by Kimberly Sawatka | Feb 7, 2018
Since the 1970s the marriage rate has gone from 80 percent of adults being married down to 52 percent. This rapid decline in marriage has caused an upward spike in the number of single parents living in poverty. How do we as a community combat this negative spiral downwards? Helping to rebuild healthy marriages is a good first step.
Because of these shocking trends, the Healthy Families Initiative is participating in National Marriage Week which begins on February 7th and ends on Valentine’s Day.
The week is designed to shine a spotlight on the growing decline of marriages and help strengthen marriages and communities. The Healthy Families Initiative will host Love is a Choice, I Choose You, on February 10th, an evening for couples to renew their marriage vows and celebrate the joys of being married. This event will also be part of a Facebook campaign #LoveIsAChoice, which will be a week-long campaign of daily challenges to become more engaged in your marriage.
For centuries marriage has been the weapon of choice to combat poverty, and today it is still the best defense. In fact, marriage is so important to strengthening today’s society, that Governor Nathan Deal has declared the week National Marriage Week within the state of Georgia. Marriages build strong communities and happier people.
Marriage has financial gains
- Married men are more successful in work as well, getting promoted more often and receiving higher performance appraisals.
- As for women, married women earn up to 10% more than their single peers.
Married people live longer
- Single men have mortality rates that are 250% higher than married men.
- Single women have mortality rates that are 50% higher than married women.
Married people are mentally more healthy
- Married people report lower levels of depression and distress, and 40% say they are very happy with their lives, compared to about 25% in single people.
Married people have more sex
- About 40% of married people have sex twice a week, compared to 20-25% of single and cohabitating men and women.
Statistics are from The Case for Marriage Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better off Financially by Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher.
For more information about strengthening your marriage and the FREE workshops that can help you accomplish your marriage goals, visit BuildMyBestRelationship.com.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Oct 23, 2017
Studies show that couples who spend quality time together stay together.
That’s why 75 couples in the Norcross and Peachtree Corners area have decided to take an evening to invest in their relationship by attending the Healthy Family Initiative’s date night event, “Twogether Forever: You and I.” The evening, which has sold out completely, will be a time of romance for couples to reconnect while they enjoy dinner, dancing, entertainment, games, and more.
While it is often difficult for couples to break away from responsibilities, the evening aims to be free of distractions, offering a time strictly devoted to marriage relationships.
Taking time for a date night improves the quality and stability of marriages. Husbands and wives who engaged in spending time with their spouse at least once a week are approximately 3.5 times more likely to report being “very happy” in their marriages, compared to those who enjoyed less quality time with their spouse.
Healthy marriages are the cornerstone of strong families, which means investing time into your romantic relationship is worth every minute. Our goal at HFI is to provide the tools and time for couples and families to connect in a meaningful way, making their relationships and family dynamics indestructible against all of the stresses life may bring.
For more information about this date night/join the waiting list, or learn more about future events, visit HFIGeorgia.org.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Oct 11, 2017
Many years ago we began laying the groundwork for the Healthy Families Initiative (HFI), and two years ago we kicked off a public campaign to change the hearts and minds of those in the Norcross and Peachtree Corners areas. Your support, partnerships, and prayers have allowed us the opportunities to continue to expand the HFI program in ways we originally only dreamed about. So, it’s with great excitement we share with you exciting news about the growth of HFI.
Online classes are here! Participants can get all the same valuable information and tools from the FREE community classes, but in the comfort of their home and at their own pace.
It is our hope that having a FREE online option will allow more people to build healthy, happy, and lasting relationships with their spouses, families, and children.
As of today, the following courses are available for enrollment through the HFI website:
- ePrep: Maximizing Your Romantic Relationship
- For Dating, Engaged, or Married Couples
- This course is for couples who want to make their relationship the best it can be. It will challenge you to think about things you’ve never thought about before and help you to see yourself, your partner, and your relationship in a whole new light.
*This course uses material from Prevention and Relationship Enhancement Program (PREP).
- Head Meets Heart (formerly known as Sex, Lies, and Relationships)
- Primarily for singles
- This program teaches students how to pace the development of a new relationship in a healthy way, and it also covers the five areas in a partner’s life that accurately predict what type of person they’ll be in a long-term relationship.
* This course uses material from Dr. John Van Epp’s How to Avoid Falling in Love with a Jerk or Jerkette.
We know schedules are busy, and the online courses offer a self-paced journey to more effective communication in your life. Plus, they’re all free!
It is our goal to continue to grow the online courses offered – stay tuned for more!
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Aug 25, 2017
Being a dad is one of the greatest challenges in life, but it often gets overlooked. Though the everyday joys of being a father are overshadowed in pop culture by fast-paced news and Hollywood gossip, that doesn’t mean celebrity dads aren’t talking about how their kids are changing their lives for the better.
Beginning August 25, the Georgia Center for Opportunity’s Healthy Families Initiative is introducing #FatherhoodFridays on social media, celebrating fatherhood in pop culture. The launch begins with a series of graphic ads featuring celebrity quotes highlighting the joys of parenthood.
HFI is currently preparing for two fall classes on fatherhood. Conversations of a Father, which is accepting registrations for the dates of September 30 and October 14. The full-day class for men reinforces characteristics they need to be good fathers, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The class is free to attend, and breakfast and lunch will be provided.
For more information, visit the Healthy FamiliesInitiative online.
You can check out the series below, or watch for the ads every Friday on Facebook.
by Georgia Center for Opportunity | Jul 10, 2017
By: Randy Hicks and W. Bradford Wilcox
Although young men and women are taking what seems like a dizzying array of paths into adulthood these days, one path stands out as maximizing their shot at the American Dream: what scholars Ron Haskins and Isabel Sawhill have called the “success sequence.” The sequence is a three-pronged formula for success in America: graduate from high school, get a full-time job (or have a partner who does), and then marry before having children. Now, a joint report by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Institute for Family Studies (IFS) shows this “success sequence” works for Millennials as well.
Released last month, the report tracked how an astounding 97 percent of the oldest Millennials (ages 28-34) who follow this threefold success sequence avoid poverty. In contrast, 53 percent of young adults who didn’t follow the sequence at all are in poverty. Moreover, those who delayed childbearing until after marriage are more likely to not only survive financially, but thrive—finding themselves in the middle or upper third of income earners.
These data hold true regardless of family background, socioeconomic status, or race. Seventy-six percent of African Americans and 81 percent of Hispanic young adults who marry first are in the middle to upper third of income distribution, alongside 87 percent of whites. And 71 percent of Millennials who grew up in households in the bottom third of income distribution but put marriage before the baby carriage had the same economic fortune.
Here’s the message for Millennials—success in America is partly grounded on the three pillars of work, education, and family. But what about young people who struggled with one or more of these steps? Over half of Millennials have already become parents prior to marriage, many remain underemployed, and 53 percent of young adults who have not followed the sequence at all are in poverty.
Closer to home, Atlanta scored horrifically low for social mobility among low-income individuals, according to a joint Harvard and Berkeley study, even though middle-class job growth in Atlanta is strong. In our metro area, poverty rates remain unacceptably high, particularly for minority populations. Even though young adults in the metro Atlanta area are about equally likely to miss steps in the success sequence as their counterparts nationwide, young adults in the state of Georgia are more likely to miss at least one step in the success sequence, compared to young adults in the nation as a whole (46 percent versus 44 percent).
However, for both young and old, this new research isn’t justification for giving up on those who have missed one or more steps on the sequence. Instead, we need to understand that each part of the success sequence can work to help individuals; it’s never too late to get life back on track.
For children caught in multi-generational cycles of poverty, a good education can be a stick in the spokes of the poverty cycle that slows it down; for an adult, it’s a job; and for couples, it may be relationship enrichment programs and other supports. When all three parts of the success sequence work together, however, we begin to see significant results in boosting opportunity for the rising generation.
Many of these solutions must come locally. Mr. Hicks’ organization, the Georgia Center for Opportunity, has been spearheading numerous efforts to bring together local employers, community leaders, schools, churches, and nonprofits to advance vocational training and apprenticeships for workforce development, expand education options for the most vulnerable children, and promote marriage enrichment initiatives to help families flourish.
Here’s the bottom line: While no statistical model can predict an individual’s future success perfectly, we can know what’s more likely to happen. The AEI-IFS report points to what both common sense and experience have already told us: particular paths into adulthood are more likely to give individuals a shot at flourishing than others.
At the same time, it’s crucial to acknowledge that everyone who doesn’t follow the success sequence isn’t destined for failure or disaster. Neither does it suggest that every child born into better conditions is guaranteed success. All the success sequence tells us is what paths are most advantageous for human flourishing.
And it forces us to ask some serious questions: If we care about people, are we not duty-bound to communicate the message of the success sequence, and to do what we can to remove barriers to a quality education, fulfilling work, and a stable family life?
W. Bradford Wilcox is the director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia and a coauthor of The Millennial Success Sequence.
by Kimberly Sawatka | Apr 24, 2017
In a recent project spearheaded by the Center of the American Experiment, Georgia Center for Opportunity’s President and CEO, Randy Hicks, tackled the one topic even politicians and religious leaders are shying away from – family fragmentation.
The written symposium “Was Trump and Clinton’s Campaign Silence Regarding Family Fragmentation Golden?” is a collaboration of thirty writers answering two questions.
1. “Was Trump and Clinton’s campaign silence regarding family fragmentation golden?
2. Or was it leaden, especially when it comes to reducing poverty, improving education, and reversing crime?”
Click here to see the full essay.
