2025

Maternal depression results from multiple factors and may persist beyond the postpartum period. While depressive symptoms are common around the world, both specific national policies and women's personal resources may influence the speed and magnitude of recovery from depressive symptoms over time.

New research suggests that, while maternal depressive symptoms are common around the world, both national policies as well as personal resources play a role in women’s recovery from depressive symptoms during the early years of their child’s life.

One in five U.S. college students are raising children, yet they receive far less financial help from their parents compared to childless students. Instead, student parents rely heavily on Pell Grants, loans, jobs, and support from partners to cover tuition and living costs. Despite having similar GPAs to their peers, student parents are more likely to leave college without a degree due to financial strain and childcare challenges. Completing a degree has life-changing benefits for student parents, especially single mothers, boosting lifetime earnings and reducing poverty. Expanding Pell Grants, reforming aid programs, and providing on-campus childcare and housing could greatly improve student parents’ chances of success.

Immigration. Abortion. Anti-Trans laws. Student debt. Reversing the falling fertility rate. All these topics have been the subject of intense debates in the past several years, and some have been the subject of executive orders and new actions by the Trump administration in his first 50 days in office. In this symposium, the Council on Contemporary Families brings together leading experts on these topics to discuss how these policies affect families, and what to expect in the second Trump administration.

Main page listing all the articles / presentations at the 2025 Council on Contemporary Families Symposium.