The problem of adolescent bullying has attracted a great deal of attention in the media and in public-policy forums in recent years. Curiously, journalists and policymakers rarely acknowledge one of the root causes of that bullying—namely, America’s increasing reliance on the day-care center as a replacement for the at-home mother. But the role of the […]
Read MorePublic-health officials tirelessly encourage pregnant women to safeguard the future health of their child by receiving prenatal care. A new British study, however, indicates that one of the most important types of prenatal care may come not in a medical clinic but rather in a wedding chapel. This study clearly shows that pregnancy is far […]
Read MoreAs national healthcare costs spiral out of control, few questions press themselves more insistently than those predicting long-term health. Investigating precisely such questions, a team of researchers at the University of California-Berkeley and the University of California-San Francisco recently completed a study designed to determine what childhood circumstances put individuals on a trajectory of healthy […]
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Almost two decades ago, the flagship journal Social Forces published a landmark 1994 study analyzing the well-being of children living in different kinds of family structure. Now Elizabeth Thomson and Sara McLanahan, two of the authors of that original study, have published a retrospective commentary highlighting “the article’s popularity as a referent point for subsequent research” and underscoring the degree to which “subsequent research [has] confirmed many of [their] findings.”
Read MoreFew public-health issues have received more attention in recent years than that of childhood obesity. And because of the way childhood obesity predicts adult diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems, this attention is well warranted. However, a closer look at the matter reveals that the commentators bewailing the upsurge in childhood obesity have been […]
Read MoreIn recent decades, social scientists have accrued considerable evidence indicating that out-of-control preschoolers often mature into disturbed and disruptive adults. And now a new study has established that the toddlers headed for a lifetime of distress disproportionately come from single-parent households. Conducted by researchers at the University of Glasgow and national public-health agencies, this new […]
Read MoreIn this age of increased egalitarianism in work and domestic roles, many researchers have sought to discover how changing roles influence one component of the glue that binds married couples together—sex. Much media attention has been given to a handful of studies that demonstrate that husbands who do more housework get more sex, as their […]
Read MoreAnxious about the long-term effects of depressed fertility, demographers are pondering unexpected questions these days. One of these questions—might divorce actually foster fertility?—recently received attention from a team of demographers from Sweden, Canada, and Austria, countries that all share the dubious characteristic of sub-replacement fertility, with Austria reporting the lowest fertility. Acutely aware that “during […]
Read MoreThe epidemic of mental illness in recent decades has psychiatrists looking for causes. One of those causes of psychopathology—namely, marital failure—stands out clearly in a study recently completed by an international team of researchers. Affiliated with Kern Medical Center and California State University at Bakersfield in the United States and Chonbuk National University Medical School […]
Read MoreWith good reason, public-health officials worry about teen drinking. Those officials should attend to a new study probing alcohol use among adolescents and identifying as its causes disrespect for parents and absence of parents (caused by family disintegration). Conducted by researchers at the RAND Corporation, this new study draws on data collected in 2008 and […]
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