Can Marriage and Relationship Education Be an Effective Policy Tool to Help Low-Income Couples Form and Sustain Healthy Marriages and Relationships? A Review of Lessons Learned

Abstract

This review summarizes and synthesizes what researchers and practitioners have learned about the potential of public policy support for marriage and relationship education (MRE) to help lower income individuals and couples form and sustain healthy marriages and relationships. In short, this review documents modest, early evidence that low-income couples participate in well-designed MRE programs when they are offered, enjoy the educational experience, and report that the program is helpful. Practitioners have been going through a fast and steep learning process to figure out how best to recruit and maintain participation and adapt curricula to meet unique needs and situations. The evidence from the early outcome studies provides some support for the notion that MRE programs can have positive, modest effects on low-income couples' relationships, at least in the short run. However, much more research is needed to answer this question more definitively. Fortunately, more high-quality evaluation research will be coming over the next few years.

KEYWORDS:

• family policy
• legal issues
• marriage
• marriage and relationship education

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We express our gratitude to the National Healthy Marriage Resource Center for their support of this review. This article is a revision and extension of a 2010 report previously posted on the NHMRC website (www.healthymarriageinfo.org).

Notes

In this report the term “low income” generally refers to individuals and families who are below two times the poverty line (<200% poverty), which includes a large group of economically stressed families who are not under the official poverty line (about $22,000 for a family of four). Although publicly funded MRE programs are not required specifically to target low-income families, most programs are located in low-income communities and generally serve mostly disadvantaged individuals and couples.

These federally funded programs are officially referred to as “healthy marriage” programs. However, because many offer instruction to high school students, single adults, or couples who are neither married nor engaged, we use throughout this brief the more inclusive and accurate term “marriage and relationship education” (MRE) programs.

Other meta-analytic studies are less applicable to this task. The Butler and Wampler (1999) meta-analysis focused on only one particular brand of MRE program, couple communication. The Reardon-Anderson et al. (2005) meta-analysis included both marriage education and marital therapy intervention studies, making it difficult to understand the independent effects of educational versus therapeutic interventions.

For the Executive Summary and full report—as well as the accompanying technical report of the BSF Impact Study—see http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/strengthen/build_fam/index.html.