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Research Archive

February 27, 2025

The GOP Is Still the Pro-Marriage Party

While Elon Musk was chainsawing at CPAC, his ex-girlfriend, the singer Grimes, pleaded with him to attend to their child’s medical crisis. This dustup followed a claim by the conservative influencer Ashley St. Clair that she had given birth to Musk’s 13th child. Musk’s complicated family life, combined with the admiration for Musk among many conservative writers,…

February 25, 2025

Ohio Ranks Only 29th In The Family Structure Index

Ohio ranks 29th in family strength, according to a new report from the Institute for Family Studies and the Center for Christian Virtue. The Hope and a Future report spotlights the state of Ohio families, details the consequences of family breakdown in the Buckeye state, and charts a policy course to turn things round. A Dream Deferred in Ohio…

February 21, 2025

Hope And A Future: Forging Strong And Stable Families In Ohio, 2025

What is the American dream? It is a “better, richer, and happier life for all our citizens of every rank,” in the words of James Truslow Adams, the historian who coined the term just over a century ago. Adams knew it would be hard to sustain the dream. That is why every generation must strive,…

February 18, 2025

Why So Blue: Liberal Women Are Less Happy, More Lonely. But Why?

Young liberal women are especially prone nowadays to reporting poor mental health. This was the discovery that Zach Goldberg made almost five years ago pouring over Pew data in the spring of 2020. Further research in 2022 found that depression had surged among liberal high school girls in the last decade-and-a-half, and much more so for them than other high schoolers,…

February 10, 2025

For Better: Four Proven Ways To A Strong And Stable Marriage

Introduction “Marriage is a path to misery and a transition of loss marked by giving up and missing out.” This is the message that, surprisingly enough, is emanating from both leftwing journalists like Amy Shearn, who tells us in The New York Times that “Married motherhood in America… is a game no one wins,” and rightwing online influencers…

February 6, 2025

The Trump Administration is Already Proving to be Family Friendly

The first Trump administration did not do a lot to advance the family policy ball. Sure, they doubled the Child Tax Credit to $2,000 in 2017. Otherwise, Trump 1.0 didn’t score many wins on the family field. But there are growing signs the second Trump administration will move much more aggressively to make America more family friendly….

February 6, 2025

The 10th Annual American Family Survey: Opportunities and Obstacles to a Broad-Based Political Coalition for Families

Event Summary On February 6, Chris Karpowitz and Jeremy Pope of the Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy presented research findings from the 10th annual American Family Survey. Dr. Karpowitz examined how families across the political spectrum behave in similar manners. Whether Democrat or Republican, parents take pride in raising children. The survey…

January 10, 2025

Marriage: America’s Keystone Institution

Marriage is linked to better financial, social, and emotional outcomes for children, men, and women—and many of these effects appear to have a causal dimension. Many social scientists have discovered these basic patterns of findings in their work over the years. But one new development in this research is that we are seeing more evidence…

December 12, 2024

Which Men Cheat Least? Republican Husbands, Especially ‘Religious Wife Guys’ 

Republicans have an infidelity problem. If your only impression of Republican marriages was ripped from the latest headlines, this would seem to be a reasonable conclusion. But the picture appears different when we look beyond the headlines at the lives of ordinary Republican men. It turns out that Republican husbands, especially religious ones, are less…

December 2, 2024

The Pursuit of Happiness Starts with Families: A Conversation Between Brad Wilcox and Gov. Spencer Cox

Utah has been at the forefront of a national conversation about how to grow and strengthen families, thanks in part to the leadership of Gov. Spencer Cox. I recently invited Cox to speak at the University of Virginia about Utah’s initiatives that enable strong families, as well as the governor’s efforts to protect teens from…