CFK Reports From: Dads and Husbands: Promoting Child Well-Being through Father Involvement and Marriage Programs
Event: Panel
Organized By: Chapin Hall Center for Children and the Urban Institute
Where/When: Urban Institute, Washington DC., May 11, 2006

By: Susan Phillips

This panel, one of the "Thursday’s Child" series organized by Chapin Hall and the Urban Institute, looked at issues surrounding two approaches to improving children’s lives by strengthening families: the fatherhood initiatives aimed at increasing the involvement of low-income fathers in the lives of their children, even outside of marriage, and the more recent policy initiatives aimed at encouraging marriage as a way to increase the stability and resources available to children.

Moderator Patrice Pascual, interim director of the Casey Journalism Center on Children and Families, noted that the percentage of children being raised in two-parent families has declined sharply since the late 1970s, and that recent research indicates that marriage increases children’s well-being even when other factors are taken into account, such as income and education.

However, researchers have yet to determine what kinds of programs and policies are effective in increasing the rates of marriage among low-income populations, and whether fears that marriage promotion policies will lead to more abusive or unstable marriages are well-founded.

Waldo Johnson, an associate professor the University of Chicago who does research on male involvement in adolescent pregnancy and the role of non-resident fathers in what are termed "fragile families" (meaning families challenged by poverty, unemployment, difficult living situations, ill-health, etc.), said there is still no clear answer to the central question of whether marriage in and of itself "is the most important proxy for determining child well-being." He noted that research into low-income unmarried parents who are living together is lacking. And Johnson pointed out that for men "outside the labor market," joblessness is a major barrier to any consideration of marriage. "If marriage promotion for this population is to be successful…improving the human capital of both men and women needs to be part of it," said Johnson.

The Urban Institute’s Gregory Acs, a senior research associate in the Income and Benefits Policy Center, noted that the policy debate often sets up a "false choice" between programs aimed at strengthening fatherhood and programs aimed at promoting marriage.

While Acs said he believed the benefits to children of growing up with two married parents are real, he also noted that for children who are being raised by single parents, marriage, like any major change in living conditions, can have a negative effect, at least in the near term. "What may work best is…encouraging people to marry before they have children. Marriage is not going to work for everyone."

Diann Dawson with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said that the Bush administration’s Healthy Marriage Initiative is often misunderstood. "The Healthy Marriage Initiative is about helping couples who have chosen marriage to gain greater access to services that will increase their chances of success," said Dawson. It also includes funding for high school programs to educate teens about healthy relationships and communication between couples; and it aims to reduce the financial disincentives to marriage in the awarding of means-tested aid, such as food stamps, child-care subsidies, or eligibility for the Earned Income Tax Credit. "We’re not promoting marriage for the sake of marriage," said Dawson.

Matt Weidinger, majority staff director of the U.S. House Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on Human Resources, said that the lengthy Congressional battle over reauthorizing TANF resulted in legislation that is tightly focused on the goal of "promoting a broader culture of marriage." He noted that Congress eliminated proposed funding that would have gone to states to create their own marriage initiatives, because experience during the intervening years showed that most states were not very interested in pursuing such programs. Instead, the TANF reauthorization legislation will award grants "to groups that are really interested in doing this work."

Chapin Hall and the Urban Institute are co-sponsoring these monthly panel discussions under the title "Thursday’s Child."

A complete audio recording of this forum is now available from Chapin Hall