African Americans have the lowest marriage rate of any racial and ethnic group in America. Although the low marriage rate among African Americans has been largely examined through a sociological lens by documenting structural barriers, which has important policy implications, researchers have not sufficiently examined the psychological and…

Using parent interview data from a subsample of the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), the authors compared the financial contributions of married, divorced, and remarried parents toward their children's college education and found that although divorced parents contributed significantly less than married parents, remarried parents…

This article explores the impact of relationship education on young adults' optimism about relationships and attitudes toward marriage whose parents were divorced and offers implications and suggestions for counselors and counselor educators. Previous research in the area of intimate and family relationships has demonstrated that adults who have…

Although arranged marriage has survived in India, the custom is increasingly challenged by the current influx of new commodities, media, and ideas. Interviews with 15 male and 15 female unmarried professionals, age 22 to 29, in Vadodara, Gujarat, showed that educated youth have moved beyond the conventional love-versus-arranged marriage dichotomy.…

This study measured marital satisfaction of low-income couples in a Western state following participation in the Building Healthy Marriages program, which aimed to educate couples and increase relationship satisfaction. The researchers' goals were the following: To determine the areas in which participants experienced the greatest number of…

The topic of core competencies has been a central focus in the marriage and family therapy field since 2003. There are currently no published studies from the supervisees' perspective about the role of supervision in the acquisition of core competencies. This qualitative study used transcendental phenomenology to explore supervisees' perspectives…

The purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions and provide insight into meanings and factors that contribute to healthy committed marriages among African American heterosexual married couples. This study explored the experiences of couples who had been married for 25 years and longer. This qualitative study was conducted using a…

The personality traits of neuroticism and agreeableness are consistently related to marital quality, influencing the individual's own (i.e., actor effect) and the spouse's marital quality (i.e., partner effect). However, this research has almost exclusively relied on self-reports of personality, despite the fact that spouse ratings have been found…

Using longitudinal data from the National Survey of Families and Households and both wife- and husband-reported data (N = 4,574 couples), this study examined how financial well-being, financial disagreements, and perceptions of financial inequity were associated with the likelihood of divorce. When financial disagreements were in the model,…

This article is concerned with the relationship between education, aspiration, and social mobility in Chhattisgarh, central India. I am interested in how the ideology of education as an intrinsic "social good" squares with the everyday experiences of marginalized "adivasi" (tribal) girls. My aim is to understand why education…

Approximately 10 million pregnant women around the world develop night blindness annually. In India, one in 11 pregnant women suffers from night blindness. This study used a nationally representative sample of 35,248 women from India between the ages of 15 and 49 who had given birth in the past five years to understand the effect of women's…

This study proposes an elaboration of the human development capability approach by theorizing empowerment capabilities as an essential aspect of the education of excluded village girls. Seeking to explain Chinese village girls' demand for schooling, the article identifies intangible and instrumental capabilities that have often been overlooked and…

The roles within personal relationships have evolved throughout the years. What was once a "traditional" role within a household is now considered outdated and old-fashioned. These roles have been influenced by many factors, one of those being higher education. A study was conducted to examine how those roles have been influenced by…

Newspaper reports of female college seniors modifying their career plans to opt out of work before they enter the workforce challenge the assumption that because many recent college graduates were raised in dual-income families, they would expect to have a substantial workforce role. Using a questionnaire format, this study examines postgraduation…

The primary theoretical framework for the study of human physical attraction is currently Darwinian sexual selection. Not only has this perspective enabled the discovery of what appear to be strong universals in human mate choice but it has also facilitated our understanding of systematic variation in preferences both between and within…