Community Healthy Marriage Initiative Evaluation: Impacts of a Community Approach to Strengthening Families. Final Report.

摘要

Children thrive in all types of families, but children growing up living with married, biological parents experience higher living standards, higher levels of education, and higher future incomes, on average Additionally, research suggests that outcomes are also better when adults and children live in low-conflict families. These connections are a major reason why policy makers view improving the stability of couple relationships and increasing healthy marriage as a worthwhile public objective. One tool to achieve this objective is expanding access to relationship and marriage education. If this tool were to improve the quality and stability of family relationships, the benefits for adults, children, and the broader public would be substantial. To determine how well relationship and marriage education actually affect couples, the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) sponsored several demonstration projects and large-scale evaluations. This report presents estimates of the impacts of one of these demonstrationsthe Community Healthy Marriage Initiative (CHMI).