Brief
Low-income families face significant challenges navigating both low-wage employment or education and training programs and also finding good-quality child care. Programs that intentionally combine services for parents and children can help families move toward economic security and create conditions that promote child and family well-being. Although these programs in general are not new (see Background), policymakers and program leaders are now experimenting with innovative approaches to combining services. Yet, most currently operating programs, sometimes called “two-generation” or “dual…
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Journal Article Although the range of contraceptives includes methods for men, namely condoms, vasectomy and withdrawal thatmen use directly, and the Standard Days Method (SDM) that requires their participation, family planningprogramming has primarily focused on women. What is known about reaching men as contraceptive users? Thispaper draws from a review of 47 interventions that reached men and proposes 10 key considerations forstrengthening programming for men as contraceptive users. A review of programming shows that men and boysare not particularly well served by programs. Most programs operate from the…
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Journal Article Mealtime emotional climate (MEC) is related to parent feeding and mental health, and possibly to child food consumption. However, MEC has been inconsistently assessed with a variety of coding schemes and self-report instruments, and has not been examined longitudinally. This study aims to characterize MEC systematically using an observational, count-based coding scheme; identify whether parent feeding or mental health predict MEC; and examine whether MEC predicts child food consumption and weight. (Author abstract)
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Journal Article Background: The role that fathers play in the lives of their families, particularly, the lives of children, is vitally important. Research has found positive associations between father involvement and factors, such as infant cognitive outcomes, children's schoolreadiness where levels of mothers' supportiveness are low, better socioemotional, and academic functioning in children. Black males, many who are fathers, are disproportionately overrepresented within the criminal justice system. High incarceration rates have significant economic and social impacts on families and communities.…
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Journal Article This article summarizes a study of association between fathers’ use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)during the 3 months preconception, a vulnerable exposure window for spermatogenesis, and the future riskof attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in their offspring. (Author abstract modified)
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Journal Article Objective:To investigate the role of fathers' positive engagement as a protective factor in the development of children's behavior problems and whether this buffering effect differs by family poverty status.Background:Children who have behavior problems at early ages are more likely to show persistent behavior problems over time. Fathers' roles in the development and persistence of child behavior problems have been less investigated than mothers' roles.Method:Longitudinal survey data from 762 constant-resident-father families participating in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study…
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Training Materials This guide is intended to guide fathers in meeting the emotional and financial needs of their children.
Brief
In child support programs, parents must often make complicated decisions with little information in a context where emotions can run high. Such situations can affect both the quality and speed of decision making. Behavioral science can ameliorate some of the impact that such environments might have on decision making, while also providing a new way of thinking about questions that child support staff often confront, such as: Why do some parents fail to attend order establishment hearings (where a child support amount can be set), or forget to bring paperwork that would help with the…
Brief
The Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) team designed and implemented 15 tests of low-cost behavioral interventions to improve the efficacy of key U.S. poverty alleviation policies using rigorous randomized controlled trials. The author reports that behavioral nudges (defined as subtle and modest changes that help improve individual decision making), reminders, or information are not sufficient to have large impacts on child support compliance when individuals don’t have the financial resources to comply or don’t view the required payments to be “legitimate.” The…
A strong economy and stable society depend on the labor force participation of healthy citizens. Yet since the mid-1960s, the rate of American men between ages 25 and 54 (“prime-age men”) working or actively looking for work has steadily declined. Their employment-to-population ratio (percentage of total population group currently working) dropped substantially from the mid-1960s to 2016. During this period, marriage rates have also fallen precipitously, particularly among less-educated groups. Moreover, a growing research literature is documenting a rise in poor health and premature…
