taken for granted that most women and children have access to a full-time male worker's income and benefits. How have industrial nations changed, or failed to change, their social policies in response?

August 2, 2009
A fact sheet prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families

By Isabelle Cherney, Michael W. Barry Professor and Director of the Honors Program and Professor of Psychology, Creighton University; 402.280.1228; cherneyi@creighton.edu

It is the time of summer when plenty of parents of small children are all "played out" and ready for the kids to be back in school. But for the kids, playing -- and how they play -- is extremely important for growing up healthy and smart.

August 2009

By Philip Cowan, Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley; pcowan@berkeley.edu; and Carolyn Cowan, Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley; ccowan@berkeley.edu

Even when we can check the accuracy of facts, as Cherlin's paper urges us to do, the next step is to examine critically the way that people interpret the relationship of one fact to another.  Philip Cowan, Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, UC-Berkeley, and Carolyn Pape Cowan, Professor of Psychology, Emerita, UC-Berkeley, show how confusion of cause and correlation has deformed debates over child policies issues.

August 2009

By Linda Burton, James B. Duke Professor of Sociology, Duke University; lburton@soc.duke.edu

Professor Linda Burton explains what gets lost when researchers or journalists do one-shot surveys or focus groups rather than in-depth interviews that take place over a prolonged period.

August 2009

By Andrew Cherlin, Griswold Professor of Public Policy, Johns Hopkins University; cherlin@jhu.edu

Professor Andrew Cherlin highlights how advocacy groups use facts selectively and thereby over-simplify public discussion of important issues. Professor Cherlin offers examples from both the left and the right to illustrate how this selective use of facts impoverishes public debates.

March 28, 2006

By Heather Boushey, Senior Economist, Center for American Progress; hboushey@cepr.net; 202.293.5380 x116

Contrary to conventional wisdom, highly educated mothers are MORE likely to be in the labor force than women with less education or less demanding careers.

February 1, 2007

By Jody Heymann, Professor in the Faculties of Medicine and Arts, McGill University, Founder and Director of the Project on Global Working Families; jody.heymann@mcgill.edu; 514.398.2027 or 514.398.2436; and Alison Earle, Project Manager for the Work, Family and Democracy Initiative, Harvard University; and Jeffrey Hayes, Institute for Health & Social Policy, McGill University

When it comes to protecting the family lives of workers, U.S. public policies lag dramatically behind other high-income countries, and even behind many middle- and low-income countries.

January 29, 2009

By Evelyn Lehrer, Professor of Economics, University of Illinois at Chicago; elehrer@uic.edu; 312.413.2363

Age at marriage is higher than ever before in the US, and according to a new study, this trend bodes well for union stability, as marriages that take place at later ages tend to be stable.  In this fact sheet prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families, economist Evelyn Lehrer from the University of Illinois at Chicago explains why and previews her forthcoming article in the Journal of Population Economics.

July 5, 2008

By Lynn Prince Cooke, Professor of Sociology, University of Kent, Canterbury, England; L.P.Cooke@kent.ac.uk

Let's face it: The road to happily-ever-after is pitted with potholes. Children, finances, and in-laws can all put stress on a marriage. But what about who cleans the floor?  This matters, too. A survey released this week by the Pew Research Center shows that most Americans now regard sharing household chores as more vital to a good marriage than such traditional measures of marital success as having children.

May 11, 2008

By Valerie Adrian, Research Intern, Council on Contemporary Families; valadrian@gmail.com; and Stephanie Coontz, Professor of History and Family Studies, The Evergreen State College; coontzs@msn.com; 360.556.9223

Here's a thought for a Mother's Day gift that would go beyond the complimentary flowers passed out by restaurants and the complementary speeches churned out by politicians every May: Affordable child care that is operated in accord with high-quality national standards.