News

Countdown to the Year 22 Data Release!
March 18, 2024

In anticipation of the Year 22 data release on March 25, we are pre-releasing a series of research briefs. Learn more today.

New FFCWS Workshop at PAA 2024
Feb. 20, 2024

Register for “What’s new with the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study? Exploring twenty-two years of data with the data support team” at PAA 2024.

Future of Families Summer Data Workshop 2024
Nov. 15, 2023

The Columbia Population Research Center will host the 2024 Future of Families Summer Data Workshop during the week of June 12-14, 2024

October 2023 Data Release
Oct. 27, 2023

The FFCWS team is pleased to announce that two new data file updates in the Public and Restricted Use Data.

September 2023 Data Release
Sept. 13, 2023

The FFCWS team is pleased to announce that new data files have been added to the public and restricted use data!

Kathryn Edin Accepted into American Philosophical Society
May 19, 2023

Congratulations to FFCWS Co-PI, Kathryn Edin, for her acceptance into the American Philosophical Society!

Jane Waldfogel Appointed to National Academy of Sciences Board on Children, Youth, and Families 
April 26, 2023

Congratulations to FFCWS Co-PI, Jane Waldfogel, for her nomination and appointment to the National Academies of Sciences Board on Children, Youth, and Families (BCYF).

International Researchers Now Eligible for Restricted Data
March 13, 2023

Researchers from institutions located outside of the U.S. are now eligible to apply for restricted use data!

Winter 2023 Data Release
March 13, 2023

Data alert! Several data files have been added and updated, including both restricted data and public data. 

FFCWS changes name to The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study
Jan. 6, 2023

The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study team is pleased to announce that our name has formally changed to The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study.

FFCWS Summer Data Workshop 2023
Nov. 8, 2022

The Columbia Population Research Center will host the FFCWS Summer Data Workshop from June 14 to June 16, 2023. 

FFCWS Website Updates
Oct. 12, 2022

We are excited to officially launch our updated Publications Archive website! Learn more today...

Regina Foglia appointed to Office/Business Manager of the CRCW
March 22, 2022

Dr Kathryn Edin, director of the Center for Research on Child Wellbeing (CRCW) and PI of FFCWS, is pleased to announce the appointment of Regina Foglia to the position of Office/Business Manager of the CRCW effective 3/21/22. In this new role, Regina will conduct day to day and strategic human resources, external and internal communications,…

Marta Tienda joins CRCW
March 18, 2022

Marta Tienda is the Maurice P During Professor in Demographic Studies; Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, Emeritus; and joins CRCW as a Visiting Senior Research Scholar.

Dr. Tienda's research has focused on race and ethnic differences in various metrics of social inequality – ranging from poverty and welfare to education and…

Two New Data Files Released
Feb. 11, 2022

The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) Year 15 Sleep Actigraphy Dataset has been added to Princeton University's Office of Population Research (OPR) data archive as a separate public file for download. It contains participant-level data that…

Founding PI, Sara McLanahan
Jan. 3, 2022

Sara McLanahan passed away on December 31st at 3:15 p.m., just a few days after her eighty-first birthday and five months after her retirement as the Princeton's William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs.

Sara was at home with all of her children and her husband of forty-one years, Irv Garfinkel. Her family…

Dr. Sarah Gold Appointed CRCW Director of Research and Policy
Dec. 9, 2021

Dr. Kathryn Edin, director of the Center for Research on Child Wellbeing (CRCW), is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Sarah Gold to the position of CRCW Director, Research and Policy, effective 1/1/2022. In this new role, Sarah will maintain day to day leadership of Center operations, lead policy outreach based on the Center’s and its…

New Collaborative Study to Follow Third Generation of Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study Participants
Sept. 1, 2021

Researchers at Princeton University, Columbia University, Rutgers University, and the University of Michigan received a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD 1R01HD103669) to study the third generation of participants of the Future of…

Sara McLanahan, Founding PI, Retires
May 12, 2021

Sara McLanahan, the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and Founding PI of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, is retiring this spring. Please join us in celebrating the many accomplishments and contributions of Dr. McLanahan!

Spotlight on Mass Incarceration, Police Contact, and School Discipline
Jan. 22, 2021

A core strength of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing study is its significant representation of Black and Latinx families. Many researchers have used these data to study the impacts of mass incarceration, police contact, and school discipline, which disproportionately affect communities of color.

Over the past months, we have…

Spotlight on FFCWS and Incarceration Research
June 11, 2020

Recent publications using the Future of Families & Child Wellbeing data provide a family-wide view of the effects of parental incarceration on child behavior, family dynamics and and child support, as well as the effects of police contact on child health.

Recent publications
Fragile Families Challenge Mass Collaboration Paper Published
May 29, 2020

If hundreds of scientists created predictive algorithms with high-quality data, how well would the best predict life outcomes? Not very well. The paper summarizing the methods and results of the FFCWS Challenge led by Matt Salganik and Ian Lundberg has been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of…

Kristin Catena Promoted to Research Manager of the Future of Families Projects
May 13, 2020

Sara McLanahan and Kathy Edin would like to announce the promotion of Kristin Catena to Research Manager of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) Projects.

Kristin came to the study as a part time Researcher in 2014 and was hired full time as a Research Specialist II in…

Understanding Deep Disadvantage in America: A Conversation with Kathryn Edin
Feb. 19, 2020

Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study Co-PI Kathy Edin spoke to Spotlight On Poverty and Opportunity about the "Index of Deep Disadvantage", a measure of poverty that …

New index ranks America’s 100 most disadvantaged communities
Jan. 31, 2020

A new Index of Deep Disadvantage seeks to unpack poverty beyond income-based measures to other dimensions of disadvantage, including health and social mobility.

The index, developed by researchers at Princeton University’s Center for Research on Child Wellbeing and the University of Michigan’s Poverty Solutions Initiative, reveals…

Future of Families Collaborative Project informs PA report on school start times
Oct. 21, 2019

Research coming from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study collaborative project Biopsychosocial Determinants of Sleep and Wellbeing for Teens in FFCWS, led by PI's Lauren Hale and Orfeu Buxton, has helped to inform a recent report on school start times from the Pennsylvania Joint State Commission on School Start Times. "Buxton,…

FFCWS Co-PI Jane Waldfogel testified to the Joint Economic Committee
Sept. 12, 2019

FFCWS Co-PI Jane Waldfogel testified to the Joint Economic Committee of the United States Congress on September 10th, 2019. Waldfogel talked about how current public policies improve family and child well-being, and what needs to be done to better support American families in the future.

To learn more,…

Data Collection for Wave 7 Scheduled to Begin in 2020
Aug. 6, 2019

We are happy to announce our plans for the seventh wave of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study!

Fieldwork will begin in 2020, when our focal children are approximately 22 years old. This wave will include a survey with the “focal child” as a young adult as well as with the person who was the Primary Caregiver (PCG) at Age…

ABC6 News Covers School Discipline Findings from Owens and McLanahan
Aug. 5, 2019

John Krinjak from ABC6 News, Providence, RI, interviewed Jayanti Owens about her findings on racial disparities in school discipline. Looking at approximately 5,000 elementary students across the country, Owens and FFCWS Co…

National Sleep Foundation Names Orfeu Buxton New Editor for Sleep Health Journal
July 17, 2019

The National Sleep Foundation has named Orfeu M. Buxton, PhD, Co-PI of "Biopsychosocial Determinants of Sleep and Wellbeing for Teens in FFCWS," as the next editor-in-chief for its journal Sleep Health. Buxton is professor of biobehavioral health and director of the Sleep, Health & Society Collaboratory at Pennsylvania State…

Future of Families Collaborative Study PI Receives Presidential Award
July 8, 2019

Colter Mitchell, the Principal Investigator on the "Adolescent Wellbeing and Brain Development" collaborative study, received the…

Lauren Hale to Speak on International Panel of Experts, Explain How Digital Media Affects Developing Minds
May 16, 2019

On Thursday May 16, a group of international experts will make up a panel at Stony Brook University that  tackles the question:  What effect is digital media having on the brain and even body development of children?

The distinguished panel includes Co-PI of "Biopsychosocial Determinants of Sleep and Wellbeing for Teens in…

Future of Families Co-PI Kathy Edin Featured in NYT Op-Ed
May 16, 2019

FFCWS Co-PI Kathy Edin's paper "The Tenuous Attachments of Working Class Men" was recently cited in the New York Times opinion piece by David Brooks, The Rise of the Haphazard Self. This…

Sara McLanahan Receives PAA's Robert J. Lapham Award
April 30, 2019

Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study Co-PI Sara McLanahan received the Population Association of America's Robert J. Lapham Award at this year's annual meeting. The Robert J. Lapham Award recognizes members of PAA who contributed to the population profession through the application of demographic…

Future of Families Co-PI's Elected to Membership in AAAS
April 18, 2019

Future of Families Co-Principal Investigators, Sara McLanahan and Kathy Edin, have been elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. 

Sara McLanahan is the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and director of the Center for Research on Child Well-Being…

Podcast: Kathryn Edin on "Future Hindsight"
April 15, 2019

Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study Co-PI Kathryn Edin recently spoke on the "Future Hindsight" podcast about her work in "the domains of welfare and low-wage work, family, life, and neighborhood contexts through direct, in-depth observations of the lives of low-income populations". In this episode, they discuss "the evisceration of…

FFCWS highlighted in BBC report on single parenting
Feb. 5, 2019

Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study Co-PI Sara McLanahan was interviewed about the study for this BBC article from February 5th, titled "Do children in two-parent families do better?"

The article highlights some of the findings from the FFCWS and compares the results…

Kristin Turney Named RSF Visiting Scholar
Jan. 23, 2019

We at the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study are happy to congratulate Kristin Turney for being named a RSF Visiting Scholar for the class of 2019–2020!

Turney will…

Podcast: Lenna Nepomnyaschy on the Role of Fathers in Reducing Inequality in Child Outcomes
Jan. 18, 2019

Lenna Nepomnyaschy of the Rutgers School of Social Work recently spoke about her work with FFCWS data for the Poverty Research and Policy Podcast at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Institute for Research on Poverty. In this episode, she talks about a study she did with Dan Miller, Maureen…

Jane Waldfogel Highlights International Experiences on Childhood Policies
Dec. 10, 2018

FFCWS Co-PI Jane Waldfogel gave a presentation at the international seminar "Public policies in family and childhood. Lessons from international experience," held during November in Santiago, Chile, and organized by the Universidad Católica’s 

Kathryn Edin and Colleagues Launch American Voices Project
Dec. 6, 2018

FFCWS Co-PI, Kathryn Edin, and colleagues are launching a new study - the American Voices Project - a joint initiative of the Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality, Princeton University’s Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, and the American Institutes for Research. You can now listen to…

The Father Factor: A Critical Link in Building Strong Families and Communities
Nov. 28, 2018

FFCWS Co-PI, Kathryn Edin presented her research on fatherhood Thursday, November 29 at "The Father Factor: A Critical Link in Building Strong Families and Communities", at the Aspen Institute in Washington, D.C.

If you missed it, you can see Ascend at the Aspen Institute and GOOD+ Foundation share research, highlight promising…

Fall 2018 FFCWS Data Re-release
Nov. 13, 2018

We are happy to announce the Fall 2018 Re-Release of the FFCWS public data and documentation! This re-release includes new and improved data files for all FFCWS data from baseline through Year 15, along with improved accompanying documentation. Year 15 Weights are now also available.

Data users may see the…

FFCWS Metadata Explorer
Nov. 13, 2018

We are thrilled to announce the launch of the FFCWS Metadata Explorer! The Metadata Explorer website allows users to browse and sort FFCWS variables by topic, wave, respondent, focal person, scales, survey, source, and variable type or to perform more detailed queries and/or text searches in…

AAP Policy Statement on Effective Discipline
Nov. 7, 2018

The American Academy of Pediatrics put out a policy statement on the adverse outcomes associated with corporal punishment, citing FFCWS research showing a correlation between spanking and higher levels of aggression and externalizing behavior. See below for the abstract and link to the full paper.

Privacy, ethics, and data access: A case study of the Fragile Families Challenge
Oct. 3, 2018

A recent blog post by Ian Lundberg on Freedom to Tinker summarizes a paper about the privacy and ethics process from the Fragile Families Challenge. The paper will appear in a special issue of the journal

Princeton’s first AI4ALL summer program takes on Fragile Families Challenge
Sept. 18, 2018

Princeton’s inaugural AI4ALL summer program brought 32 rising 11th-graders to campus for an immersive residential camp, July 23 to Aug. 11. The program aims to bring young people from underrepresented groups into the growing field of artificial intelligence (AI), a branch of computer science that…

Matthew Salganik Appointed to Mathematica Board of Directors
Aug. 8, 2018

Mathematica today announced the appointment of Matthew Salganik to serve as a member of the organization’s board of directors. PI of the Fragile Families Challenge and author of Bit by Bit: Social Research in the Digital Age, Salganik…

Kathy Edin Interviewed on the Arthur Brooks Show
Aug. 2, 2018

FFCWS investigator, Kathy Edin spoke with Arthur Brooks about how stories can complicate data and show us a fuller picture on The Arthur Brooks Show.

Listen to “Tell Me a Story” here.