Poverty, Religion, and the New Marriage Debate

Dr. Bradford Wilcox is Director of the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia, and a member of the James Madison Society at Princeton University. Mr. Wilcox’s research focuses on marriage, parenthood, and cohabitation, and on the ways that gender, religion, and children influence the quality and stability of American marriages and family life. He has published articles on marriage, cohabitation, parenting, and fatherhood in The American Sociological Review, Social Forces, The Journal of Marriage and Family and The Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. His first book, Soft Patriarchs, New Men: How Christianity Shapes Fathers and Husbands (Chicago, 2004), examines the ways in which the religious beliefs and practices of American Protestant men influence their approach to parenting, household labor, and marriage. With Nicholas Wolfinger, Wilcox is now writing a book titled, Soul Mates: Religion, Sex, Children, & Marriage among African Americans and Latinos, for Oxford University Press.

Isabel Sawhill is a senior fellow emeritus in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution. Dr. Sawhill’s research spans a wide array of economic and social issues, including fiscal policy, economic growth, poverty, social mobility, and inequality.

She served as vice president and director of the Economic Studies program from 2003 to 2006, and as co-director of the Center on Children and Families from 2006 to 2015. Prior to joining Brookings, Dr. Sawhill was a senior fellow at The Urban Institute. She served in the Clinton Administration as an Associate Director of OMB, where her responsibilities included all of the human resource programs of the federal government, accounting for one third of the federal budget.

Dr. Sawhill has authored or edited numerous books, including The Forgotten Americans: An Economic Agenda for a Divided Nation (2018); Generation Unbound: Drifting Into Sex and Parenthood Without Marriage (2014); Creating an Opportunity Society (2009, with Ron Haskins); Restoring Fiscal Sanity 2005: Meeting the Long-Run Challenge and Restoring Fiscal Sanity: How to Balance the Budget (2004), (both with Alice Rivlin); and One Percent for the Kids: New Policies, Brighter Futures for America’s Children (2003).

In September of 2020, along with co-author Richard V. Reeves, Dr. Sawhill released her latest work, entitled A New Contract with the Middle Class.

Sawhill is a recipient of the Exemplar Award from the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (2014) and the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Prize with Ron Haskins, from the American Academy of Political and Social Science (2016). She was named a Distinguished Fellow by the American Economic Association in 2016.

Dr. Sawhill has been a Visiting Professor at Georgetown Law School, Director of the National Commission for Employment Policy, and President of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.