Does Relationship and Marriage Education for Lower-Income Couples Work? A Meta-Analytic Study of Emerging Research

While a large number of studies have documented how couple education programs can strengthen couple relationships, few studies have tested these programs on lower-income, higher-risk couples. Yet over the past decade, state and federal governments have been experimenting with supporting couple education programs designed to help lower-income couples form and sustain healthy marriages and relationships. This article reports the findings of a meta-analytic study of the effectiveness of couple education targeted to lower-income couples. We examined evaluation data from 15 programs and found small-to-moderate effects. For the three control-group studies, we found the overall effect of these programs was d = .250 (p < .05). For the 12 one-group/pre-post studies, we found the overall effect was d = .293 (p < .001). These effects are relatively similar to those found for MRE studies with middle-income participants and for studies of other family-support educational programs. Implications for couple educators are discussed.