Advancing evidence about ways to strengthen families, support parents, and improve child well-being 🍀 @notredame
University of Notre Dame
Joined October 2025
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📢 Call for Grant Proposals 📢
We’re accepting applications to support work by early-career researchers related to the economics of the family, family policy, and closely related topics.
📢 We're hiring for a Post-doc to join us @nd_econ and produce high-quality, policy relevant research on family formation, family stability, and the well-being of parents and children in the United States
Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/195659
New research by @kearney_melissa, @phil_wellesley, & our pre-doc Alden Barson finds that the marriage gap in children's outcomes has changed over time.
The odds of being in poverty by family structure have declined, but the college completion gap by family structure has grown
Meeting families’ basic economic needs and closing class gaps in access to more ambitious opportunities and outcomes are separate policy challenges.
Read more: strengtheningfamilies.nd.edu…
Strengthening Families Research Initiative retweeted
🚨 We launched the Stanford Childcare Model, estimating supply and demand in the early care and education market, with a dashboard comparing effects of several different childcare policies. We hope it's useful to those working on childcare affordability, access, and quality! 🚨
🚼 For too many American families, finding #affordablechildcare is a serious problem. With policymakers across the country looking for solutions, @SIEPR's new Stanford Childcare Model helps them evaluate the effects of key reforms. Check it out: siepr.stanford.edu/policymod…
Early career scholars are eligible for awards up to $20,000, graduate students are eligible for awards up to $10,000.
Awardees will present their work at the Strengthening Families Research Workshop in June 2027 at the University of Notre Dame
Submit your proposals by November 13. Winners will be announced in December.
strengtheningfamilies.nd.edu…
Strengthening Families Research Initiative retweeted
We’re hiring a predoc at Notre Dame @nd_econ - come work with us on topics related to the economics of families, fertility, poverty, and child well-being! A great way to gain research experience before grad school in a small team environment.
Joint custody isn’t only a legal arrangement, but an important driver of family economic stability and child development
New research @nberpubs finds that joint custody improves fathers’ earnings and mental health and children’s academic outcomes 🧵
Joint custody:
🔹 Improves fathers’ economic stability and mental health
🔹 Improves children's academic achievement, with no effect on mental health
🔹 Has no measurable harm to mothers
🔹 Does not increase family conflict
While joint custody will not be beneficial in every case, the evidence shows that it benefits families in the marginal contested cases decided by the courts.
Read our summary and the full paper:
strengtheningfamilies.nd.edu…
The Strengthening Families Research Initiative @nd_econ is hiring a Predoctoral Research Fellow (starting Summer '27) to work with @kearney_melissa.
SFRI pre-docs work across the research lifecycle and get hands-on prep for top econ and public policy PhD programs
Apply below⤵️
Strengthening Families Research Initiative retweeted
This #WednesdayDataDrop📊 highlights the growing unaffordability of the U.S. child care system.
Since 2000, prices for 'tuition, other school fees, and child care' have climbed far faster than other household necessities.
Read more from @chloergibbs ➡️
equitablegrowth.org/research…
Strengthening Families Research Initiative retweeted
Nice article about our new concentration in evidence-based poverty alleviation, which is an option for students majoring in Economics. @ArtsLettersND al.nd.edu/news/latest-news/e…
Research from our faculty affiliate @chris_econ: human-algorithm collaboration can greatly reduce harm in child protection decisions
Two weeks remaining to submit for our inaugural Dissertation Prize, recognizing outstanding doctoral research on strengthening families.
Details and submission link ⤵️
Family structure predicts child poverty within every racial group. Children of unpartnered mothers without a college degree face substantially higher poverty rates than married parents at the same education level ⤵️
A quarter-century ago, the journalist Jonathan Rauch noted that two-parent black households are more likely to be poor than two-parent white households—but both are far less likely to be poor than single-mother households of either race.
His conclusion was blunt: “if you are a baby about to be born, your best odds are to choose married black parents over unmarried white ones.” Rauch was right, and inconvenient, and largely ignored.
Twenty-five years later, we are still ignoring the importance of family structure.
Read @BradWilcoxIFS and my op-ed in the WSJ making the case that family structure should be a measurement data category alongside the “usual suspects” of race, class, etc if we are truly going to be honest about the factors that drive student success
wsj.com/opinion/the-hidden-f…
Read more about how family structure shapes poverty and other measures of economic and social disadvantage: strengtheningfamilies.nd.edu…
