In the run-up to Father’s Day, many are reflecting on a father’s impact. Recently in the Harvard Gazette, however, sociologist Christina Cross discussed forthcoming findings suggesting that, when it comes to educational outcomes, two parents aren’t quite as important for low-income Black children as perhaps previously thought. Yet, other research from Harvard economist Raj Chetty underscores the long-term economic benefits that tend to result when more fathers are in a neighborhood, particularly when it comes to the father’s influence on Black youths.
In this episode of the Family Matters webinar, professor of sociology and senior fellow at the Institute for Family Studies, W. Bradford Wilcox, engages noted public intellectuals, Glenn Loury, the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences at Brown University, and Ian Rowe, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, to discuss the importance of dads in modern America as well as a new report out this week from the Institute for Family Studies on the impact of Black fathers.