A New Report from the Council on Contemporary Families:

The Recession Is Officially Over, But How Are American Families Faring this Holiday Season?

Retailers report that this year's post-Thanksgiving shopping weekend broke all previous records, raising predictions of "the best holiday shopping season ever." Yet the number of people living in poverty has also broken all previous records.

Poverty, Hardship and Families:
How Many People Are Poor, and What Does Being Poor in America Really Mean?

A briefing paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families

By Philip N. Cohen, Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

December 5, 2011

This briefing paper describes three common misperceptions about poverty and families, and clarifies new information about recent poverty trends.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Stephanie Coontz

coontzs@msn.com
360 556-9223

Is That a Fact? Council on Contemporary Family Researchers Offer Guidance on Making Sense of Competing Factoids and Claims about What Causes What

CHICAGO, IL. Americans are bombarded by a constant stream of competing factoids and causal claims about families. Politicians, advocacy groups, pundits, and instant internet "experts" claim that social science "proves" this or that is the impact of divorce, "surveys show" what people think about marriage, or "the facts are clear" about the benefits of one family form or another.

Are some facts more trustworthy than others, and if so, how can we tell the trustworthy from the untrustworthy? What is the difference between a cause, a correlation and a coincidence?

Three new papers released from researchers at the Council on Contemporary Families help journalists, students, and general audiences interpret claims of fact and causation about such controversial topics as divorce, marriage, and domestic violence. Written by award-winning researchers at the top of their respective fields, the papers advise when to take research claims with a grain of salt and how to be confident that a study is particularly well done, clear, and reliable. The summary below provides links to each paper in its entirety.

Council on Contemporary Families
Virtual Symposium: Responses to Banks' Marriage Proposal
August 31, 2011

Colleagues and senior fellows from the Council on Contemporary Families offered responses to Stanford Law Professor Ralph Richard Banks discussion paperpresented this week to the Council on Contemporary Families. Banks' discussion paper, Why Interracial Marriage Is Good for Black Women - and the Best Hope for Restoring Marriage in the Black Community is available from CCF, and CCF's news release is available here. Responses are detailed in full below.

Micere Keels (University of Chicago) does not think that Black women have been ruling out non-Black partners. "Dr. Banks correctly identifies the structural issue-there are significantly more marriageable black women than black men. But educated black women do not summarily reject suitors of other races. For a forthcoming book, I asked 200 college-going and college-educated black women, ages 18 to 51, what race/ethnicity of man they would like to marry and why. Although many stated a preference for a same-race spouse, this was usually a way of assessing probable compatibility. Once other measures of compatibility were evaluated, race greatly receded in importance.

"And black women are not the ones enforcing race-based matching in the world of online dating. Black women are more likely to include white men as possible dating matches than white men are to include them. Additionally, they receive the fewest online advances from men of other racial groups, and the most non-responses when they make online advances to men of other racial groups.

"Furthermore, telling black women to "marry out" rather than "marry down" ignores the fact that women of all racial and ethnic groups are outpacing their male counterpoints in educational attainment. The only viable solution for black women's low likelihood of marriage is to correct society's failure to educate all our boys."

From: Micere Keels, Assistant Professor, Department of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago, and author of (forthcoming 2012) Societal Explanations for Personal Problems: The Decline in Marriage in America, and the Particular Case of College-Educated Black Women's Low Likelihood of Marriage, 847-409-2757, micere@uchicago.edu.

Belinda Tucker (UCLA) agrees Black women are way of white men, but ties this to a history of white men's attitudes towards them. "Our data from 21 large U.S. cities in 1996 showed that while nearly 90 percent of Black men would marry someone of another race, 71 percent of Black women also supported interracial marriage. When it came down to specifics, though, a differential reluctance emerged: only 57 percent of black women would marry someone who was white.

COUNCIL ON CONTEMPORARY FAMILIES DISCUSSION PAPER
August 30, 2011

Why Interracial Marriage Is Good for Black Women - and the Best Hope for Restoring Marriage in the Black Community

A discussion paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Ralph Richard Banks, Jackson Eli Reynolds Professor of Law, Stanford Law School, August 30. CCF colleagues and senior scholars have written brief responses, and their remarks are available from CCF. The CCF press release isavailable here.

--More than 2 out of every 3 black women are currently unmarried, as are a majority of black men, and black women are 3 times aslikely aswhite women never to marry.

--College educated black women are twice as likely as their white peers never to marry, and a majority of college-educated black wives have less educated husbands.

These figures are often blamed on the shortage of stable and employed men in low-income communities, and there's considerable truth in that explanation. But racial gaps in marriage span the socioeconomic spectrum. At every income level black men are less likely than white men to be married. 

Indeed, by some measures, the racial gap is actually wider among affluent men than among their economically disadvantaged counterparts. In most racial-ethnic groups, increases in income consistently translate into a greater likelihood of marriage. But the most affluent black men-those who earn more than $100,000 a year -- are actually less likely to marry than their lower earning but economically stable counterparts, men who earn, say, $50,000 or $60,000 a year.

The Americans with Disabilities Act: A Civil Rights Landmark for People with Disabilities, Including Down Syndrome

A Council on Contemporary Families Discussion Briefing in Honor of the 21^st Anniversary of the ADA

July 26, 2011

Prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families by Alison Piepmeier, Director, Women's and Gender Studies at the College of Charleston, and Amber Cantrell, Women's and Gender Studies undergraduate at the College of Charleston

The Americans with Disabilities Act, passed July 26, 1990, is one of the most significant pieces of civil rights legislation in American history. What the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did for people of color, the Americans with Disabilities Act did for people with disabilities -- a population of between 36 and 54 million Americans, representing 12 to 19 percent of the U.S. population.

New Rights, New Opportunities, and Continued Challenges After ADA

Before the ADA, people with disabilities had no guaranteed access to public spaces, from courthouses and voting booths to retail stores and schools. There was no requirement that public transportation or gas stations be accessible. Now such accessibility is legally mandated. The ADA also prohibits discrimination in employment, health care, and education. Individuals with physical handicaps have entirely new possibilities to pursue educational and work training and to participate in civic life.

Why Every Day Should be Father's AND Mother's Day

A commentary prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families
by Marc and Amy Vachon and Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan
June 19, 2011

For most of the 20^th century, Father's Day celebrated men's role in providing for the family but reinforced their secondary role within the family. Just think of the two most popular Father's Day gifts: The classic has always been the tie - something that men wear at work, not at home. The second most popular has been a grill or barbeque accessory - something a man uses outside the kitchen, and only occasionally.

As we celebrate Father's Day 2011, the 1950s assumption that men take care of tasks outside the home while women take care of tasks inside the home is clearly out of date. In many metropolitan areas, women in their 20s earn more than their male counterparts. At all ages, the percentage of wives out-earning their husbands is growing rapidly. And as women take on a larger share of breadwinning, men have been taking on a larger share of household tasks. Fathers now average at least 9.5 hours of childcare and housework activities per week, up from less than 7 hours in 1965. In 1965, fathers did 5 percent of the cooking in families. Today, they put in a third of the cooking time, and in growing numbers of homes men do the majority of the cooking or cleaning.

New research shows that contemporary men are actually happier when they pitch in around the house. And the majority of young couples - both women and men - rate a relationship based on equality at home and in their careers as their ideal lifestyle.

Yet a new family model has not fully taken hold. Overall, men are still expected to be the primary providers, and to settle for being second-string parents and "helpers" around the home. Here are three myths that perpetuate these outdated arrangements, standing in the way of the equality most modern parents want.

A CCF MEDIA ADVISORY

Celebrating Women's Health Week: 30 Minutes a Day to Better Health

National Women's Health Week (May 8-14, 2011)  is a week-long observance spearheaded  by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office on Women's Health. The theme for 2011 is "It's Your Time." National Women's Health Week empowers women to make their health a top priority, and encourages them to take steps to improve their physical and mental health and lower their risks of certain diseases.

Although women in the U.S. enjoy longer life spans than men, by as many as seven years on average, women also report higher levels of aches and pains, headaches, disability, depression, and multiple other chronic health conditions. This is partly due to the fact that women live longer, and with older age comes the physical and cognitive declines.

Yet another reason why women's physical and mental health is often worse than men is that  busy women put their own mental and physical health needs second to the needs of their children, partners, friends, and aging parents. An hour spent cleaning the bathroom, shuttling the kids to soccer practice, or putting in long hours at the office means an hour not spent exercising, sleeping, or even having sex - all activities that promote women's physical and mental health, and longevity.

By Rachel Adams, Council on Contemporary Families Research Intern, The Evergreen State College
Olympia Washington, May 11, 2011

Elders Provide Critical Support for Contemporary Families and Society

When Senior Citizens Month was established in May 1963 (the name was changed to "Older Americans Month" in 1980), there were only 17 million living Americans who had reached their 65th birthday. Today there are more than 38 million Americans 65 and older. Census data project that by 2030, nearly one in five Americans will be 65 or older.

This year the official theme for Older Americans Month is "Connecting to the Community." Much has been written about the "burden" of supporting an aging population, but we hear far less about the many critical contributions older people make to their families and their communities. A good deal of this work is unpaid, but its value is no less significant.

Volunteering and Charitable Contributions

A report released by the Pew Research Center in 2009 found that 59 percent of Americans aged 65-74, 48 percent of those aged 75-84, and an impressive 36 percent of those over age 85 do volunteer work. According to a 2008 AARP survey, the top three areas of interest are working for faith-based groups, tutoring or mentoring young people (an activity that has been shown to help reduce school dropout rates) and helping the elderly live independently. These numbers may be just a taste of what older Americans have to offer, since research shows that when individuals are asked to volunteer, 81 percent of them do so.

A study by the University of Chicago conducted from 2005 to 2006 found that social engagement in the community may increase with age: people in their 80s were twice as likely as those in their 50s to socialize with their neighbors, volunteer, or attend religious services or meetings of other organized groups one or more times a week. Nearly 40 percent of Baby Boomers say that they are involved in combating "neighborhood problems," compared to only one third of respondents from Generation X (age 29-44).

Not only do older Americans volunteer, but a majority of them contribute to charity as well. A survey conducted by AARP in 2009 found that about 73 percent of both Baby Boomers (age 45-63) and members of the Silent Generation (age 64-80) have donated to charity.

Helping out with Families

Almost 10 percent of all children in the U.S. live with a grandparent, and more than 2.5 million grandparents are responsible for providing the basic needs of their grandchildren. In addition, 39 percent of Americans 65 and older who have grandchildren report helping with child care.

According to 2008 Census data, 30 percent of children under age five who have working mothers - 3.3 million children - are cared for by grandparents for some amount of time each week and 4.7 million children aged 5-14 are regularly cared for by their grandparents. These figures have probably increased since the recession, as more families have doubled up and others have had to rely more on kin networks for child care. Many two-earner couples and single parents could not meet their work responsibilities and remain economically self-sufficient if grandparents did not step in to help out with the children.

Older Americans also help out their adult children. A Pew research survey released in June 2009 found that 51 percent of older Americans had given money to their adult children in the past year. Only 14 percent reported having received money from their adult children in the same period.

___________________________

For further information, contact CCF Board Member Ashton Applewhite:  646-644-4040 / http://www.stayingvertical.com / ashton.applewhite@gmail.com

ABOUT CCF: The Council on Contemporary Families, based at the University of Illinois-Chicago, is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of family researchers, mental health and social practitioners, and clinicians dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best practice findings about American families. To learn more, go to the website, http://www.contemporaryfamilies.org, or contact Stephanie Coontz, CCF's Co-Chair and Director of Research and Public Education and Professor of History and Family Studies at The Evergreen State College: coontzs@msn.com.

WORKING MOTHERS, STAY-AT-HOME MOTHERS, AND DEPRESSION RISK

A Briefing Paper Prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families

By Margaret L. Usdansky (Syracuse University), Rachel A. Gordon (University of Illinois at Chicago), Xue Wang and Anna Gluzman

May 6, 2011

Mothers of young children face difficult decisions when it comes to employment. Some feminists warn that staying home leads to social isolation, increasing the risk of maternal depression. But many neo-traditionalists counter that employment increases women's stress levels, leading to depression because of lost time with children or worries about child care. The question of whether working or staying home causes depression matters not just for the sake of mothers' happiness, but for the well-being of children, since maternal depression is a risk factor for children. So it is important to know the findings of a new study: When it comes to mothers' risk of depression, both these one-size-fits-all arguments miss the mark.

The impact of working for pay or staying home on women's risk of depression depends on mothers' preferences and on their job quality, our study finds. Mothers who stay home because they prefer not to work outside the home have a relatively low risk of depression. But stay-at-home mothers who would rather be working for pay do face higher risks of depression. In fact, these women had the same risk of depression as mothers in our sample who wanted to stay home but had to go work in low-quality jobs.

Employment isn't always "good" or "bad" for women's morale. Much depends on the quality of the job, and this can even trump women's preference. Mothers employed in low-quality jobs face a heightened risk of depression even when they do want to work for pay. But interestingly, mothers employed in high-quality jobs face a low risk of depression even if they do NOT want to work for pay.

UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM: ISSUE 4

A survey of recent family research and clinical findings prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families' 14th Anniversary Conference at the University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, April 8 and 9, 2011.

Edited by Joshua Coleman, Co-Chair, Council on Contemporary Families, and Stephanie Coontz, Co-Chair and Director of Research and Public Education, Council on Contemporary Families.

The Council on Contemporary Families aims to increase communication among family researchers and practitioners while helping the press and public access accurate information and best-practice findings about how today's families work.

Our 14th anniversary conference, TIPPING POINT? WHEN MINORITY FAMILIES BECOME THE MAJORITY: How Does it Change Our Theory and Practice? will detail some of the latest research and clinical findings on multiracial identities, reshaping of racial boundaries in relationships, ethnic and class perspectives on parenting, transitions to adulthood, paid and unpaid work, and sexual diversity. Consider how much our family landscape is changing:

• Last year, for the first time, births to "minorities" exceeded births to non-Hispanic whites. Four states -- California, Texas, Hawaii, and New Mexico - already have a "majority minority" population, meaning that minorities accounted for more than 50 percent of the population.
• Among American children, the multiracial population has increased almost 50 percent, to 4.2 million, since 2000, making biracial and multiracial individuals the fastest growing youth group in the country.
• Today, 36.7 million of the nation's population (12 percent) are foreign-born, and another 33 million (11 percent) are native-born with at least one foreign-born parent. This means one in five people is either a first or second generation U.S. resident.
• Meanwhile, among all Americans, non-Hispanic whites as well as minorities, the chance of experiencing a major loss of income or out-of-pocket medical expense above what you can cover in savings increased by a third between 1985 and 2007, and may have grown by as much as 50 percent once we take into account the ongoing impact of this recession. The gap between lower- and higher-income Americans has been widening, leading to greater inequality in income, housing security, access to higher education and even the chances of marrying and the risk of divorce.

This issue of "Unconventional Wisdom" briefly summarizes a few of the findings CCF researchers and practitioners are studying about the way this racial, ethnic, and class diversity is playing out in family strategies, parenting, child outcomes, sexuality, and other intimate relations. We asked conference participants as well as other scholars and clinicians to send in short descriptions of some of their recent research findings, practical experiences, clinical observations about emerging family trends and issues, new interventions to help families, and other topics. See also: Unconventional Wisdom, Issue 1, 2, and 3.

Download the complete report as a PDF file.

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.