Monday, December 14, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of December 6, 2015

1. The Link Between A College Education And A Lasting Marriage, Pew Research
College-educated women have an almost eight-in-ten chance of still being married after two decades.

2. Mobility And Money In U.S. States: The Marriage Effect, The Brookings Institute
As Sara McLanahan and Isabel Sawhill note in the most recent issue of Princeton and Brookings’ Future of Children, “most scholars now agree that children raised by two biological parents in a stable marriage do better than children in other family forms across a wide range of outcomes.”

3. How To Save Your Marriage During An Argument, Deseret News National 
"Evidence [...] suggests that feeling understood during conflict may buffer against reduced relationship satisfaction, in part because it strengthens the relationship and signals one's partner is invested. . ."

4. 2 Maps Show How Marriage Has Changed In America During The Last 35 Years, Business Insider
First, the rates were much higher 35 years ago than they are today for every single state. In fact, the differences were so stark that we had to use two different color scales for the maps — otherwise the 1980 map would be completely dark or the 2015 would be completely light.

5. How Many Married People Have Thought About Divorce?, Family Studies
Many respondents had thought about divorce in the past but decided to stay married, and almost all of them are glad they did. . . So thinking about divorce isn’t always a sign of imminent separation. 

6. Sticks And Stones: Words Can Deceive — Tone Of Voice Cannot, USC News
A new computer algorithm can predict whether you and your spouse will have a stronger or weaker relationship based on the tone of voice used when speaking to each other.

7. Strengthening The Three Pillars Of The American Dream: Education, Work, and Marriage, Family Studies
Promote. . . a public information campaign highlighting the benefits of becoming a parent only within the context of a committed relationship (which, for most, means marriage).

For more, see here.  

Monday, November 30, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of November 22, 2015

1. In The Paid Family Leave Debate, Pro-life, Pro-family Groups’ Own Policies Are All Over The MapWashington Post
In response to the question “Do you strongly favor, favor, oppose or strongly oppose requiring companies to provide all full-time employees with paid leave for the birth or adoption of a child?” 82 percent of respondents overall strongly favor or favor the idea.

2. Divorce Rate At Lowest Level In 40 Years After Cohabitation Revolution, The Telegraph 
Jo Edwards, chair of the family law organisation Resolution, added: “The rise in cohabiting couples, the fastest growing type of household in Britain, may also play a role [in the changing divorce rates] - cohabitation separation is not included in these statistics."

3. Most Americans Think Their Own Marriage Is Better Than Others, Deseret News-BYU Survey Finds, The Deseret News National
"I think it suggests that marriage is still highly valued by Americans," said Andrew Cherlin, professor of sociology and public policy and director of the Hopkins Population Center at Johns Hopkins University. "A few decades ago, I was not sure marriage was going to remain important, but it has in a way that's somewhat surprising to the doomsayers among us."

4. Asia Struggles For A Solution To Its ‘Missing Women’ Problem, Wall Street Journal
If the masculine sex ratios remain as high, in China, there would be as many as 186 single men for every 100 single women hoping to marry by midcentury, according to Dr. Guilmoto, since unmarried men from one year join the next year’s group seeking wives.

5. Millennials Delay Marriage In Order To Form A More Perfect Union, Poll Suggest, The Guardian 
“Marriage is almost like the last thing you do. It’s the last box you tick, rather than a way of getting to some of the other boxes,” Reeves said.

6.  A Pro-Family Child Tax Credit for the U.S., Family Studies
First, a reformed child tax credit (CTC) should be pro-marriage. . .Second, the reform should be pro-work. . . Lastly, CTC reform should contribute to family stability by consolidating the current array of benefits.

7. Teens’ Attitudes Toward Marriage Vary Widely Across Oklahoma, Family Studies
Overall, each group seemed to take the notion of marriage seriously, and they had by and large given the topic a great deal of thought.

For more, see here

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of October 25, 2015

1. Why Men Should Also Worry About Waiting Too Long To Have Kids, Washington Post
[N]ew research suggests that many problematic genetic conditions may be more closely linked to the age of the father than the mother.

2. For Richer, Not Poorer: Marriage And The Growing Class Divide, US News and World Report
Researchers estimate that between one-fifth and two-fifths of the growth in family income inequality is due to a difference in marriage patterns between Americans of higher and lower socioeconomic status.
 
3. Divorce Rate In The U.S.: Geographic Variation, 2014, BGSU National Center for Marriage and Family Research
The divorce rate has dropped by almost a quarter (23%) in the past 35 years--the lowest it has been since 1970.

4. Are Parents Less Happy? Are Couples With Children Less Happy?, Sliding vs. Deciding Blog
Rather, we have pretty thin measures of personal and couple-level happiness that likely don't capture something many people experience when it comes to fulfillment and meaning in life that I'd call happiness as a family.

5. Can Marriage Heal a Broken Heart? Researchers Find Married Patients Fare Better After Heart Surgery, ABC News
According to the study, those who were unmarried had a 40 percent greater chance of dying or developing a new disability two years after their surgery. 

6. Family Structure Matters — Science Proves It, National Review
[S]tates with higher levels of married parenthood enjoy higher levels of growth, economic mobility for children growing up poor, and median family income, along with markedly lower levels of child poverty.

7. A Disadvantaged Start Hurts Boys More Than Girls, New York Times
Boys are more sensitive than girls to disadvantage. Any disadvantage, like growing up in poverty, in a bad neighborhood or without a father, takes more of a toll on boys than on their sisters. 

For more, see here

Monday, October 19, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of October 11, 2015

1. A Performance Review May Be Good for Your Marriage, The Wall Street Journal
By taking time to regularly evaluate and review their relationship together, partners can recognize what is and isn’t working—and identify goals for improvement—long before problems become entrenched and irresolvable.

2. Performance Reviews For Marriages: Corporate, Desperate And Depressing, The Globe and Mail
“No one should feel like they’re under evaluation like they might with a boss. This is a very collaborative, equal back and forth,” Toronto psychologist Sara Dimerman said in an interview.

3. 40% Of Couples Spend $10,000 Or Less On Their Weddings, USA Today
How to throw a wedding on a small budget: Slash the guest list. . . Skip the wedding planner. . .  Rethink timing. . . Only serve beer and wine. . . Buy wholesale.

4. Help! My Parents Are Millennials, TIME
It surveyed 2,700 U.S. mothers ages 18 to 44 and found that nearly 80% of millennial moms said it’s important to be “the perfect mom,” compared with about 70% of moms in Generation X. . .

5. David Ribar on Marriage and Child Wellbeing, Institute for Family Studies
We know that the average well-being outcomes for children raised by both of their biological parents are better than the average outcomes for children raised in other arrangements. However, we don’t know exactly why this is.

6. Social Inequality Matters As Much As — Or More Than — Economic Inequality, National Review
Children born into the lowest income quintile have almost exactly equal chances of arriving in any of the five income quintiles as adults. There is only one catch: Their parents must be and stay married.

7. Strong Families, Prosperous States: Do Healthy Families Affect The Wealth Of States?, American Enterprise Institute
Join AEI for the release of “Strong Families, Prosperous States,” a new report that addresses this gap by documenting the links between families and the economic welfare of states from across the country.

For more, see here

Monday, October 5, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of September 27, 2015

1. Digital Romance: The Teens Get It, The Atlantic
Social media, in particular, is extra helpful for boys. While 59 percent of teens overall felt that social media helped them connect to their boyfriends and girlfriends, 65 percent of boys felt this way.

2. These Women Can't Find Enough Marriageable Men, CBS
Given the shortage of college-educated men, highly educated women are likely to either look for men who have fewer qualifications (and likely earn less) than them, or else skip marriage entirely, the researchers said.

3. Is There A Shortage Of Marriageable Men?, Newsweek
We also found that concerns about a shortage of marriageable men among black Americans are likely due to high rates of incarceration and early death among black men.

4. Relationship Breakdown: Family Stability Is Vital For A Thriving Society, The Telegraph
Relationship breakdown currently costs Britain an estimated £47 billion a year, but just £7.5 million of government funding is made available for prevention.

5. Around The Globe, Less Marriage = More Single Parents, Family Studies
Notably, the percentage of adults married in the United States fell from 52 percent in 2005 to 45 percent in 2010.

6. When It Comes To Family Structure, The U.S. Is A Laggard, Family Studies
In these regions, the United States (27 percent), the United Kingdom (24 percent), and New Zealand (24 percent) exhibit particularly high levels of single parenthood.

7. 10 Heroic Things You Can Do To Save Your Marriage, Deseret News National
“The third big takeaway from their research was that those who considered their spouse a ‘best friend’ boasted the highest levels of happiness — in fact, the well-being benefits were twice as large for those couples. . ."

For more, see here.

Tuesday, September 22, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of September 13, 2015

Dear Readers,

The M.Guy Tweet will be postponed by a week, due to a bad case of the flu in our family. Thanks!

Best,
Emily

Monday, September 7, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of August 30, 2015

1. A New Book Answers Why It’s So Hard For Educated Women To Find Dates, The Washington Post
The dating pool for college-educated people in their 30s now has five women for every four men. For people in their 20s, it's four women for every three men.

2. The Science Of A Happy Marriage, CNN
[P]ast research has actually shown that relationship satisfaction is influenced as much, if not more, by how we react to each other's good news.

3. Republicans Say They Are Happier With Their Marriages, New York Times
Self-identified Republicans are more likely to be married and less likely to be divorced than self-identified Democrats, write he and Nicholas H. Wolfinger, based on an analysis of the General Social Survey, an oft-studied national poll.

4. What God Has Joined Together: Religion And The Risk of Divorce, Family Studies
People who attend religious services every week are 15 percentage points less likely to have ever been divorced than those who rarely attend. Clearly religious involvement matters for one’s chances of a lasting marriage, above and beyond which religious group one is a part of.

5. Why Women Are More Likely To Ask for A Divorce, TIME
Women initiated 69% of divorces, compared to 31% of men. But if men and women were living together without marrying, each gender was equally likely to initiate a breakup.

6. You Need To Tell Your Child's Teacher About Your Divorce, Los Angeles Times
"The more the teachers understand the context of [children's] behavior, the more successful they can be at their jobs," Maxfield said.

7. Why Millennials Aren't Forming New Households, City Lab
According to the latest figures, about a third of Millennials are sharing living quarters with their folks.

For more, see here.

Monday, August 24, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of August 16, 2015

I'm on vacation this week. Check back for the usual bi-weekly update on September 7, 2015. Thanks and enjoy your holiday!

Monday, August 17, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of August 2, 2015

1. A Millennial Couple Asks: Can We Afford To Have A Baby?, The Washington Post
“We’re just trying to figure out if we’re on the right path,” Saro says. “Based on our financial status, is having a family and growing a possibility, or is it too scary right now?”

2. Americans Are Having The Most Babies In These 20 Cities, Bloomberg Business
The common thread that unites many of these cities is that they have high numbers of young households, according to Mark Mather, associate vice president for domestic programs at the Population Reference Bureau in Washington. 

3. The New Wave Of Millennial Moms Will Be Educated And Married To 'Do-It-All' Dads, Deseret News National
Among 18- to 29-year-olds who are not currently married and have no children, 70 percent say they want to marry and 74 percent say they want to have children.

4. 6 Signs Your Marriage Will Last A Lifetime, MSN
Research shows that couples who do new or different things together--even if it's as simple as a fresh mulching technique--are happier than those who fall into a same-old routine.

5. The Great Teen Sex Decline?, City Journal
What the numbers really say is that with the exception of using more emergency contraception—a.k.a. “the morning-after pill”—teens haven’t changed their sexual habits much since the agency’s last survey in 2002.

6. An Optimal Age To Marry? Age At Marriage And Divorce Risk In Europe And The US, Family Studies
The optimal time to start a lasting first union or marriage is around age 30. 

7. Generation X And Millennials Attitudes Toward Marriage & Divorce, BGSU National Center for Family and Marriage Research
Singles who have cohabited (45%) and cohabitors (49%) are most supportive of divorce.

For more, see here.

Thursday, July 23, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of July 19, 2015

1. Unmarried Women Now Drive America’s Fertility Trends, And They’re Having Fewer Kids, Wall Street Journal
If you look at the chart above, there’s a kind of tug of war going on between the “married” rate, up top, and the “unmarried” rate, down below. What’s new in recent years is that the unmarried rate now has the greater pull.

2. The College Majors That Are Most Likely To Marry Each Other, Washington Post
Interestingly, the data shows that marrying within your major is more common for people who are an extreme gender minority in their field of study. For example, both male nurses and female engineers are much more likely to find a spouse in their major.

3. In Love—and in Debt, The Atlantic
In one recent survey, 44 percent of Americans said personal finances were the toughest thing to talk about—ahead of religion, politics, and even death.

4. Modern Love Redux: Readers Offer Their Own Honest Thoughts On Marriage, New York Times
That’s probably the best advice I would give — when thinking about choosing a partner, be selfish. Does this person share your values, your likes and dislikes, your ideas on how to live life?

5-7 Goldilocks Theory of Marriage

5. The Goldilocks Theory of Marriage, Slate
Call it the Goldilocks theory of marriage: Getting married too early is risky, but so is getting married too late. Your late 20s and early 30s are just right.

6. People Who Get Married In Mid-30s Or Later At Higher Risk For Divorce, New Study Suggests, People
A new study from University of Utah psychologist Nicholas H. Wolfinger found that those who marry in their mid-30s (or. . . later) are more likely to divorce than people who marry in their late 20s.

7. Math Says This Is The Perfect Age To Get Married, TIME
Still, there are a few truisms backed by research: Having money and a college degree reduces your chances of getting divorced, as does getting engaged before moving in together and waiting to have kids until after the nuptials. Those you can pretty much take to the bank. 

For more from Dr. Wolfinger, see here.  


For more, see here.

Monday, July 13, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of July 5, 2015

1. Are Women More Likely Than Men To End A Relationship?, ESPN
A review of the literature on divorce that appeared in the journal American Law and Economics Review. . . found that 60 percent to 80 percent of divorces in the U.S. are filed by women.

2. Marriage Remains the Gold Standard, The New York Times
Marriage, by contrast, is marked by a public, dramatic expression of commitment that functions to make each spouse underline their commitment to one another, to foster needed support from friends and family on behalf of the relationship and to recognize their relationship in the eyes of the state.

3. Two Marines, One Deployment And The End Of A Marriage, National Public Radio
I used to have nightmares that someone would knock on the door with a flag. And that's all that I was gonna get back.

4. The Cost Of A Wedding: Colorado Couples Share Their Budgets And Planning Advice, Denver Post
According to The Knot, the average wedding in the U.S. cost $31,213 in 2014.

5. The Surprising Benefits Of Marrying Young, The Art of Manliness
A 2010 study found that couples who married between the ages of 22 and 25 were more likely to describe their marriage as “very happy” than couples who got married in other age brackets.

6. Intact Families, Continued: The Red-County Advantage, The New York Times
“The data suggest that marriage is more likely to ground and guide adult lives, including the entry into parenthood, in red America."

7. A Father’s Struggle to Stop His Daughter’s Adoption, The Atlantic
In the United States, when an unmarried man has a baby, his partner can give it up without his consent—unless he happens to know about an obscure system called the responsible father registry.

For more, see here.

Monday, June 29, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of June 21, 2015

1. Husbands And Wives: Who Works, Who Doesn't?, National Public Radio
By the turn of the century, the standard had reversed: In nearly two-thirds of. . . marriages, both people worked full time. But in the past 15 years, not much has changed.

2. Men, Women Differ On Morals of Sex, Relationships, Gallup 
Americans are finding more behaviors or social issues "morally acceptable" than they have in the past, but men and women still differ on several issues, notably those related to sex and relationships. 

3. More Than Money: How To Make A Marriage Work When She’s The Primary Breadwinner, The Washington Post
Although a growing share of married mothers earn the majority of income for their families—slightly less than one-quarter of married families with children, according to the American Community Survey, it’s clear that some men in homes with female breadwinners find this new reality hard.

4. Multiracial Marriages Are Dispersing Across The Country, Brookings
To be sure the greatest prevalence of multiracial marriages are in melting-pot states such as Hawaii, where three in 10 marriages are multiracial, as well as Alaska and Oklahoma, where the share is nearly two in 10.

5. The Institution of Marriage: Still Going Strong, National Journal
About two-thirds of younger participants felt that marriage was still relevant and led to a happier, healthier, more fulfilled life. But older participants were much more positive, with three of every four older participants saying that marriage still had an important place in society.

6. How Marriage Makes Men Better Fathers, Family Studies
Living apart from his first child, he continued, “was painful because a father’s love is so often expressed through providing and protecting. And it’s difficult to provide and protect without presence.”

7. 144 Years Of Marriage And Divorce In The United States, In One Chart, The Washington Post
A surge in Baby Boomers in the 1950s and 1960s greatly increased the population; since the Boomers were almost all too young to marry, the per capita marriage rate declined. Once the Boomers got old enough to tie the knot, marriage rates rose back to pre-WWII levels.

For more, see here.

Monday, June 15, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of June 7, 2015

1. Folkways And Family In America, New York Times
[B]oth “red” and “blue” America offer paths to family stability, with the latter depending more on delayed marriage and childbearing (and, again, somewhat higher abortion rates) and the former more on “deep normative and religious commitments to marriage.”

2. Red State Families: Better Than We Knew, Family Studies
Thus, one reason the bluest states and reddest states deliver more family stability to their adolescents is that they share relatively low levels of nonmarital childbearing.

3. 13 Surprisings Facts About Marriage Today, MSN
Several studies show that most couples wait, on average, just under three years from the time they started dating to get married. And the average engagement? 14 months.

4. Why Remarrying Isn’t What It Used To Be, TIME
In 1990, 50 out of every 1,000 previously-married men and women got married again. In 2013, it was 28, a 40% drop.

5. Marriage Isn't The Only Relationship That's In Trouble For 20-Somethings, Deseret News National
In short, millennials are shaping up not only to be the unmarried generation, but a generation of singles.

6. Regan: Marriage Is Going Out Of Style, And That Could Hurt, USA Today
In 2012, 45% of 18- to 30-year-olds lived with older family members, up from 39% in 1990 and 35% in 1980.

7. Multiracial in America, Pew Research Center
More than 40 years ago, only one of every 100 babies younger than 1 year old and living with two parents was multiracial. By 2013, it was one-in-ten.

For more, see here.

Monday, June 1, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of May 24, 2015

1. Sex Ed Works Better When It Addresses Power In Relationships, National Public Radio
Knowing how to communicate and negotiate with sexual partners, and knowing how to distinguish between healthy and abusive sexual relationships, are as important as knowing how to put on a condom, DiClemente says.

2. Families Are The Real Issue For Opportunity, Not Inequality, Brookings Institution
A much stronger--indeed one of the strongest--correlate of upward mobility is family structure.

3. Divorce Before vs. After Age 50, Bowling Green State University
59% of of individuals who divorce after age 50 are "Careerists." A divorce careerist is an individual who experienced divorce both prior to and following age 50.

4. The 25 Most Influential Marriages of All Time, TIME
Bill Masters and Virginia Johnson. . . Their groundbreaking numbers-heavy studies of sex made them the punch line of a million jokes, but ultimately contributed to the demystification of one of life’s most miraculous and complex subjects.

5. The Secret Of Happiness Revealed By Harvard Study, Forbes
The 75 year longitudinal Grant Study led by George Vaillant had two main findings: 1) Happiness is love. 2) If alcoholism is not the root of all evil, it is closely correlated with it.

6. What The “Mounting Evidence” On Working Moms Really Shows, Family Studies
[A]s the below figures illustrate, part-time work is the ideal for the majority of married mothers and a substantial minority of single mothers, though working full-time is the most common actual situation for both groups.

7. NY Times: Importance Of Mothers And Fathers An ‘Absurdity’, Breitbart
In its euphoria over the victory of gay marriage in Ireland, the New York Times editers abandoned all pretenses of objectivity and, in an apparently unguarded moment, declared biological motherhood and fatherhood to be absurd.

For more, see here.

Monday, May 18, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, May 10, 2015

1. The Bad News (Poverty) And Good News (Education) About Millennial Parent, The Wall Street Journal
Since 2009, the share of impoverished young people has been higher than at any other point in the past 25 years.

2. Fewer Educated Women Are Choosing To Skip Having Kids, PBS
However, childlessness among women between the ages of 40 and 44, regardless of education, is “at the lowest point in a decade,” the study says.

3. Census Bureau Decides To Keep Marriage Questions On Survey, Pew Research Center
Under pressure from academics and advocates, the U.S. Census Bureau has abandoned plans to delete a series of questions about marriage and divorce from its largest household survey.

4. Why Millennials Might Be Having Less Sex Than Their Parents, TIME
Even more shocking? The study says one in three 20-somethings have never had sex at all.

5. How Your Hometown Affects Your Chances of Marriage, New York Times
Spending childhood nearly anywhere in blue America — especially liberal bastions like New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston and Washington — makes people about 10 percentage points less likely to marry relative to the rest of the country.

6. Shared Finances Can Be A Thorny Issue If You’re Not Married, The Washington Post
[C]ouples acting under the influence of a romantic high can establish financial bonds before “they’ve developed a mutual and clear dedication to a future with each other,” Stanley said. “They are giving up options before making a choice.”

7. Improving Opportunity For Black Men: The Role Of Economics, Culture, And Policy [VIDEO], American Enterprise Institute
How can public policy and cultural attitudes help improve the prospects of black men, and what role do economic factors play?

For more, see here.

Monday, April 27, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of April 19, 2015

1. They Do: The Scholarly About-Face on Marriage, The Boston Globe
Recently, however, a wave of research from think tanks on the right and left, as well as scholars in social sciences like economics and sociology, has made a forceful new defense of the venerable institution.

2. Love at First Sight Is Real, If You Believe, Wall Street Journal
Romantic love’s intense desire for connection with the other person typically lasts 18 months to three years, experts say. Its evolutionary purpose is to help people pick one partner and bond in order to raise a child.

3. What I Learned About Love During My Years of Reporting on Weddings, The Washington Post
For 10 minutes each day, couples should “talk about something other than work, family, who does what around the house or your relationship.” . . . Anything that allows you to stop and connect and not just feel like business partners trying to make your way through a packed agenda.

4. Marriage Rates Keep Falling, as Money Concerns Rise, The New York Times
Though marriage was once a steppingstone to economic stability, young adults now see financial stability as a prerequisite for marriage. More than a quarter of those who say they want to marry someday say they haven’t yet because they are not financially prepared, according to Pew.

5. What Divorce Does to Women’s Heart Health, TIME
Women who divorced at least once were 24% more likely to experience a heart attack compared to women who remained married, and those divorcing two or more times saw their risk jump to 77%.

6. Sex, Race, Education and the Marriage Gap, Newsweek
There is a growing “marriage gap” in the United States. Marriage rates among the non-college-educated population have fallen sharply in the last few decades, and sharpest of all in the black population.

7. The Scientific Way Divorce Breaks Your Heart, Deseret News
"Marriage counseling is focused largely on younger couples. . . But these results show that marital quality is just as important at older ages, even when the couple has been married 40 to 50 years."

For more, see here.

Tuesday, April 14, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of April 5, 2015

1. Sex Education in Europe Turns to Urging More Births, New York Times
Christine Antorini, the Danish education minister, said in a statement that the government was now seeking “a stronger focus on a broad and positive approach to health and sexuality, where sexual health covers both joys and risks associated with sexual behavior.”

2. A Classic Prep For Parenthood, But Is The Egg All It's Cracked Up To Be?, National Public Radio
"It's just one of those assignments that really sticks with them. They remember how hard it is and the amount of care and responsibility involved."

3. The Sexually Conservative Millennial, The Atlantic
A majority of young people consider random sex morally wrong in some circumstances, and many of them consider it always wrong. So much for hookup culture.

4. More U.S. Women Are Going Childless, Wall Street Journal
Some Americans may now prefer life without children, though most still report in surveys that they want two kids. Others may be struggling to have children, or can’t afford expensive fertility treatments.

5. How to Avoid a Post-Wedding Letdown, New York Times
“If the couple’s primary focus is on the wedding day itself rather than the marriage, then a crash is inevitable,” Dr. Charnas said. “However, if the emotional investment can be shifted from the wedding to the marriage and the couple’s partnership, then the perspective changes and the wedding is cast in a new light.”

6. The 8 Most Common Reasons for Divorce, MSN
Seventy-three percent of couples said a lack of commitment was the main reason their marriage didn’t work. . . Thirty-five percent of men and 21 percent of women said they wished they, themselves, had worked harder in the marriage.

7. Don’t Be a Bachelor: Why Married Men Work Harder, Smarter and Make More Money, The Washington Post
Marriage has a transformative effect on adult behavior, emotional health, and financial well-being—particularly for men.  (Parenthood is more transformative for women.)

[Note: And if parenthood is notably transformative for women, we women should note that the optimal environment in which to raise our child, according to the research, is marriage. Marriage matters for us too.]

For more, see here

Monday, March 30, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of March 22, 2015

1. Minding the Nurture Gap, The Economist
The most important divide in America today is class, not race, and the place where it matters most is in the home. Conservatives have been banging on about family breakdown for decades. Now one of the nation’s most prominent liberal scholars has joined the chorus.

2. A Mission to Save Marriages, The Guardian
Nicky and Sila Lee help couples to stay together by running marriage courses. There's no counselling, no airing of dirty linen in public, no group therapy – and it seems to work.

3. For Richer or Poorer: The Challenges of Marrying Outside Your Class, The Washington Post
Though it shaped these couples’ lives, most people I spoke with swore they never thought about the class differences in their relationships, afraid that doing so made them, in the words of one source, “snotty.”

4. To Help Couples Get Married, Focus on Something Else, Family Studies
All of these examples suggest that change sometimes happens through indirection: in order to encourage a behavior, focus less on the desired behavior and more on the things that put a person on the path to that behavior.

5. Life Events That Can Lead to Divorce, ABC News
“If you stop prioritizing your marriage and allow it to play second fiddle to work, your partner will probably start to feel isolated and angry,” says Ochoa.

6. eHarmony Founder Talks Matchmaking in the Age of Tinder, The Wall Street Journal
I think under CEO Greg Waldorf, users started seeing us more like the other dating sites Match and Zoosk, when we’re really a social science site. We were never meant to be a dating site. We were meant to be a matchmaking site. 

7. Substance Abuse, Mental Illness, and Crime More Common in Disrupted Families, Family Studies
In the 2011-2012 National Survey of Children’s Health, 21 percent of children cared for by a divorced or separated mother had lived with someone—usually a parent or sibling—who “had a problem with alcohol or drugs.” This was five times higher than the rate for children cared for by married birth parents.

For more, see here.  

Monday, March 16, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of March 8, 2015

1. Daylight-Saving Time Is Bad for Your Relationships, Wall Street Journal
After a bad night’s sleep, studies show, we act more selfishly, become more volatile and impulsive and have a harder time dialing back our feelings.

2. Are LARCs the Solution to Nonmarital Childbearing?, Family Studies
In short, there is more to separating sex from children than preventing children—even when, like Sawhill, policy experts are seeking to prevent children as a humanitarian goal.

3. The State of Marriage in America Today, in 6 Charts and Maps, The Washington Post
The median age of first marriage today — 29 for men and 27 for women — is higher than it has been in more than a century.

4. A Report on the Instability and Economic Challenges of Black Families is Still Debated 50 Years Later, Deseret News
Wilcox said that Moynihan's agenda was quite progressive for its time and stressed not only bolstering family structure, but also strengthening employment opportunities for African-Americans, especially the men.

5. The Terrible Loneliness of Growing Up Poor in Robert Putnam’s America, The Washington Post
Putnam doesn’t dispute that we need to fix families to fix poverty. But he pairs that with the economic argument more often advanced on the left: that declining real wages and the disappearance of blue-collar jobs have undermined families. 

6. You Won't Believe How Much an Average Wedding in America Now Costs, Fortune
The price of weddings has jumped to a new all-time high, reaching an average $31,213 in 2014, new research says.

7. Getting Married Before Having Children ‘Boosts Chances of Staying Together’ – Study, The Telegraph
“The message of this research is clear. For any couple thinking of having children, their best chance of staying together in the long run is by getting married first.”  

For more, see here.  

Monday, March 2, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of February 22, 2015

1. Why Living Alone Is Dangerous to Your Health, Wall Street Journal 
Research shows that living life alone is as dangerous as smoking or obesity. And when it comes to the five most common cancers affecting men and women, being married provided a greater survival benefit than chemotherapy (the benefit was greater for men than women).

2. Knot Now: The Benefits of Marrying in Your Mid-to-Late 20s (Including More Sex!), The Washington Post
[I]f you’d like to maximize your marital happiness, your odds of having a couple of kids, and of forging common memories and family traditions, you might not want to delay marriage if the right person presents his or herself in your mid-to-late 20s.

3. How to Find Lifetime Love: 10 Secrets From Couples Married for Decades, Today
“Their view is that couples get into these grey periods after they’re married, where nothing interesting or exciting is going on and shaking it up with something adventurous is a good idea,” Pillemer said.

4. Young Adults Putting Off Marriage, Treating It As Capstone to Other Achievements, Deseret News
"What we found when we made them (assign values) was marriage was still the most important thing they anticipated being in their future," said Willoughby.

5. Family Income - Not Married Parents - More Apt to Impact Kids' Well-Being, NBC News
"Where we see the biggest changes in marriage rates and non-marital fertility isn't happening to everyone, it's mainly the disadvantaged."

6. Are All Divorces Necessary?, Family Studies
It is not a stretch to state that at least one of the partners in each of these couples would have said at the outset of our work together that they had irreconcilable differences. Yet two years after entering our project, 38 percent of couples were still married, most of them having successfully finished treatment.

7. Exploring The Metaphysics Of Love, National Public Radio
The first part says that romantic love can be characterized by its place in a social structure or framework. The second part says that biological states of human animals play out the roles currently defined by that social framework. 

For more, see here.  

Monday, February 16, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of February 8, 2015

1. Be There for a Friend’s Relationship Crisis, But Don’t Give Advice, Wall Street Journal
The most important skill for marital first responders is listening, Dr. Doherty says. . . Refrain from jumping to a conclusion, and remember: You are hearing just one side of the story.

2. How to Fight with Your Spouse Without Ruining Your Marriage, in 9 Steps, Washington Post
It’s never too late to apologize. By which I mean, when it’s obviously far too late for saying sorry to do any good at all, you still should.

3. To Fall in Love With Anyone, Do This, The New York Times
But despite all this, I’ve begun to think love is a more pliable thing than we make it out to be. Arthur Aron’s study taught me that it’s possible — simple, even — to generate trust and intimacy, the feelings love needs to thrive.

4. Taking Risks in Love, The New York Times
The second thing love requires is mindfulness — pure focus, and total engagement in the current activity. “While washing the dishes,” the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh teaches, “one should only be washing the dishes.”

5. Falling Marriage Rates Reveal Economic Fault Lines, The New York Times
In their analysis of census and Bureau of Labor Statistics data, they concluded that if married households today equaled the numbers seen in 1980, “the growth in median income of families with children would be 44 percent higher.”

6. Does Marriage Make You Happier?, Newsweek
Children born outside of marriage are roughly five times more likely to be poor compared to their peers in married-parent homes and are at risk for other negative outcomes.

7. How to Revive the American Dream In Blue-Collar America, Real Clear Markets
This same study finds that 37 percent of the decline in men's employment since the 1970s can be linked to declining marriage rates.

For more, see here

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, Week of January 25, 2015

1. Family Breakdown and Poverty, Education Next
Some 40 percent of children raised by single mothers are living in poverty, according to the Census Bureau, while roughly 8 percent of children raised by married parents are poor.

2. Forget ‘Gray Divorce’: Here’s How to Make Love Last, The Wall Street Journal
The romantic spark is important, but over the long term there has to be something more, and that is friendship. A core aspect of that is the ability to embrace your partner’s interests, even if you aren't initially particularly interested.

3. How Marriage Makes People Healthier, The Economist
The researchers conclude that over time, marriage seems to be adding its very own dose of good health to a relationship, something they dub the “protective effect”.

4. What Is the Divorce Rate, Anyway?, Sliding vs Deciding: The Blog of Scott Stanley
[Y]oung married adults are not divorcing at the same rate as their parents did at similar ages, so it is likely that the divorce rate will decline in the future, once the baby boomers (who were and continue to be highly divorce prone) leave the population.

5. How Many Families Would Be Left Out by Obama’s Tax Plan?, Family Studies
The problem with Obama’s plan is that it overlooks not only families who currently have a stay-at-home parent and would like to keep it that way but also the substantial share of dual-earner families who would like to have a parent at home but feel they cannot afford to do so.

6. Is It Finally Time to Put Marriage in the Dustbin?, National Fatherhood Initiative
What hasn't changed since we started collecting data on marriage rates is the ream of data on the impact on children when they grow up without their married parents that shows these children, regardless of socio-economic status, don't fare as well, on average, as children who grow up with their married parents

7. The Brangelina Effect: Are Cohabiting Parents Turning to Marriage?, The Telegraph
Gianna Lisiecki-Cunane, a Family lawyer with JMW Solicitors, said: “Just like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, there are many couples who are influenced by their children’s wishes and decide to marry not as a rejection of cohabitation but to provide security for their families.

For more, see here

Monday, January 19, 2015

The M.Guy Tweet, January 11, 2015

1. A Longtime Proponent Of Marriage Wants To Reassess The Institution’s Future, The Washington Post
“It’s striking. She’s pro-marriage,” said Andrew Cherlin, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University who writes about the marriage gap, most recently in the book “Labor’s Love Lost.” “So this is like a general who’s lost several battles saying, ‘I’m not sure it’s worth continuing the war.’”

2. Should We Stop Tracking The Divorce Rate?, Las Vegas Review-Journal
“It’s not often you see in Washington academic researchers — many of who are perhaps liberal — along with socially conservative groups that use marriage data for an advocacy agenda team up,” said Cohn.

3. Hundreds Of Retirees Share Secrets To A Happy Marriage, USA Today
And they said when you "look back from the finish line over a half century or more of marriage, lifelong marriage is incredibly good. It's almost indescribable. It's such a source of joy," he says.

4. Letter From the Editor: Marriage, And When Liberals Are Wrong, The New York Times
We should also be willing to say when we think liberals don’t have a claim on the evidence — such as when they argue that education is overrated (but still send their own children to expensive colleges) or when they argue that marriage isn’t very important.

5. Breaking Up Is Hard To Do, But Science Can Help, National Public Radio
In fact, one small study found that under an MRI scanner, the brains of the heartsick can resemble the brains of those experiencing cocaine withdrawal. 

6. Married People Aren’t Just Richer And Better-educated. They’re Also Having More Babies, The Washington Post
At the same time, non-marital births to mothers in "cohabiting unions" with a partner have been increasing over the past decade, up from 41 percent in 2002 to 58 percent.

7. Why Stick With Marriage?, The National Review Online
Tell moderately educated young men and women the truth that college-educated people know and live by: It is better for you and your children to wait until you are married before you conceive a child.

For more, see here.