Family Well-Being

The purpose of this paper is to: (1) examine family definitions used in federal programs; (2) look at how family definitions are used in some broad policy areas; and, (3) suggest improvements in how families can be defined for policy research. This paper was presented at the American Statistical Association, Winter Conference. [25 PDF pages]

On August 8, 1991, the Division of Family and Community Policy within ASPE convened a meeting of family-related researchers to discuss the following questions: Why has so little family research impacted policy? What can be done to improve the situation? What issues are important to future research?

This compendium is published by the Division of Children and Youth Policy within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. It summarizes the results of the Division’s research projects from 1986 through the present and highlights future plans.

This is a body of research on families that are enduring, cohesive, affectionate, and mutually-appreciative, and in which family members communicate with one another frequently and fruitfully. They are families that raise children who go on to form successful families themselves. They are not necessarily families that are trouble-free.

The study of family strengths has been pursued by researchers from a variety of disciplines, including psychiatry, sociology, psychology, and family/marriage counseling.

This collection of brief issue papers uses diverse data to describe 15 major problems facing American children and families. Each paper summarizes the state of knowledge about the scope of the problem, trends, current government expenditures, costs per case, effectiveness of current intervention strategies and public attitudes about the problem areas.