Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study

This large-scale longitudinal study addresses three areas of great interest to policy makers and community leaders – non-marital childbearing, welfare reform, and the role of fathers – and brings them together in an innovative, integrated framework. In collaboration with sociologists, economists, and demographers at the Columbia School of Social Work and Princeton University, the Center is following 5,000 families, from the birth of their children through the adolescent years, from cities with different welfare and child support policies and labor market strengths. The project is examining the relationships among family structure, child care, maternal employment, gene-by-environment interactions, parenting practices, and economic factors.

Funding Sources: NICHD; California HealthCare Foundation; Commonwealth Fund; Ford Foundation; Foundation for Child Development; Fund for New Jersey; William T. Grant Foundation; William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; Hogg Foundation for Mental Health; Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation; Leon Lowenstein Foundation; John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; A.L. Mailman Family Foundation; Charles Stewart Mott Foundation; David and Lucile Packard Foundation; Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and Administration for Children and Families).

Contact: Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Ph.D.

Principle Investigators: Irwin Garfinkel, Columbia University; Sara McLanahan, Princeton University

Co-Principle Investigator: Jeanne Brooks-Gunn

Project URL at Princeton: http://www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/about.asp