Press Releases

AUSTIN, TX – May 23, 2024  It might not seem surprising that women provide more unpaid care to family and friends with illness and disability than men. However, is this only true for heterosexual women partnered with men? Are there differences in unpaid caregiving between men and women who identify as sexual minorities? In the context… Read more: NEW FROM CCF! Men Provide Less Unpaid Care for Family and Friends Than Women, But Only Among Heterosexuals

AUSTIN, TX – MAY 31, 2023  Major health and medical organizations universally recommend six months or more of exclusive breastfeeding to promote children’s development. But meeting this ideal is tough for many mothers. Breastfeeding is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and requires a lot of support from partners and others. Thus, it is not surprising that only 25% of… Read more: New From CCF! Breastfeeding Benefits Are Modest, And Reach Some Children More Than Others

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AUSTIN, TX – May 11, 2023  Here’s a great tip for dads who want to give their partners a Mother’s Day gift that will last all year long.  Skip the flowers and commit to sharing more of the invisible mental and emotional work of anticipating the family’s needs over the next year and planning how… Read more: New From CCF! It’s Not a Zero-Sum Game: Handling the Mental Load of Monitoring Household Needs Increases Stress and Depression for Mothers; Sharing That Load Decreases Fathers’ Stress and Depression

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Daniel L. Carlson / University of Utah / daniel.carlson@fcs.utah.edu AUSTIN, TX – April 20, 2023 A briefing paper released today from the Council on Contemporary Families, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic about Health Concerns and US Mothers’ Employment”, summarizes new research on how mothers’ concerns about… Read more: NEW FROM CCF! Mothers’ Concerns About COVID-19 and Other Illnesses Keep Them Out of the Workplace

Family formation has long been touted as a source of racial inequality, but what does the research actually say?

AUSTIN, TX – April 25, 2022 In a new briefing paper released today from the Council on Contemporary Families, “Mine and Yours, or Ours: Are All Egalitarian Relationships Equal?”, family and consumer studies professor Daniel Carlson (University of Utah) summarizes his forthcoming research on how the household division of labor in mixed-sex couples affects marital… Read more: NEW FROM CCF! Are Couples Happier Sharing Household Chores? It Depends on How You Define “Sharing”

The CCF Scholars Early Career Program offers a unique professional development and mentorship opportunity to early-career scholars conducting research on American families. Applications due April 8, 2022.

For Immediate Release CONTACT: Arielle Kuperberg / UNC Greensboro / atkuperb@uncg.edu March 24, 2021, Austin Texas In the past 30 years, the percentage of students at 4-year colleges who take out loans to finance their education has grown from less than half to a full two-thirds, and their average debt load – in constant dollars… Read more: New from CCF! What Recent College Grads Say About the Impact of their Student Loans

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Kristi Williams / The Ohio State University / ccf@osu.edu Do the Media’s “Sexy Girl” Messages Trump Their “Girl Power” Ones? On average, children in elementary school watch four and a half hours of television a day: At that rate they see almost 80,000 examples of “sexy girl” role models, in children’s… Read more: New from CCF! Do the Media’s “Sexy Girl” Messages Trump Their “Girl Power” Ones?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State Sociology vrutter@gmail.com What’s the Role of Child Protective Services? New Study Points to Parallels with Policing Each year, U.S. child protection authorities, tasked with responding to child abuse and neglect, investigate the families of over three million children, disproportionately poor, Black, and Native American children. A… Read more: New From CCF! What’s the Role of Child Protective Services? New Study Points to Parallels with Policing

Telecommuting Gets Mixed Results for Gender Equity at Home, and Women Are More Depressed.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State Sociology vrutter@gmail.com Men pick up (some) of the slack at home: New national survey on the pandemic at home For many couples, family work at home has increased, but for most of those couples, even when women are still doing more than their partners, women’s relative share… Read more: New from CCF! Men pick up (some) of the slack at home: New national survey on the pandemic at home

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State Sociology vrutter@gmail.com Cohabiting in the Time of Covid19: The good, the bad, and the need for support Eighteen million people in the U.S. are cohabiting, and half are under age 35. Cohabiting couples are more egalitarian; but they are younger, poorer, and more vulnerable at work… Read more: New From CCF! Cohabiting in the Time of Covid19: The good, the bad, and the need for support

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State Sociology vrutter@gmail.com Uber-rich parents and their fixers may be just the tip of the iceberg. Turns out it’s hard for teachers to resist pushy parents. Most Americans applaud the prison sentences given college admissions scandal parents like actor Felicity Huffman and “fixers” like tennis coach Michael… Read more: New From CCF! When “Helicopters” Go to School: Who Gets Rescued and Who Gets Left Behind?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASECONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Sociology @ Framingham State Universityvrutter@gmail.com How Can Colleges Define Consent and Reduce Unwanted Sex? No easy answers here. CCF’s Online Symposium, Defining Consent, takes an unflinching look at the thorny question, what should count as consent to sexual activity – and what should not? In the process, scholars document… Read more: CCF PRESS ADVISORY: How Can Colleges Define Consent and Reduce Unwanted Sex? No easy answers here.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Barbara J. Risman / Sociology @ University of Illinois at Chicago brisman@uic.edu *Press advisory prepared for CCF by Barbara J. Risman, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences Distinguished Professor, University of Illinois at Chicago. The CCF Symposium, Parents Can’t Go It Alone, introduces you to important new work about what parents… Read more: CCF PRESS ADVISORY: Parents Can’t Go It Alone—They Never Have: What to Do for Parents to Help Our Next Generation

   Council on Contemporary Families 2020 Media Awards for Outstanding Coverage of Family Issues The Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) announces the opening of nominations for its Fourteenth Annual Media Awards competition. We honor outstanding journalism that contributes to the public understanding of contemporary family issues, in particular the story behind the story: how diverse families are coping with… Read more: Council on Contemporary Families Announces Media Awards for Outstanding Coverage of Family Issues

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Sociology @ Framingham State University vrutter@gmail.com Sociologist Jill Yavorsky conducted a field audit on gender discrimination in hiring and shares this early exclusive summary and commentary with CCF. Her brief report, Hiring-related Discrimination: Sexist Beliefs and Expectations Hurt both Women’s and Men’s Career Options, shows that men as… Read more: New from CCF: Even Gender Inequality is Unequal

CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Sociology @ Framingham State University vrutter@gmail.com Who Cohabits? Evidence about wealth and religion tells a changing story Sociologist Arielle Kuperberg conducted new data analysis exclusively for this CCF briefing report that shows how cohabitation has changed from 1956 to the present. This new brief also includes findings from her forthcoming journal… Read more: CCF Press Advisory: Who Cohabits? Evidence about wealth and religion tells a changing story

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Sociology @ Framingham State University vrutter@gmail.com Gender Matters in Every Aspect of Our Lives – and what you need to know to keep up CCF’s Online Symposium, Gender Matters, introduces you to some important new work featured in the newly published Handbook of the Sociology of Gender, in… Read more: CCF Press Advisory: Gender Matters in Every Aspect of Our Lives – and what you need to know to keep up

CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com   CCF Press Advisory In Time to Join #MeToo, Research Highlights Men’s Growing Support for Gender Equality   April 3, 2018, Austin, TX:  Two new studies, presented today to the Council on Contemporary Families, reveal that despite the serious obstacles still standing in the way of… Read more: CCF PRESS ADVISORY: In Time to Join #MeToo, Research Highlights Men’s Growing Support for Gender Equality

CCF releases the 7th Edition of Unconventional Wisdom, highlighting new and under-reported research on creating and conceiving families in the 21st Century.   AUSTIN, TX/March 1, 2018 — In preparation for the Council on Contemporary Families’ March 2 Annual Conference, Conceiving Families in the 21st Century, the Council asked speakers and CCF Senior Scholars to… Read more: The Council on Contemporary Families releases Unconventional Wisdom, Volume 7

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – February 14, 2018 CONTACT: Christie Boxer, cboxer@adrian.edu Council on Contemporary Families Honors Nina Martin (ProPublica) for Outstanding Media Coverage of Family Issues (2018) Austin, TX–The Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) is pleased to present its Thirteenth Annual Media Awards at 5:30 pm on Friday, March 2nd at the DoubleTree Hotel, Austin, TX,… Read more: CCF Press Advisory: CCF Announces Nina Martin (ProPublica) as 2018 Award Recipient for Outstanding Media Coverage of Family Issues

Have you read an outstanding news story that covers family-related topics in a particularly insightful way? Have you circulated thought-provoking articles in your Family, Gender, or other social science courses, or referred them to your clients? If so, let us know about them by nominating these pieces for a CCF Media Award! We are currently… Read more: 2018 Media Awards: CCF Now Accepting Nominations

CCF PRESS ADVISORY: Reminder – Marriage is No Longer the Mode   September 14, 2017, Austin, TX: The week of September 17-23 is Unmarried and Single Americans Week. In honor of the 110 million unmarried adults in America today — 45.2 percent of all U.S. residents over 18—the Council on Contemporary Families releases this new… Read more: CCF ADVISORY: Reminder – Marriage is No Longer the Mode

ADVISORY: Women’s Equality Day Turns 44. Gains, stalls, and setbacks   August 25, 2017, Austin, TX: Since 1973, August 26th has been designated as Women’s Equality Day, offering a chance to assess the current status of gender equity. In a fact sheet compiled for the Council on Contemporary Families, Nika Fate-Dixon and Stephanie Coontz (The… Read more: CCF ADVISORY: On August 26, 2017, Women’s Equality Day Turns 44

       Council on Contemporary Families 2018 Media Awards for Outstanding Coverage of Family Issues The Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) announces the opening of nominations for its Thirteenth Annual Media Awards competition. We honor outstanding journalism that contributes to the public understanding of contemporary family issues, in particular the story behind the story: how diverse families are coping with… Read more: Council on Contemporary Families Announces Media Awards for Outstanding Coverage of Family Issues

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology / vrutter@gmail.com Gender, Politics, and Millennials? Research to sort out a hot mess. CCF’s Gender and Millennials Online Symposium presents new research on how Millennial men and women are changing—and how they are not changing. Countering the recent trend of ignoring inconvenient facts, this… Read more: CCF Press Advisory: Gender and Millennials Online Symposium

AUSTIN, Texas — Black Americans are more likely than whites to experience the loss of a parent during childhood and to be exposed to multiple close family member deaths by mid-life, according to a study at the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin. These losses are likely to be damaging to… Read more: CCF ADVISORY: Debra Umberson reports on African-Americans’ much greater exposure to the early death of close family members

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 Sharing is Sexy: The research is in on gender and sexual satisfaction for today’s marrieds, and shared tasks rather than different ones deepen desire AUSTIN TX, June 20, 2016–Remember that 2014 New York Times Magazine cover story on the… Read more: CCF ADVISORY: Research is in on sexual satisfaction for today’s marrieds

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 Parents’ Happiness Deficit: Must Parents Sacrifice Happiness for Meaning?  AUSTIN TX, June 16, 2016—Over the past decade, numerous studies have found that parents, especially in the United States, report lower levels of happiness than nonparents, despite the fact that… Read more: CCF ADVISORY: Parents’ Happiness Deficit: Must Parents Sacrifice Happiness for Meaning?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139   The Way We Still Never Were: Which “family values” have changed or stayed the same since the tumultuous 1992 presidential campaign?  AUSTIN TX, MARCH 30, 2016: In 1992—the year the presidential campaign erupted into a culture war over… Read more: The Way We Still Never Were: Which “family values” have changed or stayed the same since the tumultuous 1992 presidential campaign?

  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 Census Documents Women’s Low Wages: How Much Does America Really Value Care Work? AUSTIN TX, MARCH 15, 2016: By now everyone knows that women are paid less than men. But the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau reveal… Read more: New from CCF: How Much Does America Really Value Care Work?

For Immediate Release Contact: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 Does “Netflix and Chill” Ruin Your Chances for True Love? Scholars have an answer. AUSTIN, TX, FEBRUARY 11, 2016: Yes, Valentine’s Day. It is 2016, time to put away some of the panic about hooking up and men’s-or women’s-advantage… Read more: New from CCF: The Valentine’s Day News that Is Good for Everybody

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – Feb. 4, 2016 CONTACT: Christie Boxer, cboxer@adrian.edu   Council on Contemporary Families Honors Dan Carsen (WBHM & Southern Education Desk) and Ashley Cleek (Al Jazeera America) for Outstanding Coverage of Family Issues (2016) Austin, TX–The Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) is pleased to present its Twelfth Annual Media Awards at 4:15pm… Read more: CCF Press Advisory: CCF Announces Dan Carsen (WBHM & Southern Education Desk) and Ashley Cleek (Al Jazeera America) as 2016 Award Recipients for Outstanding Coverage of Family Issues

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Christie Boxer/Awards Chair cboxer@adrian.edu   Council on Contemporary Families 2015 Media Awards for Outstanding Coverage of Family Issues * Nominations are open! AUSTIN, TEXAS, NOVEMBER 12–The Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) announces the opening of nominations for its Twelfth Annual Media Awards competition. We honor outstanding journalism that contributes to the public understanding… Read more: 2015 Media Awards: CCF Now Accepting Nominations

For Immediate Release Contact: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 New from CCF: November is National Entrepreneurship Month What Promotes Women’s Business Innovation and Growth? November 5, 2015, Austin, TX— Americans have always valued the free enterprise system for encouraging innovative start-ups. Silicon Valley is an example of how… Read more: New from CCF: November is National Entrepreneurship Month

For Immediate Release Contact: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 CCF PRESS ADVISORY: Attention Cohabitors: Having a baby before you marry no longer raises your risk of divorce September 16, Austin, TX— Today the majority of weddings take place between couples who already live together. And recent research shows… Read more: CCF Press Advisory: Attention Cohabitors: Having a baby before you marry no longer raises your risk of divorce.

  For Immediate Release Contact: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 CCF PRESS ADVISORY: It Got Better! Data show gender revolution’s benefits to families August 25, 2015 / Austin, TX: A briefing report by University of Maryland demographer Frances Goldscheider, prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families, summarizes new… Read more: CCF PRESS ADVISORY: It Got Better! Data show gender revolution’s benefits to families

For Immediate Release Contact: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 CCF PRESS ADVISORY: In online dating, (some) multiracial daters fare especially well AUSTIN, TX, July 1: How do multiracial daters fare in a mainstream online dating website? A new study presented today to the Council on Contemporary Families by… Read more: In online dating, (some) multiracial daters fare especially well

For Immediate Release Contact: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 Remarriage is–and is not–what it used to be: new report outlines diverse trends AUSTIN, TX, June 2: It is early June: Wedding season is here again, and for many couples that is literally true, states sociologist Wendy Manning in… Read more: Remarriage is–and is not–what it used to be: new report outlines diverse trends

For Immediate Release Contact: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 CCF PRESS ADVISORY: Mother’s Day Social Science—Housework, Gender & Parenting May 7, Miami FL—For Mother’s Day this year, the Council on Contemporary Families convened an online symposium to examine the status of that age-old saying, “a woman’s work is… Read more: CCF PRESS ADVISORY: Mother’s Day Social Science—Housework, Gender & Parenting

For Immediate Release Contact: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 CCF PRESS ADVISORY: Sexual Assault Rates—On Campus and Off April 20, Miami FL–April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month: In a good news/bad news scenario, this year we have seen a marked increase in attention to rape and sexual assault,… Read more: News from CCF: Sexual Assault Rates—On Campus and Off

For Immediate Release Contact: Virginia Rutter / Framingham State University Sociology vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 CCF PRESS ADVISORY: April 12-18, 2015 is the Week of the Young Child. This year’s theme is Celebrating Our Youngest Learners. A new report from CCF highlights just how fragmented our child-care and early education system is and points… Read more: News From CCF: America’s Fragmented Child Care and Early Education System

CCF PRESS ADVISORY: On 50th Anniversary of The Moynihan Report, Family Structure is *Still* Not the Problem. Economic and social changes since the 1965 dispute idea that family change has caused poverty and inequality or that getting people married would solve it.

For Immediate Release Contact: Virginia Rutter vrutter@gmail.com / 206 375 4139 CCF UPDATE: American family life continues to diversify. But children in two-parent and single-parent families alike face new economic and educational challenges. February 26, MIAMI, FL– Rates of teenage childbearing – in or out of wedlock — have fallen sharply since the early 1990s,… Read more: News From CCF: An Analysis of New Census Data on Family Structure, Education, and Income

For Immediate Release Contact: Stephanie Coontz Coontzs@msn.com; 360-352-8117; cell 360-556-9223 PRESS ADVISORY Recent Census Data Shows Majority of American Parents Doing Well on Key Parenting Indicators, Despite Some Differences by Family Type, Reports Council on Contemporary Families. But America has higher proportions of poor and low-income children than other developed nations, and poverty explains more… Read more: News From CCF: Child-Rearing Norms and Practices in Contemporary American Families

October 12 marks the 4th anniversary the United States becoming a “no-fault nation.” On that date in 2010, New York, the last holdout, finally joined the 49 other states in eliminating the need for divorcing couples to state that the dissolution of their marriage was the “fault” of one or the other. Today, every state offers the possibility of a no-fault divorce. Three years later, the co-chair of The Coalition for Divorce Reform claims that “no-fault divorce has been a disaster,” leading to record numbers of divorces and plummeting rates of marriage. Figuring out divorce and marriage trends is further complicated by the recent foreclosure crisis and the ensuing deep recession. The Council on Contemporary Families asked five researchers to explore recent trends in divorce and marriage for the CCF Symposium on New Inequalities.

A new report prepared for CCF by University of Maryland’s Philip Cohen uses a novel analysis of children’s family arrangements from the 1880s to the present to show that family diversity—no majority family form and no typical mom—is the norm for kids today.

The Council on Contemporary Families releases The Gender Revolution Rebound Symposium as public support for working mothers and dual-earner families is on the rise; new research suggests that in marriages formed since the early 1990s, men and women are much more happy with non-traditional arrangements than in the past.

For more than 20 years, researchers have reported that premarital cohabitation is associated with an elevated risk of divorce. Yet these findings have failed to deter young people from “shacking up.” Senior CCF Scholar Arielle Kuperberg’s research finds that previous studies have over-stated the divorce risk from premarital cohabitation by ignoring how old the individuals are when they move in together.

On February 10, 1964, the House of Representatives passed the Civil Rights Act, which made it illegal to discriminate against individuals on the basis of race, national origin, religion, or gender, and sent the bill on to the Senate. On it’s 50th anniversary, CCF asked a dozen researchers to discuss what has changed in the past half century for each of the populations affected by the law – religious groups, racial and ethnic minorities, and women. On, February 4, the Council released an update on the changing religious landscape of America. On February 5, researchers described the rearrangements of racial and ethnic relations since 1964. And on Thursday, February 6, we reported on the progress of women since passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Is there more going on in the hookup scene than meets (men’s) eyes? The college hookup scene is typically understood as a male-dominated environment—where men are mainly in charge of sexual initiation, parties are often centered around fraternity houses, treating women as sex objects is common, and women engage in sexual displays, including kissing each other, in order to arouse male interest. Yet, in the forthcoming April 2014 issue of Gender & Society, a team of researchers observes that for some women the super-straight environment of college hookups is also a setting “to explore and to later verify bisexual, lesbian, or queer sexual identities.” Turns out public kissing and threesomes play an important role—and that not all of that sex play is about performing for men’s pleasure.

Has “hooking up” become the defining feature of college life? Does everyone do it? Does everyone want to? Most research on hooking up has examined college students who live on campus, or nearby, and hook up after alcohol-fueled parties. For example, the Online College Social Life Survey (OCSLS) of 21 colleges and universities shows that more than 70 percent of students, overall, hook up at some point in their college career. Even so, new research from the University of Illinois at Chicago, a diverse urban, public university with more commuters than on-campus residents, suggests that college sex is something quite different for the typical commuting student.

Why are divorce rates higher in religiously conservative “red” states and lower in less religiously conservative “blue” states? After all, most conservatives frown upon divorce, and religious commitment is believed to strengthen marriage, not erode it. Even so, religiously conservative states Alabama and Arkansas have the second and third highest divorce rates in the U.S., at 13 per 1000 people per year while New Jersey and Massachusetts, more liberal states, are two of the lowest at 6 and 7 per 1000 people per year.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s declaration of an “unconditional war on poverty.” Yet this month also marks over a quarter century since President Ronald Reagan’s 1988 announcement that the war on poverty was over, and that poverty had won. To mark the anniversaries of these very different points in the government’s role in poverty reduction, two researchers from the Council on Contemporary Families assess where we have come from and where we stand today.

A new briefing report for the Council on Contemporary Families documents how the way you look affects your life prospects.

Recent headlines such as “Men, Who Needs Them?” and “Why Fathers Really Matter” showcase a growing debate about the importance of including men in discussions of gender inequality. Two new studies from Gender & Society turn attention to areas in which men have long been ignored: at home, in the study of conception, pregnancy and childbirth, and at work, in the caregiving professions—particularly nursing. New research demonstrates under what conditions men’s contributions are slowly becoming more visible and what the benefits of that are (and can be).

Fifty years ago this week, on June 10, 1963, President John F. Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act, amending the earlier Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, to “prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers.” So, how’s that going?

Researchers have long known that people make assumptions about people’s race based on social status cues, but a new study from Gender & Society demonstrates that observers take into account a wide range of factors in determining the race of people they see, including what they know about someone’s income, home address or marital status.

All those advice books that tell you what to expect when you get married or divorced, lose a spouse, or experience a trauma may be leading you seriously astray. That is the clear implication of a new report to the Council on Contemporary Families. Report author and Pace University psychology professor Anthony Mancini and his colleagues have been studying many of the topics on which experts often dole out generic advice–from marriage and divorce to death of a loved one and military PTSD. They keep finding the same thing: “Our research confirms—in study after study—that people respond in surprisingly diverse ways to a wide variety of life events and acute stressors.” The research, discussed in Mancini’s report, “The Trouble with Averages: The Impact of Major Life Events and Acute Stress May Not Be What You Think,” suggests that there is no one “normal” response to getting married or divorced, losing a spouse to death, or experiencing military deployment. The report was released today from the University of Miami-based Council on Contemporary Families.

In this report to the Council on Contemporary Families for Older Americans Month, New York University researchers Eric Klinenberg, Stacy Torres, and Elena Portocolone report on the unprecedented movement of the elderly toward solo living.

MEDIA CONTACT: Virginia Rutter Framingham State University Sociology Phone: 206 375 4139 Email: vrutter@gmail.com Back in the 1800s, the U.S. labor movement aimed at reducing impossibly long working hours—and succeeded with the Adamson Act in 1916, which gave us the 40-hour work week. A century later, that’s all changed. Research released this month in the journal… Read more: Leaning In Is Not the Same for Everyone: New Study on Women in “Men’s Jobs” Provides Discouraging Answers About the Impact of Overwork

When did the gender gap begin? According to this CCF briefing report, some of the gender gap in schooling is new and some is not. For about 100 years, the authors explain, girls have been making better grades than boys. But only since the 1970s have women been catching up to—and surpassing—men in terms of graduation rates from college and graduate school.

Women now earn 58 percent of all undergraduate degrees. Not only do they enter college at higher rates than men, they are less likely to drop out once they enter. According to conventional wisdom, this is because men are less studious and committed to school than women. However, a new study, “Gender, Debt, and Dropping Out of College,” released this month in the journal Gender & Society, suggests quite a different reason for men’s dropout rates.

On the 50th Anniversary of The Feminine Mystique, Council on Contemporary Families Scholars identify what’s changed—and what hasn’t.

By Thomas J. Linneman Associate Professor of Sociology The College of William and Mary tjlinn@wm.edu; 804-822-2282. He didn’t provide an answer in question format, but The College of William & Mary’s Thomas Linneman told us how women and men both use uptalk in his new study, “Gender in Jeopardy! Intonation Variation on a Television Game Show,” in the February issue of… Read more: Gender in ‘Jeopardy!’: Uptalk isn’t just for Valley Girls?

At a time of dramatic change in attitudes towards gays and lesbians in America, a new study released this month in Gender & Society highlights the diversity of gay and lesbian experiences in America. “Midwest or Lesbian? Gender, Rurality, and Sexuality,” by University of Nebraska sociologist Emily Kazyak, puts the lives of rural gays and… Read more: It’s Not Just City Folk: Gays and Lesbians Experience Striking Gains in Acceptance in All Regions and Subgroups of America

MEDIA CONTACT: Virginia Rutter Board Member Council on Contemporary Families In preparation for the Council on Contemporary Families’ 15th Annual Conference, Crossing Boundaries: Public and Private Roles in Assuring Child Well-Being, at the Crown Plaza Chicago Metro Hotel, April 27 and 28, 2012, the Council asked conference participants to submit short descriptions of recent research and best practice findings relevant to… Read more: The Council on Contemporary Families releases Unconventional Wisdom, Volume 5

For most of the 20th century, women who completed higher education were far less likely to be married than their less-educated counterparts. Then in 2010, the Council on Contemporary Families (CCF) reported new research showing that although college-educated women were still more likely to never marry at all than women with lower educational levels, they were so much less likely to divorce that by age 40, a higher proportion of college-educated women were married than any other group.

In 1973 – less than 40 years ago — the Supreme Court ruled that sex-segregated employment ads were illegal. The next two decades saw massive, rapid action in eradicating old laws and prejudices. But now three researchers argue that progress toward gender equality has slowed or even stalled since the early 1990s. In this CCF online symposium in time for International Women’s Day, David A. Cotter, Joan M. Hermsen and Reeve Vanneman present their discussion paper “Is the Gender Revolution Over?” and CCF fellows from around the United States offer a series of responses that add to this discussion.

In a discussion paper prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families, based on his forthcoming book, “Is Marriage for White People? How the African American Marriage Decline Affects Everyone,” Stanford Law Professor Ralph Richard Banks challenges conventional responses to the black marriage decline and offers a provocative, demography-based recommendation for how Black women’s intermarriage can counteract the trend. Because Banks’ work is already stirring controversy, CCF has invited leading authorities on marriage, sexuality, and family life to offer commentary on his proposals.

Mothers of young children face difficult decisions when it comes to employment. Some feminists warn that staying home leads to social isolation, increasing the risk of maternal depression. But many neo-traditionalists counter that employment increases women’s stress levels, leading to depression because of lost time with children or worries about child care. The question of whether working or staying home causes depression matters not just for the sake of mothers’ happiness, but for the well-being of children, since maternal depression is a risk factor for children. So it is important to know the findings of a new study: When it comes to mothers’ risk of depression, both these one-size-fits-all arguments miss the mark.

Fatherhood has changed dramatically since the inauguration of Father’s Day. While a father’s job was once primarily to “bring home the bacon,” dads are increasingly involved in all aspects of family life – reading to their kids, shuttling car pools, and offering a shoulder for the kids to cry on. Between 1965 and 2003, men tripled the amount of time they spent in child care. In honor of Father’s Day, here are some surprising and thought-provoking facts and figures about fatherhood today.

The marriage prospects of educated women have been hotly debated in the media in recent weeks. Are highly educated women more likely to wind up single than their less-educated counterparts? Would they do better to settle for a “good enough” man before they miss their chance altogether? Or are educated women now MORE likely to marry then their less-educated counterparts? But if so, do higher expectations make them more discontented with marriage?

By Rebecca Ray, Research Assistant Center for Economic and Policy Research Janet C. Gornick, Professor of Political Science and Sociology Graduate Center, the City University of New York John Schmitt, Senior Economist Center for Economic and Policy Research When it comes to giving fathers and mothers equal access to time off from work to care… Read more: International Report Card on Parenting Policies: U.S. Gets a “Gentleman’s C”

By Shelley MacDermid Director, Military Family Research Institute Purdue University shelley@purdue.edu; 765.496.3402 Thirty-eight percent of active-duty women and 44 percent of active-duty men have children. Yet in the 1980s, the military child care system was in shambles. The annual employee turnover rate was 300 percent, exposing soldiers’ children to the constant churn of new and… Read more: Military Childcare: A Government Success Story

Access Full Report According to recent census figures, 6 percent of married couple families with children live in poverty, compared to 33 percent of families headed by single moms. To many, the conclusion seems obvious. Marry off those single moms and they reduce their risk of poverty by a factor of more than 5, right?… Read more: Marriage, Poverty & Public Policy