Besides acting as a critical health problem, teen pregnancy is tied to a variety of other social issues, including welfare dependence, overall child well-being, out-of-wedlock births, fatherhood, and workforce development. Over half of all teen mothers go on welfare within five years after the birth of their first child. This resource discusses the importance of preventing teen pregnancy as it relates to these issues and the well-being of children.

This article, based on research from the Center for Law and Social Policy, summarizes how teen parents are doing since the welfare reform of 1996. Overall, the results show that teen parents on welfare are undercounted, untracked, oversanctioned, and underserved.

The Brookings Institution released a paper that evaluates the well-being of single mother families. This policy brief uses consumption data on single mother families in the 1990s, which shows that consumption in housing costs, child care, food, and transportation increased for this group of women. Therefore, post-welfare reform, the material circumstance of single-mothers increased, seemingly because more mothers are employed.

In 2004, 1.5 million children were born out of wedlock in the United States, reaching a record number. While marriage is important to improving outcomes for low-income families, this article argues that reducing unwed childbearing is a key for healthy marriages as well.

A four-paper series. These papers examine the economic returns to marriage, include a literature review, and review new empirical findings using three different data sets and a variety of statistical models.

The Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) funded this project to learn about the status of policies to support and promote marriage at the state level. Policies were inventoried that were enacted and proposed both prior to PRWORA and after the law’s passage. The project did not examine specific programs operating in localities. Nor did it evaluate policies or make recommendations. This document inventories marriage policies in the 50 states and District of Columbia in 10 broad areas.

Authored by Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill. This article is found in the Brookings Institution Policy Brief entitled Welfare Reform and Beyond #28. In this brief, the authors contrast making cash and related forms of public assistance more generous with strategies that encourage work and marriage.

Authored by Robert E. Rector and Melissa G. Pardue, this research report by the Heritage Foundation provides a comprehensive overview of the research pertaining to healthy marriages and President Bush's Healthy Marriage Initiative. The report offers policy background information and describes the program specifics of the President's plan.

The Rockefeller Institute of Government's Roundtable on Religion and Social Policy recently hosted a panel discussion on healthy marriage on June 28, 2004. The following report is a transcript of the event. Speakers include Richard P. Nathan, Director of The Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute Of Government and The Roundtable on Religion and Social Welfare Policy; John P. Bartkowski, Professor of Sociology, Mississippi State University; Wade F. Horn, Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families; W. Bradford Wilcox, Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia; Theodora Ooms, Senior Policy Analyst, The Center for Law and Social Policy.

The National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP) recently created tables that summarize marriage-related policies in all 50 States. These policies include State marriage mentoring, education, and counseling programs; State marriage and divorce laws; and Treatment of two-parent families eligibility and marriage incentives in other programs.