The Family-Inequality Debate: A Workshop on Coercion, Class, and Paternal Participation

Policy debates on the future of the family have been focused on family form, as the nonmarital birth rate remains stuck at 40% of all children.  Stable, married families, which correlate with better outcomes for children, have  increasingly become the province of the college educated middle class. This  workshop, sponsored by The Washington Center for Equitable Growth and  the University of Minnesota Law School’s Law and Inequality: A Journal of  Theory and Practice, brings together legal and policy scholars from around  the country to consider significant new research from the Relationship  Dynamics and Social Life (RDSL) study at the University of Michigan on family  formation.  

This workshop will be important for all of those interested in how we  approach family law and regulation.  Our images of nonmarital families  changed dramatically with The Fragile Families and Child-Wellbeing Study, which showed that contrary to the popular assumptions of the time, the  majority of unmarried mothers were in relationships with the fathers of their  children at the time of the birth, and the majority of the fathers remained  involved with their children for at least a period after the break¬up with the  mother.  The new research follows young women, beginning before they  become pregnant and often before they have entered the relationships that  produce the pregnancies.  The study offers a potentially revolutionary new  look at how young women form families.  It has already produced two  remarkable and important initial findings.  The first is that the pregnant women  in the study experienced relationship violence at between two and three times  the rate of those who did not become pregnant, and the violent men tended to  more likely than non-violent men to have multiple children with multiple  partners.  The second is that women’s employment, which gets relatively little  attention in the more general debate on the family, is one of the most  protective factors in avoiding pregnancy. The preliminary findings already  suggest that not all relationships are alike in their potential for constructive  two-parent involvement.  

The workshop will address the legal policy implications, including efforts  to increase paternal rights in all families, the role of maternal employment in  family creation and strength, the efficacy of domestic violence prevention  efforts both before and after the birth of a child, and the importance of  contraception in the stability of relationships following the birth of a child.  

Agenda

1:30pm  Welcome and Presentation of Results

Introduction

Jennifer Barber, University of Michigan  

Presentation of Study Results, Methodology

2:45 - 4:15pm  Economic Security, Family Formation and Child Welfare

Kate Bartlett, Duke

Daniel Hatcher, University of Baltimore

Leslie Harris, University of Oregon

Naomi Cahn, George Washington

Moderator: June Carbone

4:30 - 6:00pm  Domestic Violence, Paternal Involvement and Relationship Stability

Margaret F. Brinig, Notre Dame

Joan Meier, George Washington

Bill Doherty, University of Minnesota

Camille Gear Rich, USC

Moderator: Naomi Cahn