Progressives endlessly lament the way a growing gap in economic well-being divides Americans. Curiously, these progressives say remarkably little about the changes in family life that are fast making that gap permanent. However, in a recently published analysis, scholars at Washington University and the University of California Santa Barbara identify family change as a prime […]
Read MoreBack in the sixties and seventies, enlightened social commentators dismissed as Chicken-Little fear-mongers those who expressed concerns about the growing number of couples living in cohabiting unions outside of wedlock. Cohabitation, they assured the nation, would actually serve a beneficial social function as a kind of “trial marriage,” ensuring that those who went on to […]
Read MorePublic-health officials well understand that young children and adolescents are much more likely to eat healthy, well-balanced meals if they eat them with their family than if they eat them on their own or with peers. But how does family structure affect the likelihood that young people will in fact eat meals with their family? […]
Read MoreIn the mid-twentieth century, Swinging Sweden commanded the global spotlight as a leader in sexual daring. But in the second decade of the twenty-first century, researchers are finding evidence that the young Swedes now responding to the Sexual Revolution with a firm No (Nej in Swedish) enjoy decided advantages over those who say Yes. Assessing […]
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The Conjugal Family: An Irreplaceable Resource for Society Pierpaolo Donati and Paul Sullins, editors Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2015; 249 pages, $18.00 What seemed more certain in the sixties than that the future belonged to the utopian visionaries agitating for the creation in America of a marvelous new kind of society, a society of free sex, […]
Read MoreProgressive commentators view the movement of mothers out of the home into paid employment as a very positive development. Consequently, these commentators have to avert their eyes when researchers uncover evidence that such a movement has hurt young people. Swelling the flow of evidence is a new study concluding that children whose mothers are employed […]
Read MoreEducators and public officials know all too well that when young people turn aggressive—in their attitudes or in their physical behavior—it causes trouble, for others and for themselves. But what social circumstances incubate such aggressiveness in children? A new study out of the University of Texas at Dallas suggests that parents foster social aggression in […]
Read MoreSociologists have known for some time that children of divorced parents fall short in their educational attainments, when compared to peers from intact families. A prime reason for this deficiency comes to light in a study recently completed at the University of Oslo in Norway: children who lose a parent (usually their father) through divorce […]
Read MoreIn recent decades, demographers have tracked a remarkable upturn in the fraction of Americans living alone, an upturn largely attributable to a tumbling marriage rate and a stubbornly high divorce rate. Some progressive commentators have actually celebrated this development as a manifestation of the triumph of American individualism. But a study recently published in the […]
Read MoreChildren may suffer from neglect in any type of home; they may develop debilitating psychological or behavioral problems in any type of home. However, in a large national study recently completed at the University of Manitoba, researchers concluded that the Canadian children who suffer from neglect disproportionately come from single-parent homes, typically homes without fathers. […]
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