Families on limited incomes can struggle to navigate low-wage jobs or education and training programs while also searching for quality early care and education for their children. Some programs provide integrated services to parents and their children in an effort to solve this problem. This practice is sometimes called a two-generation or whole-family approach. This report provides: (1) key findings from a literature review, an environmental scan, and field work to identify and describe existing program models; (2) development of a conceptual framework to inform program design and research;…
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Journal Article This special issue contains articles that explore how disadvantaged young men are faring in the face of low educational achievement, joblessness, out-of-wedlock childbearing, incarceration, and in the face of the Great Recession. An introductory article reviews social and economic forces facing young fathers, and the following four articles outline the economic status of low-income men and fathers. The deteriorating labor market prospects for low-skilled men in the United States is discussed, as well as young disadvantaged men as fathers, the relationship contexts of young disadvantaged…
This paper introduces the major themes associated with young disadvantaged men, including low educational achievement, joblessness, out-of-wedlock childbearing, and incarceration. By age 30, between 68 percent and 75 percent of young men with a high school degree or less are fathers (NLSY). Half of them are married when their first child is born and far fewer continue their education post-high school. The paper briefly reviews four major forces that help shape social and economic outcomes for young men who are fathers and for their partners and children: employment and earnings prospects;…
Family Expectations (FE) is a program in Oklahoma City designed to strengthen the relationships of low-income couples who are expecting a baby or have just had a baby. For all families, this period is typically full of promise but also vulnerability. FE is one of eight sites that are participating in a large national evaluation of Building Strong Families (BSF), a federally funded program for unmarried parents. The underlying rationale for BSF is that relationship skills education and family support services provided to unmarried parents in a romantic relationship will help them learn how to…
The Moving to Opportunity (MTO) experiment offered randomly selected families living in high-poverty housing projects housing vouchers to move to lower-poverty neighborhoods. We present new evidence on the impacts of MTO on children's long-term outcomes using administrative data from tax returns. We find that moving to a lower-poverty neighborhood significantly improves college attendance rates and earnings for children who were young (below age 13) when their families moved. These children also live in better neighborhoods themselves as adults and are less likely to become single parents.…
The increase in the number of children being born to unmarried parents present a number of social policy issues for strengthening the involvement of unwed fathers with their children. This working paper examines trends in out-of-wedlock childbearing, the influence of fathers in child development, and how social policies such as welfare, child support, and fathering programs affect unwed fathers and their family involvement. The authors discuss a number of studies that have found paternal involvement to be associated with better emotional, behavioral, and developmental outcomes in children, as…
The degree of paternal economic and emotional investment in children and families has a major impact on child outcomes, however trends away from two-parent families indicate the need for social policy changes to further encourage active involvement by fathers, married or otherwise. The authors consider a number of economic factors that may contribute to the drift away from two-parent families in this review of the economic literature on welfare reform, child support enforcement, and labor markets, and their possible influence on paternal disengagement through divorce, separation and birth to…
Federal policies are promoting father involvement in families to improve developmental, academic, and economic outcomes for children. This information packet provides an overview of issues related to fatherhood initiatives for providers and consumers of social services. It includes a fact sheet of statistics about effects of fatherlessness, a summary of policies and legislation, and lists of references and web resources. The innovative Georgia Fatherhood Program also is profiled.
In 1991, P/PV designed the Young Unwed Fathers Pilot Project to see if young, economically disadvantaged fathers would enter a program that provided job training, education, counseling and parenting services for up to 18 months, and if participation would lead to an increased capacity to support their children, both financially and developmentally. This report presents a detailed look at selected aspects of the lives of the young fathers before and during program participation, including their attitudes and relationships with the mothers of their children. It also evaluates employment and…
