Program Overview

2011 Research Conference
July 19-20, 2011

Click on the highlighted teal links below to view conference papers, posters, and presentations.

• Conference Papers, Presentations, & Discussant Remarks
• Poster Session Participants
• Agenda
• Brochure
• Question Crosswalks
• Sponsors and Organizing Committee
• Counting Couples I Conference Materials
• Counting Couples II Conference Materials

Program Overview

Family structures and living arrangements have become increasingly complex with the delay in marriage, continued high divorce rates, and rapid rises in cohabitation and unmarried childbearing. The family experiences of today’s children and adults are more varied and less stable than in the past.  These changes in family life raise important new questions for social science research and policy analysis but also present significant measurement challenges. Researchers, data providers, and policy makers came together in 2001 for the first Counting Couples conference to discuss the ramifications of these family changes for federal data collection efforts and propose priorities for future data collections. The work continued at the second Counting Couples conference, which was held in 2003. Since then, the family experiences of U.S. children and adults have only become more diverse and complex.

The goal of this conference is to bring together researchers, federal data providers, and policy makers to discuss cutting edge topics in family measurement, building on the foundation established by the previous Counting Couples conferences. Speakers will assess the availability and quality of existing family measures in federal data and provide guidance on how these measures might be modified or expanded in future data collection efforts. An additional aim is to discuss strategies to facilitate standardization of family measurement across surveys.