The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study was originally designed to primarily address four questions of great interest to researchers and policy makers: (1) What are the conditions and capabilities of unmarried parents, especially fathers?; (2) What is the nature of the relationships between unmarried parents?; (3) How do children born into FFCWS families fare?; and (4) What role do policies and environmental conditions play in the lives of FFCWS families? In the almost 20 years since its beginning, FFCWS has identified a variety of findings that are relevant to policy makers and practitioners. Here are 10 of our top findings:

1 & 2.  Sara McLanahan. 2009. "Fragile Families and the Reproduction of Poverty"  The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 621(1): 111-131.

Sara McLanahan.  2011. "Family Instability and Complexity after a Nonmarital Birth: Outcomes for Children in Fragile Families" Social Class and Changing Families in an Unequal America. Eds. Marcia J. Carlson and Paula England. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 108-133.

3. Fuhua Zhai, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Jane Waldfogel.  2011. "Head Start and Urban Children’s School Readiness: A Birth Cohort Study in 18 Cities" Developmental Psychology. 47(1): 134-152.

4. Christopher Wildeman. 2014. "Parental Incarceration, Child Homelessness, and the Invisible Consequences of Mass Imprisonment" Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences. 651(1): 74-96.

5. Lenna Nepomnyaschy, Irwin Garfinkel. 2011. "Fathers’ Involvement with Their Nonresident Children and Material Hardship" Social Service Review. 85(1): 3-38.

6. Janet Currie, Valentina Duque, Irwin Garfinkel. 2015. "The Great Recession and Mothers' Health" The Economic Journal. 125(588): F311-F346.

7. Irwin Garfinkel, Afshin Zilanawala. 2015. "Fragile Families in the American Welfare State" Children and Youth Services Review. 55: 210-221.

8. Melissa Martinson, Sara McLanahan, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn. 2015. "Variation in Child Body Mass Index Patterns by Race/Ethnicity and Maternal Nativity Status in the United States and England" Maternal and Child Health Journal. 19(2): 373-380.

Rachel Kimbro, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Sara McLanahan. 2007. "Racial and Ethnic Differentials in Children’s Overweight and Obesity Among 3-Year-Old Children" American Journal of Public Health. 97(2): 298-305.

9. Michael MacKenzie, Eric Nicklas, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Jane Waldfogel. 2015. "Spanking and Children’s Externalizing Behavior Across the First Decade of Life: Evidence for Transactional Processes" Journal of Youth and Adolescence. 44(3): 658-669.

10. Colter Mitchell, John Hobcraft, Sara McLanahan, Susan Rutherford Siegel, Arthur Berg, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Irwin Garfinkel, Daniel Notterman. 2014. "Social Disadvantage, Genetic Sensitivity, and Children’s Telomere Length" Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 111(16): 5944-5949.