November 2003

Toward Interventions To Strengthen Relationships And Support Healthy Marriage Among Unwed New Parents

So far, we know two things with some confidence about marriage and interventions to strengthen them. First, marriage matters to the well-being of children and of couples themselves (Waite and Gallagher, 2000). Second, interventions that are well grounded in research on marital dynamics can improve some of the behaviors associated with marital outcomes and reduce divorce (Bradbury et al., 2000; Karney and Bradbury, 1995; Markman et al., 1993). Yet one-third of all births in the U.S. today are to women who do not marry prior to the birth of their child. Nonmarital childbearing is a special concern because the children are more likely to be raised in single-parent families, live in poverty, grow up without their biological fathers, and be at risk for problematic developmental outcomes compared with children born to married parents (McLanahan and Sandefur, 1994; Amato and Booth, 1997).