In the United States today, one child in three is born outside of marriage. The decline of marriage is a prominent cause of child poverty, welfare dependence, and many other social problems.
During annual Marjorie Pay Hinckley lecture at BYU, Ronald B. Mincy from Columbia University shared how more can be done to improve the quality of interactions between fathers and their children.
On January 24, 2018, Nobel Prize–winning economist Angus Deaton published an op-ed in The New York Times entitled “The U.S. Can No Longer Hide from Its Deep Poverty Problem.” According to Deaton, 5.3 million Americans are living on less than $4.00 per day and “are as destitute as the world’s poorest people.… [Their] suffering, through material poverty and poor health, is as bad [as] or worse than that of the people in Africa or in Asia.”
Social science research demonstrates a strong link between theintact family structure, parental involvement, and educationaloutcomes, from school readiness to college completion. The intactfamily has eroded dramatically over the last four decades withsignificant implications for children's well-being. Strengtheningmarriage and promoting stable family formation as well as parentalinvolvement could lead to significant gains in student achievement.