Less Poverty, Less Prison, More College: What Two Parents Mean For Black and White Children

Princeton University sociology professor Sara McClanahan summarized the social scientific consensus about the importance of family structure for children with her colleague Gary Sandefur in this passage from their magisterial 1992 book, Growing Up with A Single Parent. In recent years, many other scholars have come to similar conclusions, from Paul Amato at Penn State to Isabel Sawhill at the Brookings Institution to Melanie Wasserman at UCLA. The consensus view has been that children are more likely to flourish in an intact, two-parent family, compared to children in single-parent or stepfamilies. But this consensus view is now being challenged by a new generation of scholarship and scholars.

Demographic trends and economic well-being

Is the concept of 'Father's Day' racist and should it be abolished

Race and ADHD: How People of Color Get Left Behind

Eliminating Racial Disparities in Maternal and Infant Mortality

Why Does the U.S. Have Such High Mortality for Kids and Young

Black and White Kids More Likely to Avoid Poverty and

Romney's 'Family Security Act' Is Pro-Marriage: What the Numbers

Why single-parent homes don't affect black children as negatively as white kids

Single moms are great, families with dads are better

Family Assistance for Renaissance Men, or FARM, helps Detroit

The 74 Interview: Melissa Kearney on 'The Two-Parent Privilege

Two-Parent Household Correlation to College Education

Why Are Black People Poor? A New Form of Enslavement