Non-marital childbearing is associated with many adverse outcomes for both the mother and the child. Most of these births are unintended. If these unintended births could be reduced it might improve children's prospects by enabling their mothers to get more education, earn more, and wait to have children within marriage. In this brief, the authors…

In Ireland, historically and in the current era, family has been a central concern for society and the State. This article provides a descriptive overview of family life in Ireland and of major family-related changes over the past 40 years. It presents a general framework of analysis within which these changes can be understood, considers the…

The promotion of marriage and two-parent families became an explicit public policy goal with the passage of the 1996 welfare reform bill. Marriage has the putative effect of reducing welfare dependency among single mothers, but only if they marry men with earnings sufficient to lift them and their children out of poverty. Newly released data from…

We apply marital search theory to examine whether out-of-wedlock childbearing affects mate selection patterns among American women. Using 1980-1995 CPS data, we apply probit models with selection to account for potential selection bias due to differences in "marriageability" between women in and not in unions. Compared to those without unmarried…

The promotion of marriage and two-parent families as a strategy to reduce welfare dependency continues to be a major public policy goal of the 1996 welfare reform. Based on the assumption that women will marry employed men and that their earnings will lift poor mothers and their children from public dependency, this objective raises important…

Actions of school systems with respect to pregnant schoolgirls are neglectful and often hostile and punitive. The way schools treat such girls may influence what kinds of citizens and parents the girls will become and how they will relate to the school system as their children grow up in it. (Author/CB)

Adolescent pregnancy and parenthood have become increasingly important public policy issues in recent years for many reasons, including concerns about their prevalence, about the economic and social problems faced by young mothers and their children, and about the budgetary effects of adolescent parents' reliance on public assistance programs.…

Changes in parenting behavior have led to the troubling situation called the "feminization of poverty." Families headed by divorced women are doing better than is commonly supposed. Families headed by never-married women are doing worse. Public policy should reflect the differing needs of these two groups. (VM)

Like the "scientific" approaches of craniometry and eugenics, Herrnstein and Murray's methods and arguments reveal an ideological position not only on African Americans but also on the role of women. Points out their focus on women in discussions of "illegitimacy," birth control, and parenting, and their targeting of poor…

Welfare work programs are a form of welfare fraud. They engender little change compared to the resources that go into them. The most promising policies for reducing welfare roles are the following: (1) support of children by absent parents; (2) tax credit systems; (3) improvements in public education; and (4) provision of health care. (VM)

Compares changes in birth rates, sexual activity, abortion rates, illegitimate births, and incidence of giving babies up for adoption among White and Black adolescents and explores social and cultural influences on the racial differences. Presents suggestions for culturally related interventions in the area of teenage pregnancy. (Author/MJL)

Using findings of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), this report discusses how people become poor and why they stay that way. The PSID reveals that the requirements for getting out of poverty in the United States are so minimal that it takes a mutually reinforcing cluster of behaviors to remain in poverty, even for blacks and females. The…

This special issue focuses on the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. The collection of articles includes: "Introduction: Reauthorizing TANF"; "The New Face of Welfare: From Income Transfers to Social Assistance?" (Thomas Corbett); "Welfare Then Welfare Now: Expenditures in Some Midwestern States"…

This report describes results of Project TEEN, a 1-year federal grant project awarded to the Louisiana State Department of Education for the purpose of conducting a state assessment of compliance with Title IX as related to middle and secondary school dropouts among pregnant female adolescents. Other stated purposes of the project include…

This paper summarizes a collection of papers in a special issue that examines what resources and capabilities parents likely to be affected by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families have; whether these parents are likely to be good parents; the nature of parents' relationships and whether they will be able to cooperate in raising their children;…