Welcome to the Family Science 5, helping you catch up on some of the Family Science research and researchers featured in the media during December 2023.

NCFR member journal subscribers can access full text of journal articles through the NCFR website; you may be prompted to log in.

1. Time published an essay by scholar Bella DePaulo, Ph.D., "An Ode to the Single Life," which references Dr. DePaulo's scholarly work on singlehood published in NCFR's Journal of Family Theory & Review (JFTR). The 2023 invited JFTR article, "Single and Flourishing: Transcending the Deficit Narratives of Single Life," addresses how a singles-centered perspective "recognizes systems of inequality that disadvantage single people and privilege coupled people" and can show single life as a "psychologically rich life of freedom and autonomy," as opposed to judging single people against the "couple-centered perspective that has dominated public discourse and scholarly literature."
    
2. Bustle cited research from NCFR's Journal of Marriage and Family (JMF) about rising midlife first-marriage rates in the U.S., in a piece about fans hoping for a midlife spinoff of the Golden Bachelor TV show. The 2022 JMF article, "The Rising Midlife First Marriage Rate in the U.S.," whose first author is NCFR member Susan L. Brown, Ph.D., found that since 1990, "the midlife first marriage rate has increased by 75% for women and 45% for men. The shares of women and men entering a first marriage who were aged 40–59 quadrupled between 1990 and 2019 (rising from 2% to 9% among women and from 3% to 12% among men). Some of the well-established predictors of first marriage in young adulthood operated uniquely for first marriage formation in midlife."
    
3. The Conversation distributed an article by NCFR member Ashley L. Landers, Ph.D., about research Dr. Landers has conducted over the past 10 years in partnership with the First Nations Repatriation Institute, which has "explored the outcomes of fostered and adopted children and what happens when families are reunified." The article was picked up by Yahoo News, NewsAzi, Better Care Network, and Native American Rights Fund.
    
4. The University of Georgia's Research Newsletter featured research led by NCFR member Steven M. Kogan, Ph.D., which found new evidence that the Strong African American Families program serving youth ages 10 to 14 and their caregivers — which "provides family skills training for both the youth and adults by targeting effective parenting behavior, adolescent self-regulation and Black pride" — could reduce "the incidence of racism-related mental health symptoms among Black adolescents."
    
5. The Washington Post explored research about how winter affects mood, thinking, and sex drive, linking to JMF research on the seasonality of sexual debut. The 2004 JMF article, "Seasonality of Sexual Debut," whose authors include NCFR member Xiaohe Xu, Ph.D., "brings together insights from ... research on the social antecedents of sexual debut and scholarship on the seasonality of coital activity." The research found two seasonal peaks for reported first intercourse among adolescents: one in early summer, and one in December for adolescents who were romantically involved — i.e., "the summer effect" and "the holiday season effect."