RESEARCH:

Dr. McLanahan’s research interests include family demography, poverty and inequality, and social policy. Her major focus is on the causes and consequences of non-traditional family structures. She is the author of Single Mothers and their Children: A New America Dilemma, 1986 (with Irwin Garfinkel), Growing Up with a Single Parent, 1994 (with Gary Sandefur), several edited books, and over 100 articles.

Dr. McLanahan currently directs the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a nationally-representative longitudinal birth cohort study of approximately 5,000 families, including 3,700 unmarried parents and their children. The study is designed to shed light on the health and development of low-income children, the impact of family relationships and dynamics on child wellbeing, and the impact of social policies on family relationships and child wellbeing.

Dr. Mclanahan is also editor-in-chief of The Future of Children, a policy journal for children produced by Princeton University and the Brookings Institution. The journal’s latest issue, School Readiness: Closing Racial and Ethnic Gaps (Vol. 15, No. 1) is co-edited by Cecilia Rouse, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and McLanahan. Upcoming issues include: “Marriage and Child Wellbeing,” co-edited by McLanahan, Elisabeth Donahue and Ron Haskins (available in fall of 2005), “Childhood Overweight and Obesity,” co-edited by Christina Paxson, Tracy Orleans, and Elisabeth Donahue (available in spring of 2006), and “Social Mobility,” co-edited by Isabel Sawhill and Sara Mclanahan (available in fall of 2006).