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.

Here are a few of the contradictions and paradoxes Cherlin will discuss at the CCF conference:

* American children who live with married parents have a higher likelihood of seeing their parents split up than do Swedish children who live with unmarried parents.

* Among children who experience their parents' breakup, almost half will see a new partner enter their custodial parent's household within three years, a much larger proportion than those of European kids whose parents split up. "We seem to love marriage so much," says Cherlin, "that we do it over and over again."

* Conservative social values don't necessarily predict conservative social behaviors. "The ten states with the highest divorce rates all voted for George W. Bush in 2004," Cherlin observes, "and eight of these states voted for John McCain in 2008."

* Americans are the most religious people in the Western world, and the United States government spends $150 million per year to promote "healthy marriages." Yet the U.S. has the highest divorce rate in the Western world.

In his presentation, Cherlin will discuss why the United States, despite its strong ideological commitment to nuclear families, has more "churning" in and out of such families than most other western countries - and why that strong commitment to nuclear families may actually pose a problem for children!

Cherlin's luncheon presentation is a special feature of The Council on Contemporary Families' 12th Anniversary Conference, "Relationships, Sexuality, and Equality: How Far Have We Come?" (April 17 and 18, 2009 at the University of Illinois, Chicago). The conference also includes the following panels, presenting new research and best practice findings on these timely topics:

*Work-Family Balance for Women and Men

*Gender Convergence in Families and Intimate Relationships

*Gender in the Next Generation

*Women, Men and Equality: What the Election Taught Us -- and the
Recession is Now Teaching Us

For a detailed conference program, visit www.contemporaryfamilies.org. Accredited journalists seeking complimentary registration should contact Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education, Council on Contemporary Families, at coontzs@msn.com or 360.556.9223.

JOIN THE CCF INFORMATION NETWORK FOR RESEARCH UPDATES:

The Council helps keep journalists informed of notable work on family-related issues via the CCF Information Network. To join the CCF Information Network, or for further media assistance, please contact Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education, at coontzs@msn.com.

For a press kit or review copy of Cherlin's book, The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today, please contact Erinn Hartman at ehartman@randomhouse.com or 212.572.2345.

To discuss the book or his conference presentation in advance, please contact Andrew Cherlin at 443.622.5088.

About CCF: The Council on Contemporary Families is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to providing the press and public with the latest research and best-practice findings about American families. Our members include demographers, economists, family therapists, historians, political scientists, psychologists, social workers, sociologists, as well as other family social scientists and practitioners. Founded in 1996 and based at the University of Illinois at Chicago, the Council's mission is to enhance the national understanding of how and why contemporary families are changing, what needs and challenges they face, and how these needs can best be met.

To learn more about other briefing papers and about our annual April conferences, including complimentary press passes for journalists, contact Stephanie Coontz, CCF's Director of Research and Public Education, at coontzs@msn.com.